Xbox Live

Modern Warfare 3 came out and, for me, that means delving into the contemporary perma-adolescent psychological milieu your average young adult male exists in especially when it comes to video games, oh and smoking noobs.  This mind-state can be no better experienced than on XBOX Live and its PS3 equivalent.  Imagine a world where boys ruled, only might is not measured by muscle density, but by digital kill count, all with the sweet freedom of anonymity.  I've learned a few things about the male psyche in between trying to avoid throwing my controller through the TV.  We are marginally evolved.  We will fight any feeling of insecurity with racism, homophobia, and comments about one's mother.  And, a 12 year old can make you blind with rage.  At least Lord of the Flies had a semblance of order before devolving into a near-cannibalistic state of primal humanity.  In online gaming, the boys would've shoved the conch shell up Piggy's ass and kicked him off the cliff. 

If the online world of video games were viewed as it's own society, an outsider might make these following observations.  They LOVE weed.  There are thinly-veiled references to it in the games they play and blatant references to it in the names they use.  Any female voice shall not be met with a "hello," but an "are you hot?"  If the answer to the latter question is no, they have no use for her...unless she's better than them.  Accents are ALWAYS funny especially the Brits.  If a person's cadence is different from their own, it's hilarious and eminently mockable.  Do not expect them to recognize the distinct advantage of virtual invisibility when saying racist, odd, and pompous things.  Apparently the mass of them, especially the ones with Southern accents, have some distinct views on race relations, homosexuals, and immigration in America.  The commentary on alternative lifestyles seems to be at odds with the fact that there is a supermajority of gay people online.  It's either that or everyone just calls everyone else a fag.

I will, however, continue to immerse myself in this world of stunted maturity much to the chagrin of my fiance because it's fun.  But, wow, it just adds to the degradation of my faith in humanity.  Play on future backbone of society!

-K

Rin Tin Tin

I just wanted to take a minute to let you know that a biography of a dog is number 12 on the New York Times Bestseller List.  It's. A. Dog. How did his sign his life rights contract with a paw print?  I have not read this book, it could very well be Pulitzer material filled with elegantly scripted prose on the human experience written in iambic pentameter.  But, IT'S ABOUT A DOG.  How can there be any internal monologue other than "Is this food?" or "What was that noise?"  How can there be internal monologue, IT'S A DOG! AAHH. 

This is wrong on two levels; why America is finished and how crazy dog owners are.  Enough learned folk have eschewed the infinitely more compelling tales of a human's life to read about a German Shepard that was on TV.  I am going to guess many of these people are Dog People.  Dog People are the ones who hesitate when asked this question: Your home is on fire, you can save a human stranger or your dog, who do you take?  Actually most of them wouldn't hesitate to say "my dog."  I mean some people spend tens of thousands giving dogs cancer treatments!  This is why there is no more dog track in Mass. and why America is finished in general.

From Amazon: "So begins Susan Orlean’s sweeping, powerfully moving account of Rin Tin Tin’s journey from orphaned puppy to movie star and international icon"

Indeed.

-K

Pay Your Fair Share!

The mantra of fiscal liberals recently has been for the rich to "pay their fair share."  After a plethora of soundbites with that same ethos, but with no data to explain what that means or plan to address it, I decided to look at the numbers.  What I found was that we as a country better not hope the rich pay their fair share because then, we are really fucked.  They need to keep paying the completely obscene share they do now.

First, a note on data manipulation.  The link to the IRS data I used can be found here. It is in the first group of data, Table 3.4, tax year 2009.  I combined the income tax and capital gains rows to get a total for each tax bracket.  I eliminated the zero and five percent data from the graphs and calculations because they had a minimal impact.  Everything was under 1%.  It also reflects the rates people pay on their paychecks which seems more intuitive.  The tax brackets on the pie charts are for someone filing Single status on their return. 

Critics of the American capitalist system always decry the income inequality between the rich and the poor, while little is said of the tax inequality.  Granted, it's hard to feel bad for someone who made over $373,650 a year, but what exactly is the "fair share" that group should pay?  The people who qualified for the top marginal tax bracket, a scant .76% of all taxpayers took in 13.3% of all the income, but paid 29.5% of all the taxes.  So, if the omnipresent yet faceless 1% of mythic old white men pay more than double their share of income in taxes, how much is enough?  50%? 75%? F-- it, why should anybody making under $100,000 have to pay taxes?  That wouldn't lead to a horrible bifurcated Entitled versus Financier dichotomy among citizens.  To achieve any kind of fiscal restraint, you need to have an ownership society.  Such a culture can't exist when people have little or no money on the outcome of government's performance.

