Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!

Gah! Cuteness overload


more animals

Holy Zombie Jesus!

Oh, this is just too good. What better way to turn a figure of reverence into irrelevance. Fucking love it.

Telling the Big Lie

I'm shocked, shocked (well, not that shocked) to find that Sen. McCain has been lying about his tax proposals as well as Sen. Obama's tax plans. Unsurprisingly, Sen. McCain's unwillingness to raise taxes while seriously cutting spending is a bit of a lark, as Joe Klein writes. Speaking through Michael Scherer and Matt Miller is Sen. McCain's economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who admits that the basic math of the federal budget will require any president to raise taxes in the future or face bankrupting the U.S. government. The natural growth of the federal budget, Holtz-Eakin claims, will require an overall tax increase of some seven percent by 2020 to keep up with budget inflation. And it's not surprising that such an increase of the federal budget will happen since we have a military to rebuild along with our ever increasing interest on federal debt.
So what we have here is an instance, as Holtz-Eakin describes, of the math being at odds with Sen. McCain's campaign slogans. Perhaps Sen. McCain simple hasn't been told this yet or perhaps he just doesn't care. His apparent willingness to blatently lie during this election makes the latter far more likely. Klein finishes off with the mention that Holtz-Eakin acknowledges that Sen. Obama's tax plan would actually reduce net taxes over a ten year period. How that will square with the programs Sen. Obama proposes I'm not sure. But at least people within the McCain camp realize that the sloganeering is a lot of empty rhetoric.

Reason is the Mode of Transportation

For once, Erza Klein makes a good point in the pedestrian-cyclist vs. driver argument. One of the major inhibitors to walking in a city like Dallas is that everything is too spread out. This isn't to say the city completely lacks walkable areas (Lower Greenville, Uptown, Downtown) but that most of the city planning has gone into building a road infrastructure that inclines people to drive versus walking. The bus system here is a lovely mess; although the growing light rail lines are making things easier for some. But when you have a two mile stretch of river crisscrossed by two and three lane bridges for vehicle traffic and only two rail bridges (one of which is for commercial traffic) then obviously the city planners did not have a rail system in mind. As I said, Dallas is walkable to a degree, but even then you still need a car to enjoy going to the better places in Dallas and not settling for what's within foot-distance. Cities like Irivine, CA are much the same as walking isn't sensible. This isn't about being good or bad to the environment, but about what's the more reasonable way to travel.
I'm now going to hit myself for saying that Klein has a good point.

Pussy-Lovin'

My cat is loving on everything right now and has been since Saturday. She's a fluff-ball of pure joy.

Lifting Up

I believe that it has almost been a week since I last even looked at this blog. Moving into a new apartment with your sister takes a lot out of you. All the while I've seen the stupidity of the McCain campaign ramble on, a strange ad by an oil interest group pointing out the untapped offshore reserves (all of which are in hurricane-prone areas) and Sen. Obama stir like a sleeping dragon. Oh, and I now understand what all the hype over HD TV is about.
The apartment is shaping up, after it shaped us up; I have bruises all up and down my arms. Still, my left ear is ringing and I haven't put my desktop back together so I don't have access to all my music. The comic boxes are all in place; still need to unpack my book boxes. The kitchen is stocked and soon enough the liquor cabinet will too.
For the moment, as you can imagine, new blog posts will come at a slow pace. The election is heating up though and I have two series of posts to map out about modern masculinity and consumer culture in America. The last two require a bit of research from me and I haven't read all of the material I need to yet. Plus I feel like stretching my wings a bit and being more random in what I post about. So stay tuned as vague promises of untold riches await your future.