Cash-strapped legislators have recommended spending cuts for Missouri schools and shelters for battered women, but so far the yachting class can enjoy another season of clear sailing.
Thanks to a longstanding tax exemption, Missouri’s marina set can opt to pay a small fee in lieu of sales taxes and shave as much as $30,000 off the purchase of a $500,000 boat.
That tax exemption alone is depriving state and local coffers of more than $6 million a year, according to some estimates. It’s just one of more than 130 untaxed transactions that are getting renewed attention in Jefferson City because of the state’s continuing budget crisis.
We’re really a joke of a nation, aren’t we?
J.W. Hamner
Not the funny kind unfortunately.
Clark
Missouri Republicans have a solution – scrapping the income tax and replacing it with a large statewide sales tax. Nevermind that this represents a huge tax increase on the poor and middle class, or that Missouri already has a pretty flat income tax that flattens at $9,000 of income.
Tonal Crow
I just gotta explain everything to you libtards, don’t I, even if it’s as clear as day. If bigwigs gotta pay taxes, they’re gonna Go Galt, and the country’ll be run by you Volvo-sipping, latte-driving, under-the-face-shoving, dirt-hugging, tree-worshipping pinkos. Then the Soviets’ll just walk in and take over. Get it, libtard?
Mike Kay
Praise Jesus!
Bret
Pretty obvious the reasoning, John. Yacht Club members donate to campaigns & have the means to raise a stink when their taxes for luxury shit goes up.
Kids & women suffering from domestic violence do not.
Pretty safe bet on which one gets the attention & priority.
Redshirt
It’s not a joke if the system is designed to reward rich people. Feature, not a bug.
Note to only myself: I’ve been getting radicalized lately, what with the whole 1% of the population controls 50% of the wealth type stats. We’re worse off today than folks were in the Gilded Ages if the late 1800’s – and they were ready to riot and revolt back then. Today, Rush and Beck are all we need, apparently.
Comrade javafascist
Sadly, we are a joke of a nation where if we ended this tax break, it could inspire some down trodden yacht owner to pack it full of fuel and crash it into a government facility.
trollhattan
Missouri has yacht sales? What do they do, put them on blocks in the front yard to taunt the neighbors?
Nylund
The $30,000 they save will surely trickle down the economy when they hire the uneducated masses to clean their poop decks.
freelancer
@trollhattan:
With a giant foam finger on the masthead.
geg6
OT and only tangentially related…
John McCain is now claiming that he never suspended his campaign and called the White House meeting that was such a bust. He’s claiming that W called and asked him to suspend and attend the meeting.
ETA link: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/22/mccain-bailout-meeting/
This is a guy with not an ounce of integrity. Not one.
Citizen Alan
Things like this are why I’m in favor of a full-on, French-style revolution, complete with guillotines.
Rock
I’m really interested in seeing the number of states proposing cuts to education. Illinois, Utah, and Nevada have moved beyond just increasing class sizes (which hides the decline in quality of education to some extent), to proposing actually cutting time in the classroom for students. Illinois has a bill up for consideration which would allow 4 day weeks. At that point, it’s hard pretend that we haven’t decided that public education is a benefit (entitlement?) that we can’t afford anymore.
If anyone ever sees an article/blogpost someplace that provides an overview of education cuts across the country, please post a link.
Bullsmith
What about bread and circuses? Where are the free duels to the death in the coloseum? How the hell am I supposed to keep my mind off being a serf?
Neutron Flux
@trollhattan: Now that is just funny as hell!
Very nice.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Elvis needs boats.
darryl
The joke isn’t the exemption. It’s that if you tried to end the exemption, Tea Partiers would raise hell in the streets, then when you backed down and scrapped the plan and closed the school the Tea Partiers’ kids attended, they’d say, “WHAT??? Damn Gummint Cain’t Do Nuthin’ Right!!!!!!!!!”
Zifnab
The politicians are just catering to the constituency that matters. Let’s face it, a short drum roll on the bible, a few “bash the darkies” veiled stump speeches, and another rousing round of trickle down tax cut bullshit will drive all the familiar faces to the polls.
If there was genuine populist outrage and frustration, the yahoos dead set on preserving these exemptions would be getting all sorts of heat. Clearly, shit just isn’t bad enough for the good folks of the Show Me state. You don’t get to elect the government you want, just the government you deserve.
Ash Can
Actually, I can’t help but wonder if this is some obscure little loophole that the general public in Missouri isn’t even aware of, and maybe with McClatchy shining the light on it the pitchforks and torches will come out and it’ll get cleaned up. Good on McClatchy for pointing it out.
(I insist upon looking at the bright side of this, because if I don’t I’ll start drinking martinis now and be too plastered to fetch Bottle Rocket from school later.)
Napoleon
Put me in the yes category.
@Clark:
Something else that needs to be mentioned about this especially since some are floating getting rid of the Fed income tax again and replacing it with a VAT (which is a variation of sales tax) and that if you are nearing retirement and you have spent your life paying taxes under an income tax system and they suddenly switch it to a consumption based tax right about the time you switch from making any income and drawing down your retirement to pay for whatever you consume in your latter years you get screwed big time by in essence having to pay double on any taxable income you saved while you worked.
carlos the dwarf
Well, those battered women obviously just need to stop letting themselves get beaten up, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and earn the money to buy themselves a tax-free yacht. Problem solved.