We can see by the pie chart version of the data that the green slice, $34 to $82 thousand, the middle class, are the only ones paying the definition of their fair share.  Their portion doesn't change size much from the income to tax charts.  The orange slice - evil rich people who use the poor as pawns in their plans for world domination - spreads out quite a bit, while the blue slice - said pawns - nearly disappears.  

Our tax system breaks down to this essentially, the top 2% of taxpayers take in just under 20% of the income and pay just over 40% of the taxes.  If nothing, that seems resoundingly fair to me, probably too fair.  Free market America has quite the socialist tax system. 

Even if you look at effective tax rate which includes all of the deductions, credits, loopholes, advantages of tax attorneys and wealth managers, men with pipes and brandy snifters; the more money you make, the higher taxes you pay.  The only people who get a break are the middle class again (voting works!).  But, my guess is that if I did some more research (I won't), that dip in effective tax rate would be due to the mortgage interest deduction.  When you hit the middle class, you can achieve the American Dream of owning a home.  That is, of course, unless the federal government implicitly guarantees the debt of multiple NGOs that buy increasingly horrible loans, thus incentivizing investment and retail banks into pumping out increasingly dubious mortgages to marginal borrowers, securitizing them, and finally insuring them until everyone with a fake copy of a paycheck has a 5/1 ARM with no points, but can't make even the first payment on the $300,000 house they just bought and the whole thing collapses...but, that's a whole other story.  I mean where is Warren Buffet's secretary?  She was supposed to be paying a higher tax rate than Warren, but if she was, it seems like she was making some substantial donations to the IRS.

Liberals want to claim the rich are ripping off the country with offshore accounts, trust funds, LLC tax avoidance entities, but the numbers don't seem to bear it out for me.  This brief skim of some tax stats is not exhaustive by any means.  I didn't look at multiple-year trends or use any other division of income than tax bracket.  I'm sure some more detailed analysis could possibly invalidate my thesis, but it seems if the rich were getting away with something, it would show up in this cursory view of income and taxes.  It's hard to feel sorry for people that make a sizable income, but hey professional athletes get sympathy when framed in context.  Why can't we just say that the rich, the very rich actually, pay an inordinate amount of their share of taxes.  A percent more than acceptable to be considered reasonable.  This is not a soundbite after all, this from the IRS's website.  These are hard numbers.  So, the next time someone says the rich should "pay their fair share" point them to Table 3.4, tax year 2009 of the IRS Statistics of Income and ask them what that means exactly.


-K

Why I Can't Live In Cambridge

The city home to world-renowned universities, excellent beer bars, and a slew of sites of historical significance is just not for me. The People's Republic of Cambridge houses such disdain for a system that has allowed many of its residents' (parents) to succeed it is impossible for an avowed capitalist to stomach. Cambridge is home to Dirty Hippies, Hipsters, and Crunchy Gays. These types are the ones who worship at the alter of Socialism and all of the utopian rainbows and communal ideals it brings. It's why Martha Coakley gets 88% of the vote over the Mass. Ave. bridge. (The Green Party siphoned off a few percentage points.) It shocks me that in the same place where Harvard, MIT, and Le Cordon Bleu Culinary College reside, people believe that de-incentivising hard work, giving people money, and central government planning is a good idea. There is a mountain of evidence to the contrary: USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Greece, many African countries, the slums of Mumbai, the Native American community, the prevalence of bums in your little slice of Marxist heaven, yet the Catabragians still want rich people to pay because it's government's fault or "these corporations" or rich people themselves or the World Bank. OK, fine, the profit-motive is equal to ten Hitlers, we get it. I have a feeling though that you don't really think collectivism would work in practice, you just hate the "mainstream". And, nobody hates mainstream more than Cambridge biggest plurality, the Hipster.


