Taxes bother me. Last April I had to eat at home more often because my tax guy told me that I didn’t withhold enough on my state returns. I’m a pretty crappy cook* which means that for like a month I had to eat burnt pasta and occasionally defrost a shepherd’s pie which was actually pretty good but not as good as a restaurant burger. Sure you can chart a bunch of crapola about public safety and maintaining the roads, but where on the chart does it cover how taxes piss me off? Please abolish them.
***
Maybe you think that the above argument wouldn’t make it past Paris Hilton’s GED tutor. You’re right of course. I could make a more persuasive case by grunting, or if I asked David Addington to write a brief. Yet somehow the genius Washington Post op-ed page let it through more or less verbatim.
As Brad likes to say…
(*) Note: not actually true.
(**) Commenter DJ prodded me into writing about this, which I earlier passed on doing because presenting arguments this stupid strikes me as a form of trolling. The management aims to please.
Don
I would be embarrassed to write such a rambling and unfocused article. Good thing online writing isn’t what I do for a living.
Don
By which I mean, even putting aside the lack of understanding of what global warming means (hint for Emily: it’s not just about the word WARM), this is a crappy op-ed. Is it saying there’s too shrill a tone? The time period of change is too big to ask people to worry about? Think of the children?
Zifnab
Why is it whenever I see people whine about how shrill Al Gore is being, I find so many right wing “OMG! TEH TERR’RISTS!” articles fencing said article in?
Is there a reason the group that suggests millions of Iraqis will swim across the Atlantic to wage Sunni-Shia civil war in downtown Manhattan, while calling polar ice-cap melting “alarmist” and “inconsequential”, get so much coverage?
Does anyone even read what these people write? Or is it just that “blah, blah, blah Democrats. Blah, blah, blah, liberal talking point. blah, blah, blah, left wing issue” has to be balanced out with an equal amount of “blah, blah, blah Republicans. Blah, blah, blah conservative talking points. blah, blah, blah right wing issue.”
If Republicans wanted to argue that the moon was made of green cheese, and we needed to harvest it, would they get equal air time as Democrats (and by Democrats, I apparently mean anyone and everyone else) who said that this opinion was absurd?
It just hurts my brain. I don’t know what kills the media more – the absolutely ridiculous garbage that gets fed into it on a daily basis or the absolutely ridiculous garbage that makes it out the other side.
DougJ
Tim, thanks for linking to that.
I simply cannot believe the Post ran that article. Unbelievable…even by their standards.
ThymeZone
Uh, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers sort of address the whole question. If you send me some money or food, I will take the time to look up some citations for you.
The United States was not founded as a tax-free republic.
Nice try, though.
Tim F.
For the love of pete herb. For future reference, reading he whole post would save you from picking a fight with my made-up bullshit argument.
DougJ
Yes, because many media outlets have an incentive to push Republican talking points in order to get pliable Republicans who office who will modify laws about franchise ownership and the like in a way that makes these outlets money.
Then there’s another portion of the media (the Times, for example) who does so in order to avoid being labeled as “liberal”.
Then there’s the Georgetown set which ventures outside the Beltway so rarely that they believe most Americans are sitting in their duck-taped McMansions praying to their Personal Savior that teh terrorists won’t set off a dirty bomb in downtown Dubuque.
The Other Steve
I can offer you a good swift kick in the ass, but money or food would be some sort of welfare which I’m adamently opposed to as a card carrying 26%er.
jenniebee
The trouble with global warming as a political problem in the US is that there is nobody we can drop bombs on to make it go away. Unfortunately, the same is true of terrorism.
We get an E for Effort on that one, though.
ThymeZone
Whooosh. With such a dull post, I have to find the fun where I can find it. I figured you were trying your hand at spoof. Thought I’d help you out.
Remember, I did about 4 different characters at Scrutator. I am not new at this :)
HyperIon
well, if you mean their standards of about 30 years ago, yes. but it’s right in line with the crap they’ve been publishing recently. Liz Cheney? all those Libby op-eds where the authors keep insisting Pflame was not covert, Cohen?, Broder?, and finally this from Novak on Monday:
except there is a lot in the bible to indicate that Saint Paul did EXACTLY that after his conversion. what a moron. but he has lots of company at WaPo.
Don
David Brin has a very good and readable post here about global climate change and the apologists/(anti?)fear-mongers, but it works quite well as a reaction to the ignorant as well.
tBone
There’s no political problem that can’t be solved by dropping bombs. We can bomb Alaska, Greenland, and Antarctica, which will release ice into the oceans and cool them down. Bingo, no more global warming. And, a side benefit, no more penguins to base shitty animated movies on.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to Emily Yoffe’s fascinating new book Science: It’s, Like, Complicated and Stuff.
Krista
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating (and never gets old:
As Helen Keller signed when she fell down the well, ‘Fuck you, I meant to do that!’
ThymeZone
Who is Pete Herb?
Rome Again
Shhh, you’re not supposed to ever say anything bad about Paul, because he wrote over half of the New Testament. Pay no attention to the fact that he basically lied his ass off at every turn.
He was no friend to Peter, he hated women, he lied several times, he never met Jesus, and he changed all the things the supposed son of God said to mean completely different things… but, he’s the most important saint of all who has advanced the cause of Christians (which by the way, is a name Paul came up with). Don’t EVER say anything bad about Paul, you hear me?
I once wrote a piece called “The Perils of Pauline Doctrine” on an AOL religion forum, and the moderator removed it immediately. ;) They’re Paulians, not Christians and they’ll never give up their beloved Paul.
Rome Again
It’s a special kind of MaryJane. ;)
DougJ
Is no one else as upset as I am that the Post ran an Op-Ed on global warming by someone who does math at a first grade level? I thought there were multiple science Ph.D’s commenting here.
Where’s the outrage?
Downpuppy
I’m just amazed that the Post hasn’t disabled comments, what with Fact Free Freddie, Dazed Broder & the amazing crew of idoits they get drawing over 95% blinding rage.
The Other Steve
You’ve never had Herbed Chicken?
Krista
I think in order to be properly outraged, there has to be an element of surprise involved. And unfortunately, there isn’t. Outrage has been replaced by weary disgust.
ThymeZone
Yes, with parsley, sage, rosemary, and me.
Rome Again
To everything there is a season.
Tim F.
Yep, at least three on this thread. After years and years of this shit (I went to college in Colorado Springs and spent beacoup time actively engaged with the creationists there) the best that I can work up is weary scorn.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Most of them are probably too busy spoofing over at Blogs 4 Brownback. Seriously, how many people are there who are simultaneously intelligent enough to type and stupid enough to deny Heliocentrism? Is that even possible?