/randroid parody trolling makes me feel slimy.
//Knowing that someone somewhere in this country actually believes this makes me want to put my head down on my desk at work and cry.
Zifnab
@geg6:
Such timing. :-p
Honestly, how does that ugly bastard keep getting himself in front of a mic? Who the hell cares what a failed Presidential contender and senior senator from a bankrupt state has to say about anything?
Thoughtcrime
We used to be the Gallagher of nations. Now we’ve gone Carrot Top.
SRW1
Maybe in Missouri they teach kids on boats.
slag
Yeah. But when taxes are lowered, revenue increases. Just imagine if these people paid no taxes at all. Missouri would be rich!
Napoleon
@trollhattan:
I thought I heard the other day that the Missouri River is basically a big recreational facility and is not a working river any longer. Doesn’t Missouri also front on the Mississippi River?
HyperIon
I believe that WA might have one of these exemptions for private planes. I’ve heard about it during discussions of various silly “loopholes” the state is proposing to close. Some things seem like no-brainers but….
Mark S.
You guys aren’t thinking like Republicans. Just close down the shelters and give the battered women vouchers to use at private shelters.
Thoughtcrime
@freelancer:
Bret
They should call it the T-Pain tax.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
The same exact thing happened in California, except that the Republicans fought tooth and nail for it to happen. Hence, a lot of liberals here have been calling the CA Republicans “The Yacht Party” for awhile now.
nancydarling
A few paragraphs down in the KC Star story are names of some yachts which qualified for the tax break: “The Greedy Bastard”, “Tax Haven”, and “Tax Seaduction”. These guys are as clueless as Wall Street in their sense of entitlement. Sharpen the guillotines.
thomas
@Citizen Alan:
rusty and noisy – so they can hear the blade coming
Bubblegum Tate
Yes. But wingers would call it Conservative Paradise.
@freelancer:
And with YachtNutz hanging off the bowsprit.
Clark
@Napoleon:
You wouldn’t want to sail a yacht on the Mississippi, I wouldn’t think. There are a lot of lakes around Missouri, however. Lake of the Ozarks is a pretty big one.
FlyingToaster
@trollhattan: Lake of the Ozarks, dude. And about a gazillion other small lakes that the last glaciation left behind.
I grew up there, and my youngest sib interned at a womens’ shelter in Platte County. There’s nothing about this that doesn’t just bite.
PaulW
The conspiracist in me got convinced years ago that the whole anti-tax movement has been a none-too-subtle attempt by remnants of the Lost Cause Confederacy nutjobs to destroy the Union. By bankrupting the federal gov’t they so despise. Why conquer with conventional weapons when you can get your enemies to commit economic suicide?
Ash Can
@Rock:
Whoa! Do you have a link for that? I took a quick peek on Google and didn’t find much of anything.
I must say, though, that if this is true, this bill isn’t going to go very far. As is the case everywhere else, there are too many working-parent households in Illinois for the idea of a four-day school week to succeed in any appreciable way.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6: Uh-huh. I’m convinced, because it only took him 17 months to mention this.
Napoleon
@PaulW:
Did you read Krugman today? That is basically the entire thesis of his column. That is the first time I recall an establishment media person giving voice to that theory.
Personally I think it has been obvious for years and years that is exactly what their gameplan is.
AnotherBruce
We’re really a joke of a nation, aren’t we?
It’s as if we have been taken over by space aliens from the planet Stupid. We really have devolved over the last 30 years.
sparky
@Bullsmith: a tie with @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
not a joke if you are in the 1%. after all, you have to spend your $ that you’ve drained from the polity somehow, and if you pay it in taxes, why, that’s even worse than theft, because you know they’ll just spend it, and then you’ll have to skim it all over again but with a lower return rate. just wasteful.
maybe the libertarian/con calculus is that a billionaire gets so much happiness from being a billionaire that that happiness is greater than the happiness any collection of serfs could ever achieve.
freelancer
@geg6:
I’m reminded of what happened at that emergency meeting he called with the economic principles, GWB, Paulson, and Obama, and didn’t say anything. And according to Paulson, even W was like WTF? are you doing to say anything? And after reading off of index cards, Obama smiled and began talking about the situation off the cuff and erudite.
slag
@geg6: So then, did one of the interviewers take the opportunity to ask John McCain what it was like being George W Bush’s bitch?
I, for one, have often wondered.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@SiubhanDuinne:
Not to mention: what other motive could he have? I mean in what way does this Proustian recollection benefit McCain politically? Somehow “oh, by the way, I just remembered that when the chips were down I was Bush’s beeotch” doesn’t seem like a message that is going to work well in either the primary or the general election campaign.
Egypt Steve
Missouri has marinas? Isn’t that kind of like the Austrian navy that “Capt. von Trapp” was supposedly in?
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
17 months and several books telling essentially the same story, one that does not line up with the story Gramps is telling. So either Gramps is lying or Halperin/Heilmann and Hank Paulson are lying. Now, I wouldn’t put it past any of them to lie, but it would seem that if the two books tell pretty much the same exact story and Gramps’ story contradicts that story in every single essential fact, I’m going with the guys who committed it to print.
