I admit, my understanding of economics is very shaky; I only have a degree in it. But why doesn’t anyone ever question the logic of tax cuts being an economic stimulus? The government isn’t taking the money it collects from taxes and burning it in a great governmental beach bonfire. (Although I think that might be a good use of the money. One big, national, beach party bender.) Unless the money is used to pay interest on the debt, it is simply monetary redistribution. Money is taken from some people, and given to other people through spending. Nothing is lost or gained; nothing is removed from the system. How much deficit spending we perform in addition can be entirely separate issue.

Yet we persist in this illusion that by cutting taxes we’re helping the economy. It’s true we’re helping some *sectors* of the economy, such as those supported by consumer spending, but there’s no evidence we’re helping the economy as a whole.

Chalk another one up to our amazing faith-based government.

Sigh. I want to secede. Who’s with me?

Though not a novel conclusion, the situation in the immediate aftermath of hurricane Katrina highlighted that gun control is an all or nothing proposition. If one is going to ban guns, then do so, and make sure that ban is carried out effectively.

An outright ban, however, is a largely an untenable position, even ignoring the second amendment and the practical limitations of implementing such a ban, and based solely on the number of guns currently in the US. Thus, the only other viable option is to let everyone have a gun. Hell, give them out with a driver’s license, sell them in vending machines, make them a Happy Meal prize.

Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?
Yeah, um…..I’d like a Big Mac, some fries, and a Beretta.
Would you like to supersize that to an Uzi for just fifty nice cents more?
Uh no, the Beretta would be fine, but I want the hollow points on the side.

Make sure the penalties for committing a crime with a gun are harsh; death penalty harsh. Do not pass go, do not get paroled. But to paraphrase the NRA’s favorite tautological statement, if one makes it a crime to own a gun, then only criminals will own them, which is exactly what we saw in New Orleans. It’s no different with regard to airline security. If everyone on the 9/11 planes were armed, there wouldn’t have been planes flown into the world trade center. Highjackings are only made possible through ineffective security (All security is fundamentally ineffective security, as there are always methods of evading a system. The only question is to what extreme one needs to go to accomplish that evasion), preventing the honest citizens from being armed, but allowing people who break the law to do so.

The problem with this suggestion is that it opens up an arms race. If everyone has a gun, than a criminal needs a grenade, and so on. But the truth is that stopping such a progression is like stopping the progress of technology. One can put roadblocks in place, and slow things down, but eventually those blocks will fail. There may, or really, almost certainly will be a time in our future when everyone has the ability to build a nuclear weapon or its equivalent (assuming humanity lasts that long). The only hope we have is that we’ll have the technology to stop such a person from detonating that device before they do so. Trying to restrict technology is a stop-gap solution, as we’re currently seeing with our efforts to fight nuclear proliferation.

All that said, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest we’re safer in a world where everyone has the power to commit nuclear armageddon than we were beforehand, so let technology run its course. Maybe we’ll even be alive to see it happen.

HUMMER has announced a branded laptop. If it’s in keeping with the brand image, it’s loud, big, used by assholes, as has a battery life of three minutes.

When did miracles go so far downhill? Thousands of years ago god unleashed plagues and floods, parted seas, brought people back from the dead, and smited with reckless abandon.

Now, Mary miraculously shows up in a muffin and Jesus appears in a malformed tortilla chip.

But since everyone seems to think it’s such a big deal, I was thinking of starting my own line of cereal, Jesus O’s: there’s a miracle of taste in every delicious bite!

Apparently, the poverty rate is up. Who would have thought this is possible, with our economy doing so well, and our fearless leader’s tax cuts? I know, it seems implausible that trickle down economics, um, still doesn’t work. Because it worked so well in the 80’s. Score another win for our faith-based administration.

I should be more upset by this. I should take to the streets, donate money to the democrats, rail against the establishment, and other fun activities. But I’ve changed my mind. Now I say, “fuck em.” The poor white people to which this article refers, they’re the idiots that voted for President Koko in the first place. And if they want school prayer and discrimination against homosexuals, well, then I think they deserve to be poor. I’d just rather they become so poor that they die, preferably before they breed.

But tell me I’m not the only one amused by the irony of this.