I am convinced most Hipsters, while smart, don't know Friederich Engels from Peter Engel. One thought the Capitalist machine was oiled with the blood of the worker, one was the executive producer of Saved By The Bell. In fact, most Hipsters probably watched Saved By the Bell when it was on, enjoyed it, later hated it because more than 5 people liked it and now watch it because it's retro and we all know retro = cool. You've seen the Hipster out and about, he looks like this guy. A quick breakdown of their appearance: skinny jeans always, always, skinny jeans, a wool hat or weird asymmetrical haircut - bonus points for odd facial hair, a scarf no matter the season, a flannel or retro T-shirt from Goodwill, Chuck Taylors and non-prescription glasses because they are so much smarter than you. The Hipster hates the mainstream and it's physical embodiment, the Frat Boy. Even whoever wrote the Urban Dictionary definition of Hipster COULD NOT help himself from taking a shot at his oft-thought of intellectual inferior. A paradox has arisen, however, as the Hipster will frequently use the Frat Boy's urge to "get some brews" and beer-drinking in general as a mark of his marginally evolved brain, yet Hipsters invade beer bars. I guess when it's craft-brewed in small batches and served in cool glassware that makes it OK. Christ, slap "organic" on ANYTHING and it seems it has passed through Alternative customs. (I personally cannot wait until the Hipster love affair with craft beer wanes because I actually like the stuff and PBR tastes like shit and I want to be able to get into the Public House again. I hope they show a Duvel commercial during the Superbowl.) The Hipster is ultimately a hater, they don't actually "like" anything, they just choose to indulge in whatever is the opposite of mainstream. If Little Wayne gets enough suburban white kids to rock skinny jeans, the Hipsters will drop that style faster than when LL Cool J tried to rock the one-pant-leg up look. So, Cambridge, we understand, making money is evil, George Bush is a war criminal, and sports are dumb just stop being a hater. Don't OccupyBoston, occupy Porter Square and leave us alone, besides someone needs to subsidize your lifestyle.


-K

Viva la Revolucion!

Greek "anarchists" took to the streets to protest the austerity plans of the Greek government has in order to secure more aid from the rest of the Euro zone. First off, that's a balls move calling yourself anarchists when your argument is essentially that you want more government. "I want Greece to return to its quasi-socialist state!" Boom, rock through a McDonald's window. That makes sense. Moltov Cocktail at the police because you can't retire with a full pension at 45?!? Also, technically if you are fighting the cops, aren't you fighting the same people whom you want benefits to be restored to? All of these "anarchists" are full of crap anyway. You're nineteen, you will use any excuse to flip a car over. That's why there are parking bans and police in the city that wins a championship all the time. You're not an anarchist, you're just an asshole who now has the luxury of mob rule to cause mayhem. You know these people, they riot at World Bank meetings, start sentences with "It's these corporations", and think most people in power actively work to destroy the rest of the world. They don't have any real convictions. They just like the yelling and sticking it to the man. The mission is filled in the [Insert Cause Here] line after the protest has been organized.

And Greece, seriously, what do you want the government to do, default? You still won't get more money. Your train company's payroll is four times bigger than sales. (The frugal MBTA's is only 1 to 1). Half of the population can't work for the government. The government doesn't make money. Other people have to give the government money for it to work. Yeah, everyone would love to retire and party on Mykonos all day. But, you can't have the government slopping bonuses and pensions around like they just hit Powerball and expect that to last. And to think, all this time, you thought you were helping your people out. Now what? They hate you because you were so generous. HA. I relish this type of stuff though. Greece spent and owes too much money, but the rest of the Europe (Germany) won't give them more unless they stop spending so much, only the people they spent it on don't want that. Show down! Real actual consequences.

...But, I do want a football season though.

-K

On Winning

As Charlie Sheen, now famously, stated in his 20/20 interview: I am on a drug, it's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it once, your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body. Too much?

No, Charlie, it is never too much. I cannot get enough of the Sheen.

I know this is not a timely post, but I wanted to soak in all of the Sheen. So, the following quotes are from multiple interviews including the original Alex Jones radio interview, the Good Morning America interview, the 20/20 interview, the Howard Stern interview, and the Piers Morgan interview where after being asked so many times, he just carried his drug test results around with him.

Ostensibly, Sheen’s interviews were about his crusade against CBS and starting his show back up. However, the interviews often delightfully turned into a commentary on Sheen, the man. Charlie was more than willing to fill the audience in on who, exactly it is, you are dealing with. He commented on everything from birth to fatherhood to self to non-sequitors. Some experts claimed it was a sign of psychosis, more like a glimpse at the Gods.