Yossarian
Listen, liberals, how are you supposed to go live in the city under the sea with John Galt if you don’t have a yacht to transport you?
AnotherBruce
@Bullsmith:
Sorry dude, you’ll have to make do with the NFL. Unfortunately, we don’t throw Christians to the lions anymore. Unless you count the Detroit Lions.
MikeJ
@HyperIon:
It at least made a bit of sense when it was enacted in 1949. We do have an aircraft industry here. Of course I don’t think anything smaller than a 737 is built here any more (or a BBJ in private plane speak.) I see no harm in taxing planes built in Wichita.
Clark
@Egypt Steve:
A friend of mine growing up near Austin, TX worked at the marina. All it requires is a lake big enough to ride a boat around and people with enough money to pay the costs of keeping their boat at the marina.
scav
There may be an apt alternative to the rusty implements for once. Bump-ers. Let’s use the owners as bumpers on their own gloriously named boats. Tie ’em carefully in non-slipping nooses (we might not tell them that part of it) and and sling ’em overboard and just wait for the next really windy day.
So who’s battered now? oh dear.
‘f course, if you can’t wait that long, one could organize a game of bumper boats.
Mike in NC
Wonder what the name of Limbaugh’s yacht is? “Fat Bastard”? Has he ever had his Dominican cabin boys sail it into his hometown of Port Girardeau, Missouri?
Omnes Omnibus
@Egypt Steve: von Trapp served in the Navy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Does that help you out? It had seacoasts and ships.
Rock
@Ash Can
This article mentions the bill to allow 4 day weeks in Illinois. A state rep from Danville wrote the bill, and it seems targeted at rural schools.
I agree that the day-care aspect of public schools will likely prevent this from happening (or at least being adopted in places where both parents typically work). But I still find it interesting that these are ideas are now on the table in multiple places.
Punchy
This was all over our KCStar newspaper yesterday. Peeps like me were stunned: the only thing we thawt the State of Misery gave tax breaks for were meth production and first-cousin nuptials.
Chuck Butcher
@AnotherBruce:
Generally the lions were the winners….
Brachiator
@Tonal Crow:
Let me put this into perspective with some federal level statistics:
It’s good at the top.
Look on the bright side. This exemption will provide jobs for illiterate students and battered women as deck hands and scullery maids.
mcsey
@Ash Can:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=4324&GAID=10&SessionID=76&LegID=47203
Illinois bill to allow school districts to adopt a four day school week with 141 days of student instruction. It looks like it got tabled last year.
Irony Abounds
I’ll take “Duh” for $1,000 Alex
But hey, we have a great hockey team!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Mark S.:
Mark S shoots…HE SCORES!
geg6
@Egypt Steve:
Missouri IS on the Mississippi River, you know. Just sayin’.
As of 2007, Missouri was #14 in the nation for boat registrations, just behind Pennsylvania at #13. The top 12 states in order:
Florida
California
Minnesota
Michigan
Wisconsin
Texas
New York
South Carolina
Ohio
Illinois
North Carolina
Georgia
/boat geek rant
Egypt Steve
@ Mike in NC:
Does Rush really have Dominican cabin boys?
I can’t help but picture something like Churchill’s description of the great traditions of the Royal Navy: Rum, sodomy and the lash! Only I guess in Rush’s case, it would be Viagra and Lorcet instead of (or in addition to … ) rum.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@PaulW:
Osamabinladensayswhat?
Clark
@geg6:
But Minnesota is inland!
scav
@Clark: Read any good license plates lately? :)
Egypt Steve
Geez isn’t anyone here old enough to remember the Mad Magazine send-up of the “Sound of Music”? that was the source of the snark about the Austrian navy. Sheesh.
georgia pig
This is the “Party Cove” exemption:
It’s designed to incentivize fatass white guys to buy bigger boats to improve their chances of landing women willing to perform public sex acts. Seriously, my sister lives near the Lake of the Ozarks and the number of penis-substitute boats on that lake is astonishing. They all just putter around and drink.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
If von Trapp was in the Austro-Hungarian navy, then where did the Nazis come from at the end of the movie? The Austro-Hungarian Empire ended after WWI.
I’m sure there must be some explanation but this isn’t it.
Face
Buying a yacht and mooring it in Missouri is like getting a boob job and botox and moving to Mississippi. Overkill by 1000-fold.
geg6
@Clark:
Yeah. I told someone once that my favorite vacation was a two week cruise my ex and I took on a friend’s yacht from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. And that person insisted to me that it wasn’t possible since Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were inland cities.
The stupid, it burns sometimes.
Napoleon
@Clark:
Depends on what you mean by inland. It is on one of the Great Lakes which are more like inland seas. The only Great Lake state not on the list posted is Indiana, and that has only a very short lake coastline a huge chunk of which is tied up with steel mills with a good part of what is left over a state park (I think).
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Welcome to Misery. Believe me, the batshit wingnuts who control the capitol are right up the street from me.
Everyday they live the Molly Ivins adage “The National Laboratory for Bad Government”.
No southern wingnut politician has *anything* on our crazies.
gogol's wife
@Egypt Steve:
Yes, I remember that and assigned it to my students to read. I’m also from Missouri, and of course the yachts are for high-society living on the Lake of the Ozarks and other lesser lakes.
