Today is 29th Novembria, 11AS...a Bastday

"Bastday is The Fourth Day. Bast is the ancient Egyptian Goddess of Cats and those creatures are much beloved by The Sisterhood. She is chosen because cats are very fastidious thereby symbolizing 'the finishing up of business' and also notoriously nocturnal and therefore will guide Sisters as they play with Substances and Sex though the night."

"On the Weekend, the Fourth Day is half and half; morning and early afternoon for finishing up the Work Week and the late afternoon and evening for playing and partying."

Addendum D [Calendar for A New Matriarchy]

Nebs Confesses

I have an active addiction. It drives me nearly every single day...and I don't care. I am addicted to ( Read more... )

Fact-Checking the AP's Buffett Tax "Fact Check" (Spoiler: It's Misleading)

By Steve M, No More Mister Nice Blog
Posted on September 20, 2011
Via AlterNet


From an AP "fact check" of the arguments underlying the president's call for the so-called Buffett tax:

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Excuse me -- if any millionaires paid zero federal income tax, then it's inaccurate to say that there "may be" millionaires with a lower tax rate than typical middle-income workers. There are millionaires with a lower tax rate -- period, full stop. By definition, there are more than a thousand of them -- at least. So avoid the conditional, please. (The AP "fact check" doesn't tell us about millionaires who pay some federal income tax but not very much, though surely there are a number of those as well.)

****

There's also this, in the "fact check":

Obama's claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15 percent. The top marginal tax rate for wages is 35 percent, though that is reserved for taxable income above $379,150.

If you read this looking for "the facts," you might conclude that that 15% rate is unfair, but only to somewhat less rich people, those who make more than $379,150. What the "fact check" leaves out is that it's unfair to middle-income people. Here are the current marginal tax rates. Notice how much -- or, rather, how little -- money you can make and still be paying federal income tax (on at least some of it) at a higher rate than hedge-fund fat cats paying 15%:

Single Filing Status
[Tax Rate Schedule X, Internal Revenue Code section 1(c)]

10% on taxable income from $0 to $8,500, plus
15% on taxable income over $8,500 to $34,500, plus
25% on taxable income over $34,500 to $83,600, plus
28% on taxable income over $83,600 to $174,400, plus
33% on taxable income over $174,400 to $379,150, plus
35% on taxable income over $379,150.

Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Widow(er) Filing Status
[Tax Rate Schedule Y-1, Internal Revenue Code section 1(a)]

10% on taxable income from $0 to $17,000, plus
15% on taxable income over $17,000 to $69,000, plus
25% on taxable income over $69,000 to $139,350, plus
28% on taxable income over $139,350 to $212,300, plus
33% on taxable income over $212,300 to $379,150, plus
35% on taxable income over $379,150.

Make $65 grand as a single person and you're paying 25% on nearly half your income, while the hedge-fund guy pays 15% on his $65 million. AP could have told us that, but it's an inconvenient fact.

This Is Why I Wrap Rational Solutions Inside A Non-Rational Construct

"The truth is that this culture is insane. When Derrick asks his audiences, “Does anyone here believe that our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?”—and he’s asked it for years, all around the country—no one says yes. That means that most people, or at least most people with a beating heart, have already done the math, added up the arrogance, sadism, stupidity, and denial, and reached the bottom line: a dead planet. Some of us carry that final sum like the weight of a corpse. For others, that conclusion turns the heart to a smoldering coal. But despair and rage have been declared unevolved and unclean, beneath the “spiritual warriors” who insist they will save the planet by “healing” themselves. How this activity will stop the release of carbon and the felling of forests is never actually explained. The answer lies vaguely between being the change we wish to see and a hundredth monkey of hope, a monkey that is frankly more Christmas pony than actual possibility.

Given that the culture of America is founded on individualism and awash in privilege, it’s no surprise that narcissism is the end result. The social upheavals of the 60s split along fault lines of responsibility and hedonism, of justice and selfishness, of sacrifice and entitlement. What we are left with is an alternative culture that offers workshops on our “scarcity consciousness,” as if poverty were a state of mind and not a structural support of capitalism. This culture leaves us ill-prepared to face the crisis of planetary biocide that greets us daily with its own grim dawn. The facts are not conducive to an open-hearted state of wonder. To confront the truth as adults, not as faux-children, requires an adult fortitude and courage, grounded in our adult responsibilities to the world. It requires those things because the situation is horrific and living with that knowledge will hurt. Meanwhile, I have been to workshops where global warming is treated as an opportunity for personal growth, and no one but me sees a problem with that." ~Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet Excerpt

...thanx to layo

Life in The Desert

~It is presently 93° and 16% humidity. And yes, boys and girls, I am killing the planet by running the fuck outta that AC.