“I got Tiger Blood man.”
“I am a peaceful man with bad intentions.”
“You’re dealing with a Vatican Assassin.”
“I'm Battle-Tested Bayonets.”
“Hey kids, your dad is a rock star. Look at his life. Look at his experiences...”
“They'll wake up one day and realize how cool dad is. He signs all the checks on the front and not the back. We need his wisdom and his bitchin'ness.”
“I'm magic, I got poetry in my fingertips, ya know, most of the time, and this includes naps, I'm a...I'm an F-18 bro. I will destroy you in the air and I will deploy my ordnance to the ground.”
“I'm proud of what I created... I expose people to magic, I expose them to something they're never otherwise going to see in their boring, normal lives and I gave that to them.”
“This voice emerged. I'm alive, bring it.” (what he said after he was born)
“Dude, can't handle it, unplug this bastard...It fires in a way that's not from this terrestrial realm.” (someone else using his brain)
“Newsflash, I am special and I will never be one of you. There it is.”

The line of questions often turned to the people in his crosshairs. But, it could be the crosshairs of hate or love. You see, Sheen has a policy to love and hate violently. Sticking to his mantra, Sheen let everyone know who, exactly, he is dealing with.

“Look at what I'm dealing with, I'm dealing with fools and trolls.”
“Look at these sad trolls. And they take their word over mine?!? It's silly, come on, it's silly.”
“They are soft targets in cheap suits.”
“If he's a business man, then make some good business moves like celebrating me everyday.”

“The Goddesses? The Goddesses, Alex. I don't think the term is good enough, but when you are bound by these terrestrial descriptions you must choose the best available, right?”
“To sully, to contaminate, to...to radically disrespect this unit with a shameful contract is something I will leave to the amateurs and the bible grippers.”
“I'm going to hang out with these two sssmoooookin' hotties and fly privately around the world. You know it might be lonely up here, but I sure like the view Alex.”
“A giant marquee name comes through on your caller ID and it's like, winning.”

Of course everyone wanted to know about his lifestyle. Sheen responded openly and unapologetically to the amusement of some and to the Lilly-white sheltered faux-horror of others. Charlie mixed pride, bemusement, and calm acknowledgement when talking about how he gets down.

“I don't know, I was banging 7 gram rocks and finishing them, because I have one speed, I have one gear, go!”
“The run I was on makes Sinatra, Flynn, Jager, Richards, all of 'em just look like, you know, droopy-eyed armless children.”
“-But, you love to party.
What's not to love, I mean the run I was on was epic…”
“There are certain blends that I don't entertain because that's how guys go down...but, you should've read the directions before you showed up at the party.”
“-People say you have an affinity for porn stars.
Well look at what they do, look at what I do, duh.”
“I'm going to hang out with these two sssmoooookin' hotties and fly privately around the world. You know it might be lonely up here, but I sure like the view Alex.”
“We win so radically in our underwear before our first cup of coffee, it's scary.” (Him and the Goddesses)
“[I’m] just a guy that loves the idea, the reality of variety.”
“Once I exercise, I get my Tiger blood boiling and then it's on Howard.”
“-What does it mean you have Tiger Blood?
It's a metaphor for having absolute rocket fuel in my veins when it comes to getting focused and delivering things in a way that just don't exist in a sense of the norm.”
“[A woman involved in a prior police call] lifted a pair of pants off of the scale one day and had a tiny little revolver in the pocket and it fell on the floor and shot through the toilet.”

God, overreaction

The interviews eventually got around to whole ruse of the interview, his war with Chuck Levine, creator of Two and a Half Men. Tired of turning the writer’s tin cans into gold – and after repeated life planning sessions through repeated Apocalypse Now viewings – Charlie let us have a glimpse at his war style.

“It was like, ‘You must let me impose my will all over your face.’” (on Chuck Levine)
“My fire back was a 2000 pound bomb that was laser-guided.”
“Check it Alex, I embarrassed him in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that his unevolved mind can't process.”
“Well, you've been warned dude, bring it.”
“I don't live in the middle, that's where you get slaughtered, that's where you get embarrassed in front of the prom queen.”
“-What's the future for Charlie Sheen?

Uh, just winning, everyday, defeat not an option.”
“I don't sleep, I wait.”

AA, well, Sheen doesn’t believe in it to say the least.

“This bootleg cult arrogantly referred to as Alcoholics Anonymous sports a 5% success rate. My success rate is 100%, do the math! Take for instance its founder, a desperate and broken-down plagiarist who stayed high on acid until the day he died. I can't seem to find that chapter in his silly book of lies.”
“In 22 years, the only winners I could locate in their toothless warren were either driving a convertible van or living like trolls under some abandoned bridge.”
“I have a disease? Bullshit, I cured myself with my brain, with my mind.”
“I have cleansed myself. I closed my eyes and in a nanosecond I cured myself from this ridiculous model of disease, addiction, and obsession. It's just the work of sissies. The only thing I'm addicted to right now is winning.”
“I'm sober down to my Adonis DNA.”