Zam
@Napoleon: I think most registration is for the Mississippi.
Redshirt
Well, the theory that the Repugs will “win” by breaking the government by any means necessary is not a new theory – Digby, for ex, is always pointing this theory out when discussing California.
But, I had not put the other piece together: DIXIE WILL RISE AGAIN!
One must admit, they are doing a smash up job in smashing the government, and more importantly, people’s ideas of Government and social contracts.
geg6
@gogol’s wife:
von Trapp was in the Austro-Hungarian navy during WWI. He was retired by WWII. The story in the film and book is that the Nazis were going to force him into Hitler’s navy. But that is obviously not true, since he had taken Italian citizenship after 1918, and so could not have been forced due to Germany’s alliance with Italy.
Alex S.
@slag:
must be true…no taxes = infinite revenue
On a serious note, this is class warfare.
gogol's wife
@geg6:
Glad to have that cleared up!
Zam
I enjoy shooting the poor, and preventing me from doing so is class warfare and a breach of my rights as an American.
Ash Can
@Rock:
@mcsey:
Thank you both for the links! They were very informative. My knee-jerk reaction to any mention of a 4-day school week is “oh noez, education will suffer,” so I scrambled to find out more. Many thanks.
It does appear, as Rock indicates, that the impetus for this legislation is practical in nature and if it’s passed any changes will be decided district-by-district. And, most important, it will mean that the four remaining days of school will be lengthened to make up for the lost day. I’m down with that.
Napoleon
@geg6:
Better yet, back in the Indian days you could theoretically start at what is now New Orleans in your canoe and make it all the way to Buffalo or Detroit or Chicago without using the Atlanic and with only needing to carry your canoe 6 or 7 miles in what is now called Portage County Ohio before entering the Great Lakes at Cleveland.
There is a statue of an Indian carrying a canoe at both the start and end of the portage the Indians would have to make. Of course the European settlers turned it into the Ohio and Erie Canal so that you didn’t even need to make a short portage but could simply sail directly the entire way.
Tonal Crow
@Clark:
Two words: Lake Superior.
Pangloss
An ebbing educational system raises all yachts.
Pangloss
@Tonal Crow: What kind of an elitist body of water would call itself “Lake Superior?”
Clark
@Tonal Crow:
Someone else pointed this out, too! That’s what I get for being snarky and condescending.
Phantomist
MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA: I ask all billionaires this. What’s it like to be a billionaire?
RICARDO SALINAS: You know, it’s overrated I think. Because at the end of the day– there’s so much you can eat and you can drink, and then you can have fun. And then the rest of the thing is, you have to be a normal person. And more than that, you have lots of responsibilities, at least in my case.
____________________________
ALLEN STANFORD, ACCUSED OF FRAUD: Good morning. How are you doing?
CARL QUINTANILLA, CNBC: Is it fun being a billionaire?
STANFORD: Well, yes. Yes, I have to say, it is fun being a billionaire, but it’s hard work.
ericvsthem
It doesn’t matter how the loophole got there, what matters is that elliminating the loophole is raising taxes on rich people, raising taxes on rich people is class warfare, and waging class warfare makes you a commie pinko homosexual. Also.
Chat Noir
@scav: Right! Land of 10,000 Lakes. And then there’s basketball:
Napoleon
@Napoleon:
PS to my last post
Indian with canoe.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Mike in NC: It’s Cape. Cape Girardeau.
Sigh.
Tecumseh
If I remember, Clinton tried to close some tax loophole that would involve business lunches/cocktails at country clubs (or something like that ) in ’92 but met with resistance from people (mainly Republicans and media types) that if you taxed business lunches, people wouldn’t take clients to fancy lunches at country clubs and country clubs would have to lay off dishwashers and waiters due to all the loss of money the Country Club would make. Irgo ipso facto, not taxing business execs is good for the poor.
I also think that’s one of the arguments made about the yacht tax in California revolved around it being bad for people who helped build yachts as they’d lose all their jobs and how the American Dream was built on the backs of people building luxury items for the rich
Tax Analyst
@Ash Can:
I love your family psuedonyms. Ash Can, Bottle Rocket, and the other one I can’t remember right now.
They are psuedonyms, aren’t they?
Colette
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I saw what you did there. I think it’s safe to say that John McCain has no Elvis in him.
Ash Can
@Napoleon:
Isn’t that possible now, with the ship canal connecting the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers?
/chicagogeek
slag
@Alex S.: I keep trying to explain that principle to my neighborhood grocery store. Apparently, they’re not smart enough to figure out that whatever they lost in revenue by charging nothing for their products they would make up for through selling in quantity. I’ve got to find a new grocery store whose management truly understands these fundamental economic realities.
As Glenn Beck says…small minds…
kay
@Ash Can:
I watched the governor’s association meeting with the Sec of Education yesterday. It was really positive. It is the single most positive thing I have seen in months. It was on C-SPAN. I intended to turn the channel, but it was really interesting. They’re competing for federal education grants. There is 3.5 billion on the table. The southern Democratic governors were particularly interesting. Republicans and Democrats are just world’s apart at the state level on education. Southern governors may be socially conservative, but they believe free public education is an absolute duty. Probably because they’ve actually glanced at their state constitutions. It’s in there.
