Today's Gun Nut

Nothing better than this from Wonkette:

So here is one of those stories where the initial impression — “Maybe-crazy teacher was toting around an AR-15 just like the one used in the Newtown massacre!” — sounds like perfect Wonketfodder, and then you start looking at it more and finally you kind of throw your hands up in the air and wish you’d gone back to re-reading Scud: The Disposable Assassin, where it’s clear who the bad guys are. In keeping with Wonkette Policy, we will not be making fun of possibly-mentally-ill high school teacher Steven Davis, “a beloved science and math teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School” in Bennington, Vermont. Davis surrendered a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to police and was hospitalized for observation last week after neighbors spotted him carrying the weapon to his car; he also had posted several rambling, maybe-threatening videos to YouTube and his wife had taken their children from their home and gotten a protection order against him. Judges don’t grant those on a whim.

--and--

(One of the few brightly lit zones of moral clarity here: Wayne LaPierre sucks ass.) 

Pass The Bleach, Please

Posted on Democratic Underground and Addicting Info:

According to Google Translate, the bottom sign says: "you must have a permit to play in this field. violators will be at risk from police action".

And of course, that translates to "Whites Only" in a de facto kinda way; ie: most white people can't read Spanish so they'll ignore the warning.  Hell, most white people can't read much English, and a boatload of the ones who can read English "don't give a fuck what the gubmint says I ain't allowed to do".

So anyway, when the Spanish-speakers show up, they're likely to assume the white kids have the necessary permission and since they're mostly decent law-abiding folk, they'll turn away (can you say, "self-deportation"?).

According to snopes.com it's legit, but the school district superintendent says it was just a big oops - she and her husband grabbed the tool box and took the thing down as soon as she was made aware of it.

The remaining question is whether or not it was any kind of deliberate attempt to maintain/re-establish White Supremacy.

Driftglass and BlueGal have a great segment on this week's podcast about important (and subtle) differences between White Supremacy and straight up Racism:

The Professional Left, episode 161

Today's Tweet

This is a screen shot from twitter.

Check out the rest of them at :#bothsidesdont

hat tip = Professional Left Podcast #160

The Parade Of Fail

La Vita Loca

Inheritance

We're starting to get more flack about "the death tax", and of course, the frame is that we simply must protect the children of the small business owner or the family farmer from losing everything to the Tax Man when the patriarch croaks.  And I'd go along with it if there was any real truth to it.  But there isn't, so I can't.

The National Memo:

You may have heard of the estate tax, but chances are you will never have to pay it, especially now that the Senate has set the exemption at $5 million.

That means that if you inherit an estate, likely because you were born with the right last name, you won’t have to pay taxes on any of it unless its value is over $5,000,000 — then you’ll pay 40 percent on the amount above that, about the same as the new top rate on high earners. And that $5,000,000 exemption will be adjusted for inflation yearly.

The argument I find truly bogus is the one revolving around, "that money's already been taxed..." cuz that one's just pretty dumb.  Every dollar has already been taxed.  The dollar you spend at the movies is an after-tax dollar; so is the dollar you spend on rent or food or gas etc etc etc.  These arguments are in favor of the Ownership Class grabbing more for themselves and leaving less for everybody else.

I have great sympathy for anybody who survives the tragedy of losing a family provider, and we have to make sure we take care of people who need taking care of, so let's be at least a little careful with how we set it up; intergenerational wealth transfer is a good and important thing - we have to put some limits on it though.

So I'm thoroughly unconvinced that a first son or the designated heiress to the family business deserves to be handed a multimillion dollar enterprise at no cost, owing solely to their choosing the right joint to be born into.  Here's a thought: Come up with a business plan, go to the bank, borrow the bucks and let's see if you're as good at farming as your dad was.

Any other way of doing things is anti-competitive, anti-meritocratic, and pushes us all back towards the kind of imperial aristocracy we're supposed to be resisting.

The Cook Book

Brian Dalton (Mr Deity) tells us why Cook Book Religion doesn't make for a better world.

Today's Pix

Some Random Tho'ts

• My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I was supposed to do.

• I'm having one of those days where my middle finger seems to be the answer to every question.

• The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google Search Results.

• Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.

New Music

Dunno what exactly to think about this - I guess it could just be the standard teenage angst-y thing about looking for a place to belong, but there's something that feels a little more universal to me.  It's interesting.



hat tip = Balloon Juice