Many of the hosts were full of inane questions regarding Sheen’s mental state and past. Charlie dismissed them as if they were rhetorical with his laser-guided missile of winning tru—(I can’t keep up with his craziness).

“-Are there any drugs in this house?
If there are, you better find them and give them to me immediately.”
“You already know what they do.
-Because you've watched them (porn stars)?
No, because I'm guessing right.”
“-Some are saying you are bi-polar.
Wow, then what? What's the cure, medicine, to make me like them? Not gonna happen. I'm not bi-polar, I'm bi-winning, I win here and I win there. Now what?”
“-What will your tombstone say?
I don't know, something dot com.”
“-Do you own guns?
No, not anymore, they took them all away.”
“-Why would someone do that to you? (go to the press)
I don't know; retarded zombie.”
“-How was that? (a porn conquest)
I don't know, I was loaded dude.”
“-When is the last time you used?
I use a blender, I use a vacuum cleaner. When is the last time I took or ingested drugs? ... I do not remember. A couple of days before the suits rolled in and said change it, change everything, we are shutting you down.”

Charlie was full of theories on life, some transcendent, some crazy, acid-dream-fueled. Either way, you had to listen to what the Sheen had to say about the attitudes of humanity.

“Oh shame, uhps, move on. What are you going to do change it?”
“'You gotta to work through your resentments.' Yeah, no, I'm going to hang on to them and they are going to fuel my attack. And they are going to fuel the battle cry of my deadly and dangerous and secret and silent soldiers 'cause they're all around you. Anyway, thought you were just messing with one dude, sorry. Winning.”
“Women are not to be hit, they are to be hugged and caressed.”
“(on Denise Richards) She's a complete stone cold hammer.”
“If can walk back to your past when your father locked you in the closet, bring me back a souvenir. Bring me back the ashtray from his office with the burning Swisher Sweet in it.”
“Hope is for suckers and fools.”
“Can't is the cancer of happen.”
“(On death) It's the greatest trip 'cause they save it for last. Ya know, deep.”

Charlie Sheen came off like a drug-addled lunatic who bathed in boiling water everyday during his interviews. (Seriously, how red and raw can his skin get.) But, maybe we are the crazy ones. Maybe we were witnessing cortexs of the brain being used to their full potential for the first time. I mean, in his more lucid moments, he did adhere to a moral code of getting his crew paid and make sense of his legal battle. At times, he seemed to be a master strategist, a statesman even...

“-You sound like Thomas Jefferson.
Well, I'm not Thomas Jefferson. He was a pussy.”

@CharlieSheen: Fastball; this just in, Thomas Jefferson comes forward to sheepishly admit, “Sheen’s right. I am a pussy.” C

Nah, maybe he’s just high.

-K

So Much for Fiscal Responsibility

Stephen Crowley/New York Times

The House of Representatives is getting ready for a dogfight. They are going to cut $100 billion dollars from the budget this year. That shouldn't be too hard since Congress authorized a $110 billion dollar auto bailout and spent $109.5 billion dollars on something called the Term Auction Facility that bought up banks (now pretty much worthless) mortgage-backed securities. Nope, it's going to be near impossible.

Why? Because when you keep giving people more and more money they get used to having it. So, when you try to take it away from them, they get mad and feel it's owed to them and will fight you to the death. They feel like it was their money all along and you are trying to rob them. It's pretty basic human psychology that Congress never seems to grasp. That and you don't spend other people's money, especially if its giant sums, like you would spend your own.

But, besides Congress' unreasoned thinking, they are going to try and cut the $100 billion dollars out of non-security discretionary spending. Which is the equivalent to implementing a salary cap in the NBA, but only on head coaches. Let's see, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and the military account for 60% of the budget. Let's exclude that and apply the cut to the departments that probably shouldn't exist anyway, but will reactively (in a purely innate survival instinct kind of way) cause a huge stir should their money get touched. Why not bring everybody home from Afghanistan and Iraq? That was costing $100 billion a month last time I checked.

Unless, you touch the stuff that actually affects the systemic fiscal instability of the United States, Congress, you are not serious. This is the same arguing-for-show that people who actually believe in this stuff hate. If you are going to "do something about the spending" then ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING.

Eternally frustrated,

-K