On a side note, at that same meeting, Charlie Crist was quite talkative. He 1. is bitter, and 2. basically accused Republicans of being partisan hacks who are unpatriotic. He should switch sides, and drop this pretense. He is one unhappy Republican.
martha
@Napoleon: Um, I’m only a neighbor to the east, but MN is known as the land of 10,000 lakes, plus the Mississippi River plus Lake Superior. That’s a lot of water. We in WI have many thousands of lakes, the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, and 2 Great Lakes…so we’ve got lots of boats. And a few of those yacht builders too in Manitowoc.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Colette:
Thanks. I was hoping there would be some other Mojo Nixon fans hanging around here, to get that joke.
Speaking of which, IIRC in the 1970s and 1980s this photo was the #1 most frequently requested image in the WH photo archives. Ah, back in the good ole days…
slag
@Pangloss:
Awesome.
Gregory
@Yossarian:
Fixed. [/gamegeek]
Eric S.
@Ash Can: Not if the other Great Lake states get their way and have us close it to prevent Asian Carp from getting into the lakes. Now that I think about it, I think the Asian Carp mess started in Missouri on fish farms. I could be wrong about that though.
NobodySpecial
@kay:
I thought the fact he was a switcher was part of the reason he is an unhappy Republican. I agree he should drop the pretense, though.
PurpleGirl
@Citizen Alan: Back in college I proctored GREs and other exams. I usually walked around the room crocheting as I went. My proctor colleagues nicknamed me Madame deFarge.
So, when can I report for duty and sit in the front row, yarn and hook in hand?
Redshirt
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Mojo Nixon fan here! In fact, I believe the movie “PCU” is really about me and the band Mojo Nixon. But there’s some debate about that….
licensed to kill time
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Ha! I remember that Elvis-Nixon pic. Elvis wanted to be a DEA agent and help fight the drug war or something, which is just chock full of irony. I think he wanted to confiscate all the drugs and dispose of them personally, doncha know.
(I also kissed Mojo Nixon in a club after his set once. I’m still embarrassed that I kinda jumped him, but I was pretty plastered. Sorry, Mojo.)
AnotherBruce
My understanding is that Minnesota actually has way more than 10,000 lakes.
That’s my understanding, but after typing this, I’m way too lazy to look it up.
slag
@kay: You’ve piqued my interest. I’m looking for it on CSpan now, but their website is always a bit of a mystery to me. Even when I use their search, I rarely can find what I’m looking for. We’ll see…
Ash Can
@Tax Analyst:
That would be the husband, who’s M-80. The grandmothers are Quarter-Stick I (my mom, since she’s older) and Quarter-Stick II. And yes, they’re just pseudonyms (for all intents and purposes, anyway). Although in my son’s case, I’m not always sure. If there ever was a human bottle rocket, he’s it.
(Fun fact: Since I’m part Italian, I almost signed on here with the handle of “Dago Bomb.”)
And Another Thing...
@Clark: The state of Minn. says it has more than 4500 lakes and rivers. They used to have a slogan “10,000 Lakes.” I can personally testify that they have plentiful, humongous mosquitoes. It’s a great place to camp.
kay
@NobodySpecial:
They all start by plugging their states educational gains, and he did that.
Then he launched into this pointed little attack on how he intended to work with the President for the good of Florida, America and the children even if that wasn’t politically strategic.
He hates Republicans, and he is one.
SiubhanDuinne
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ #45
(Trying out my newly-acquired copy-‘n’-paste-in-the-BlackBerry skillz):
(Yay!)
Yes, exactly. I can kind of understand politicians doing otherwise incomprehensible things if there’s some kind of electoral or wheeling-dealing benefit to be found. But McCain now simply cements the impression of him as someone who is not only stupid and a liar and a hypocrite *but who isn’t even a good politician* any more! I think Hayworth is as despicable as they come, but I am so glad he primarying McCain’s sorry old ass.
bemused
@And Another Thing…:
No-see-ums are no fun either. Those tiny little buggers sneak in on you silently.
Ash Can
@kay: That’s good to know. Education is the future, and public education is critical.
@Eric S.: If that’s what it takes, so be it. Invasive species can cause awful problems further down the road, and it’s damage that can’t easily — or likely even possibly — be undone.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6 #47: This too.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: He had been in that Navy – was not a serving officer at the time depicted in the movie.
ksmiami
Kay – I think Charlie Crist will/can pull it out if he goes independent. Meek doesn’t stand a chance and there is a lot of Democratic wealth in FL… But Rubio is ridiculous and way too right wing. People here actually like Crist and FL has been hurt, but is coming back. I would vote for Crist
RedKitten
Oh no — Boner is missing!
J. Michael Neal
@AnotherBruce:
My understanding is that Minnesota actually has way more than 10,000 lakes.10,000 puddles is more like it. Good for humidity and mosquitoes, but not much else. They certainly don’t act as heat sinks; it’s not only colder here in the winter than it was back in Michigan, but also hotter in the summer.
kay
@slag:
One thing they all agree on is that they resent No Child Left Behind. It was jarring to listen to Arne Duncan take the “conservative” side of that argument. He talked about how rigid directives from DC don’t work, and governors need flexibility.
I am not a conservative and I was thinking “wait a minute, isn’t this the conservative position?”
Just really interesting. They’re all fired up to compete for the money.
I have said forever that poor (white) rural schools suck as bad as any poor inner city school, but conservatives don’t want to talk about that, because it flies in the face of some of their cherished dogma, and Duncan hit that fact hard, with data.
geg6
@Napoleon:
I have friends who took a sailboat from Pittsburgh to New Orleans (a 4 month trip). Another friend bought a 50′ boat he brought from Chicago to Pittsburgh, all by water. I also have friends who did the loop from Pittsburgh to the Tennessee/Tombigbee Waterway to the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida and up the East Coast to Deep Creek. It’s amazing how many navigable waterways there are in landlocked states and how you can get around almost the entire area east of the Mississippi fairly well by water.
J. Michael Neal
@Napoleon:
Four of them are like inland seas. Lake Erie is more like a giant bathtub, except shallower.
PurpleGirl
@Egypt Steve: At the time of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire went to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. So yes, they had a navy and Georg von Trapp was indeed a decorated war veteran.
Chuck Butcher
@bemused:
Anybody without real experience with those little buggers followed up by deer and horse flies doesn’t know misery. You can wind up with blood all over you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chuck Butcher: Deer flies are almost as evil as Dick Cheney.
Warren Terra
Mark Schmitt has a great piece in the current The American Prospect, in which he points out tax cuts get much less scrutiny or political controversy than spending, for far worse budgetary effects.
kay
@ksmiami:
Crist stuck out a little, because he was the only governor doing any national political posturing, with the exception of Bill Richardson, who took a shot at both Obama and Congress, on health care, which, of course, was not what the meeting was about.
PurpleGirl
@gogol’s wife: He had retired from the Navy. The Nazis wanted to recall (think stop-loss) him for renewed duty in their submarines.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@And Another Thing…:
Thanks for reminding me why I prefer to camp at wind-blown sites over 9,000 ft in elevation. I’ll take a bone-chilling wind and a 60 degree diurnal temperature variation over blood-sucking swarms of whiny bugs any day of the week.
Napoleon
@J. Michael Neal:
:)
Hey, you still can’t see the other side (I have 2 acquaintances who had people in from out of town who commented to the effect of “can’t you see the other side?” ).
geg6
@PurpleGirl:
That is not a true story. See post #77.
Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Ludwig_von_Trapp
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay:
Crist/Bayh 2012 Unity Ticket!
les
Per Wikipedia, Minnesota has 11,842 lakes over 10 acres. Pretty damn exciting. More shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. No piker state could breed Minnesota’s mosquitoes.
SiubhanDuinne
@EricS #102: Don’t tell asiancrrpMO.
protected static
I haven’t read the text of the law in question, but it probably wasn’t intended as a tax-break for yachters – it was probably meant to make it easier to purchase working boats like barges, tugs & dredges.
I think it was during the late-80s/early-90s when Congress closed a similar ‘loophole’ in a fit of outrage over ‘tax-breaks for yacht owners.’ They wound up killing a lot of New England boat builders – and not the ones that build yachts.
It’s probably a floating version of the tax-break for SUVs – intended to allow small businesses to purchase capital-intensive items, but worded broadly enough for non-businesses to take advantage of.
kay
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
BAYH/Crist. Evan Bayh is a BIPARTISAN LEADER, godammit.
He just has no followers. Yet.
slag
@kay: I remember listening to last year’s National Governor’s Association meeting at the WH and being really impressed. Not nearly as much pointless grandstanding as I expected. More like an informational conference among people in the same field–sharing best practices, lessons-learned, and whatnot. Based on your summary, I’m expecting this one to be similar. Looking forward to it.
J. Michael Neal
@les:
I love this stat. How do you measure the length of a shoreline? You can get any answer you want, depending upon how precisely you measure the undulations. Measure at the level of each grain of sand, and your answer will be in the ballpark of infinity.
Punchy
You can fit THAT many lakes in 10 acres?
David Hunt
Oh come on. We can get more Republican than that. The vouchers are mailed to the women’s home address. I’m sure that their (battering) husbands will forward it on. The agency mailing the vouchers can even include the address to send the voucher to their wives so the husbands know where to send it…
Colette
@J. Michael Neal:
Is that where Shoeless Joe and his ghostly cohort play? I’ve heard it’s somewhere in Missouri…
cmorenc
@Bullsmith
What purpose do you think the following are serving:
– “Dancing With the Stars”, “American Idol”, etc. for the women;
– “Ultimate Mixed-Martial Arts Cage-Fighting” and “NFL Football” for the men.
Chuck Butcher
@J. Michael Neal:
yep, Erie tends toward shallow but try it out in a storm and find out why there are more boats on the bottom/sq mi than anywhere else. People mistake that lake for something other than a Great Lake and they’re wrong.
HyperIon
@Egypt Steve: the Mad Magazine send-up of the “Sound of Music”
Yes. “How do we solve a problem like religion?” sung to the melody of “How do we solve a problem like Maria?”
Dork
It will never cease to amaze me the kinds of statistics some people will collect.
RedKitten
@Omnes Omnibus:
They’re bastards. I’d rather put up with mosquitoes. It’s the incessant circling around your head that makes them so maddening.
These are a handy way to fight them.
kay
@ksmiami:
It appears this is how he intends to run.
Here’s the unpatriotic theme again:
“In fact, I talked about it this morning,” Crist explained. “I don’t apologize for it at all. It was the right thing to do. We needed the money. It saved 87,00 jobs for our state. I was raised to respect the presidency of the United States. And the man who occupies the office now and I don’t agree on everything, but by golly when we agree on something, and that means helping the people of the state I was elected to govern, I’m going to be there and I’m going to thank him.”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay:
Judean People’s Front.
J. Michael Neal
@RedKitten:
I thought the only to fight them was to nuke the planet from orbit.
kay
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
He’s a scold. Indiana is glum enough without him moping around, making everyone sad and guilty because his career was so personally disappointing. What does he want from those people, anyway?
HyperIon
@kay: I watched the governor’s association meeting with the Sec of Education yesterday.
So did I. It was mid-blowing to hear all those Gov-R types actually praising the Sec of Ed. Several of them sounded like they had working brain cells. I kept thinking “Guys, saying anything good about the Obama admin is gonna kill your career.” Crist is toast in Fla. He is running way behind Rubio, who is, I’m pretty sure, a certified wingnut.
Punchy
What Crist said:
What Teabagger Nation heard:
He might as well go Demmy. His Repub candy is DOA.
Redshirt
I’d put Maine mosquitoes up against Minnesota mosquitoes any day.
However, as said above, Deer Flies are the true tormentors of the woods. Fast, quick, relentless, crafty, and bloodthirsty, these guys will ruin you. Mosquitoes are almost quaint in comparison. Black Flies, or No-see-ums, can just be ignored really. Just breathe them in!
Note! If anyone’s ever going to Uluruu rock in Central Australia, for the love of FSM, buy a bug net in town. My trip was mostly ruined by a type of fly they have there that makes the Deer Fly look taciturn by comparison. Brutal flies.
Face
What Charlie needs to do is add an “h” to his surname.
What God-fearing Jesus Fellator doesn’t vote for someone named “Christ” on the ballot?
demo woman
@J. Michael Neal: Dick Cheney would love to watch them die. Imagine if you will large sticky pads for terrorists to get stuck on.
bemused
@Chuck Butcher:
Sand flies. You don’t feel them bite but when you come inside & look in the mirror you discover red spots that like measles on your face, neck that last for days.
kay
@HyperIon:
I don’t think it will. If they get a federal educational grant, they’ll run on getting it. I’d hate to be in a state with a GOP governor who has ambitions for 2012. They’re leaving money on the table, as far as I’m concerned. It’s going to some or a collection of states. I’d hate to leave it there because Bobby Jindal swore some loyalty oath to Grover Norquist. How is that even fair?
demo woman
I’m not sure if this was mentioned but the states that are cutting school employees and other government employees are just adding to their unemployment roll. Sanford has cut their education spending so much that the public universities are in trouble of surviving. How does that help?
PurpleGirl
@geg6: Yes, I know, I was taking it from the play/movie. And I thought of adding that but I was too late to edit that particular comment. It adds to the drama of the play/movie action.
bemused
@J. Michael Neal:
Lake Vermilion website claims 365 islands & 1200 miles of shoreline. Red Lake, upper & lower, are big round lakes with much less shoreline in miles.
FlipYrWhig
I’ve been wondering… can Charlie Crist pull the Full Lieberman–lose in the primary, then run as an independent and pull from all sides?
bemused
@RedKitten:
I’ve never seen these before & I thought I’d seen every thing imaginable to battle the bugs in our sporting goods stores here.
Chuck Butcher
@Dork:
Big lake, shit load of sunken boats, don’t be stupid is the lesson. Silly little numbers that get your attention can be useful.
geg6
OT, but how could this happen when we never waterboarded him?
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/zazi-to-plead-guilty-to-terror-charges/
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
This? Made me LOL.
That said, I sympathize with the whole trying to post on the BlackBerry. I suck at it, too. ;-)
Svensker
@RedKitten:
So you have a choice of being eaten alive by deer flies, or walking around with a bunch of dead ones stuck to your head?
This is why my response to camping has been “Room Service!”
freelancer
@Svensker:
They probably aren’t dead on your hat right away, and one can imagine the incessant buzzing between your ears, so…there’s that.
Redshirt
I had several deer fly bites this past summer through the bug net – they found the part of the net touching my skin, settled on that and bit. Could not believe it. All the while I was in motion.
AkaDad
Instead of going to a shelter, battered women can go live on a $500,000 boat and get a tax cut!
It’s a win-win situation.
Comrade Mary
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Love. Lovelovelove.
numbskull
I am not familiar with the laws in Mighty MO, but I am familiar with similar issues in other states. A problem I’ve seen is that what most people are thinking about when they hear “Yacht” is not what ends up being taxed exclusively. A lot of times the taxation ends up including pretty much what I’d consider floatation devices little larger than jon boats. These ain’t what the fatcats drive and they’re not what the tax codes were designed to tax, but they end up getting taxed. And the fat cats? They’re way too smart to actually OWN their (true) yachts, so naturally, they don’t pay a dime. And so we have additional taxation of the middle class.
At least it’s not additional taxation of the truly poor.
numbskull
@Redshirt: Meh. I’ve been to ME and to MN. Wisconsin mosquitos are the worst.
David Hunt
I can tell that you don’t live in such a state. I live in Texas and I can feel Perry thinking about the White House from 90 miles away. I can tell you that it’s not supposed to be fair. The unfairness is a feature, not a bug. Screwing over their state is how potential Republican candidates signal to Big Money that they’re willing to rake the entire country over the coals in order to be President. With SCOTUS removing the limits on corporate money, I expect in to get much worse. I don’t expect a high percentage of that money going to Democrats, and neither do the Republicans, so each of them has got to out-whore all the others to be the Big Money’s mouthpiece in Washington. Dirty jokes that can be derived from that last sentence are left as an exercise for the reader.
Egypt Steve
@Hyperlon — yes, and who can forget (to “the hills are alive”):
I’m not singing now
I am pre-recorded
I’m just mouthing words
I have sung before!
How does it feel
to be singing nothing?
It’s an aw-ful bore!
amazing how that can stick with you after about 40 years.
Brian J
@freelancer:
Why would that be a shock? Wasn’t the original TARP proposal like three pages long? Either that or some other fairly significant proposed bill was pretty short but, even days after it was released, McCain said he hadn’t had time to go over it, as if he had to read a 1,000-page book or something. And to think, Bible Spice would have only been worse.
Brian J
@FlipYrWhig:
I think the more interesting question is, does the White House try to cut a deal to either (a) let him run as a Democrat or (b) an Independent who would caucus with them? I don’t know anything about Florida politics or any of the people running, but I’d say that if they have any political sense at all, they should at least consider it. Would he really be even less useful than, say, Ben Nelson? As you can imagine, any resources that aren’t sunk into Florida can be used to attack the Republicans in Arizona or try to keep the seat in Delaware.
Nick
@J.W. Hamner: Who’s laughing?
freelancer
@Brian J:
I didn’t find it shocking. His revealed behavior at that “critical” meeting revealed what we knew to be true all along: McCain is a craven, cynical know-nothing with no integrity and no judgment.
It was just nice to have that confirmed in a way that even Bush Administration officials were one step removed from stifling laughter at his (in)actions.
DBrown
@Egypt Steve: The Austrian navy even had a full size battleship (sunk during WWI.) Yes, it had a port (and city) on the Med which Italy got after the war ended.
Brian J
@freelancer:
He’s still a Maverick, though, you know?
freelancer
@Brian J:
Yup, just like me.
The Populist
@Tonal Crow:
You mean we will have peace and prosperity, awesome – where do I sign up? WTF? Soviets? Wow.
Brian J
@freelancer:
You’re a clever one, aren’t you?
Next you’re going to show me the North Dakota War Heroes or the Idado Bipartisans.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Deer flies are almost as evil as Dick Cheney
But I’ll bet, on a pound for pound basis even all the deer flies in the world haven’t caused as much blood loss as the Dick.
redbeardjim
Deer flies will bite you through a shirt. I used to have to run full speed up the driveway when I got off the bus after school because they would hang out in some trees near the bottom of the hill and *chase me all the way to the house*.
ProudCynic
@ Gregory:
Then the next thing you know, some Bronx gangster moves down, starts a civil war and out-Randians you, and suddenly you’re having a tragic golfing accident with your estranged son.
And don’t even get me started on what happens ten years later when the therapist you locked up gets free and starts some commie pinko cult…
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@PaulW:
This is the fist time I have ever heard someone say this. I thought I was the only one who idly speculated on this very same idea. It makes sense to me but I’m not a CT enthusiast so I dismiss it enough that it’s just a random question I ask myself at times.
The way everything is now I wouldn’t be surprised if it were somehow proven that this is the case.
Are we a joke? Yes. Thanks to our politicians our country is the clown-car country of the world. Our political clowns are fighting over who gets to steer and the result is that we’re veering all over the place, crashing into everything.
The big problem is that our clowns aren’t funny. Not one bit.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Ash Can:
From rusty memory, the Polish/Italian Joke Book:
Italian Snow Tires!
Includes drawing of tire with boots nailed to it
Dago through mud, dago through snow and when dago flat dago wop wop wop!
I’m Irish, German and French. Does this make me a drunken warmongering cheese-eating surrender monkey who likes to brawl and obsess about engineering perfection? Probably.
On the bright side at least they all love alcohol.
Phoebe
Missouri, where I live, is also The Puppy Mill State. I’m collecting signatures to put the regulation of same on the ballot in Nov. Apparently politicians can’t up and introduce this legislation themselves, as they are all owned by Big Puppy. It’s always done by ballot initiative. And then, in California, Arnold vetoes it.
Debbie(aussie)
SATAQ. YES!!!
Nate
@Egypt Steve:
Yes, Missouri has Marinas. Missouri has quite a bit of lake and river access available, both for Lake of the Ozarks, and many others, both man-made and natural.
Even land-locked states can have bodies of water. Just takes some work.
Batocchio
California still has tax breaks for yachts, too.
Anne Laurie
@Eric S.:
The way I remember it (I was living in Michigan at the time) the Asian Carp showed up in the Great Lakes just about the time the ‘Reagan Revolution” took over Congress. Giant mutant ugly carpet-bagging bottom-feeders, both.