Oh no, there's plenty of stupid on both sides of the aisle. Just look at Hank Johnson's concern about whether Guam will capsize. (Granted, he later claimed that it was a joke... but man, what a deadpan.) Or the whole anti-GMO thing. The thing is, there's a lot of smarts on both sides, too. But the Republicans are so afraid of being called elitist, they just don't let it show. I'll never understand that. I *want* the people in charge of the country to be smarter than I. If they aren't, then just let me run the place and call it a day. We're on the not so slow slide to Idiocracy.
I was thinking the same thing. If they are still at their 95% failure rate, the fact that they found 2,000 guns means that 38,000 guns made it onto planes. And nothing bad happened. Don't you love security theater?! But by golly you can be sure that no granny made it on with a water bottle!!
Don't you remember right after 911 when they were stopping people about a mile from the airport and checking their cars? Not that that would stop a determined terrorist from making a mess of things. The problem was, since it was real cops without real search warrants, they realized they couldn't legally do anything with any evidence they might find. Not much use if your goal is locking up pot smokers.
I've been really surprised we haven't seen a security line bombing/shooting. It would be way more effective at screwing with America than just taking down another plane. All it would take would be a handful of crazies with guns, and some simple timing. They wouldn't even have to buy tickets, since in most places the security line isn't too far from the boarding pass checkpoint.
On a tangential note, I was thinking about getting a group of Boy Scouts to help me with a service project. I want to hand out copies of the Bill of Rights at the security line at my local airport. Maybe bring a fife and drum to play Yankee Doodle or something. Bwahahaha
I am a counter example. I would vote for Bernie above just about any GOP out there, but if Hillary wins the nomination, I'll probably just have to go third party. There are a few of the sane GOP guys I'd vote for over her, but not Trump or Cruz. And if you think she could actually control that lunatic bull in a china shop, you're dreaming. That's the sort of secret weapon that ends up blowing everybody to smithereens.
It's amazing how many people love to conflate Socialism and Communism. Part of the blame can be placed on the USSR and China. When the biggest two communist examples people can think of bill themselves as Socialist Republics, it is an understandable mistake. The fact that it's automatically associated with EVIL and ANTI-AMERICAN, is a different matter altogether. You would think that the Red Scare of the 40s and 50s was relegated to the past, but I guess it's as alive and well as racism.
Socialism is something practiced already in this country. We have Social Security, interstate highways, public libraries and parks, Medicaid, just to name a few programs that most people are pretty OK with. In fact, most of the people who are anti-socialism would shout to the heavens if you tried to take away any of these benefits.
Socialism can coexist with nearly any type of political system. Communism is (at least by definition) a direct rule by the people (although this has never been fully realized in practice). Socialism allows for personal property, modified capitalism, religious practice; Communism does not. Communism requires centralized economic controls; Socialism does not.
My personal favorite are the RWNJs who further conflate Socialism and Communism with Fascism. Then they throw a "Liberal" in there, because that makes seven kinds of no sense. I guess serving two 4-year terms and peacefully stepping down from office is totally the way a fascist dictator would behave.
What's with the scare quotes? Social justice is the notion that everyone in a society deserves justice. Pretty simple really. I think refugees deserve justice. I think rape victims deserve justice. I think hedge fund managers deserve justice. I think transsexuals deserve justice. The list goes on. You do what is right in your society, and your society should do right by you. Even if you do wrong, you still deserve justice (it just might be bad for you).
What would you like to call people fleeing Syria because of the violence there? I don't think "refugee" is a sugar coat, it is just a helpful term signifying that the person is not from the country. Words seem very important to you, but I find it interesting that you don't offer what terminology should be used. Do you really think it would be meaningful for CNN to talk about the "hostile foreign invading influx" in Cologne? Nobody would know what the fuck you were talking about. If you say they were refugees, everybody has a better picture what you mean.
Give me an example of what you think the "'social justice' crowd" is and how they would go about attacking media outlets. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Would it be a twitter campaign? Oh noes! However will their stock price recover from such a horrible long-lasting event?!
Let's talk about police officers next. I find it sad that you think the "only reasonable thing" a police officer can do in ANY circumstance would be to shoot an unarmed youth. There are several other reasonable things that other police forces across the planet do, that don't end up with dead unarmed people. Surely our cops are bright enough to figure some of these alternatives out. It might also help if they don't give people shit on purpose trying to get their dander up. Take the guy with the bright headlights, for example. What crime did Deven Guilford commit?
So now we get to the real meat of your argument. That the media should report on social justice as if it is some breaking news story. Well, this probably makes perfect sense in your head, because you are using social justice to mean some bizarre mix of things you don't like (although you haven't really defined it). Luckily, most people understand that social justice isn't really a news story so much as an extension of the social contract. You may not like that we try to treat people with dignity and respect, but we do. And I think society is better for it.
There are other ways we could go. Assume all refugees are rapists. Allow cops to be judge jury and executioner. Declare everyone who disagrees with you is weak or angry or irrational. No thank you. I would choose social justice over these other options any day.
I could make the comment that news outlets aren't covering the lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress. And then I could claim that it was some vast anti-choice conspiracy to ignore the crimes of fraudulent so-called journalists. I could even throw in some scare quotes. But I realize that it's probably just because the suit hasn't progressed very far, and it's not clear if it will, so there's no real reason to devote a lot of news time to it. Likewise, CNN's use of the word refugee probably isn't a conspiracy. And maybe, just maybe, news outlets blame police for shooting unarmed youth because they hold police to a higher standard (as do most of their viewers).
For starters, he has no clue what the phrase "carpet bombing" means; that was painfully clear in the debate. He said the federal government wants to crack down on school districts that don't allow transgender kids to use the showers of their identified gender. He has a problem with OSHA/ADA guidelines on toilet seats. He thinks Barack Obama is somehow unique in writing signing statements and executive orders. He said that expanding Medicaid will make it harder for the poor to get healthcare (WTF?). He told Catholics that Democrats said, "Change your religious beliefs or we'll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals." He's against net neutrality.
As a matter of opinion, he's just creepy. He cooks bacon on a gun. Also, if Republicans complained because Obama hadn't even served for one entire senate term, then they should have the same issue with this cat. But they won't because when a Republican has no experience, he's an "outsider." When a Democrat has no experience he's "unqualified."
Lobbying is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment guarantees your right to petition the government. Whether or not corporations should be granted that right is a different question.
First off, the entire idea of having a screen like that in any seat the driver can see is fucking idiotic and will cause crashes.
It's a Microsoft product. Of course it will cause crashes. The good thing is, when your Microsoft Car crashes, just restart it and everything will be back to normal.
Absolutely untrue, and shame on you for perpetuating such a horrible myth.
I could have easily gotten out of jury duty by making some outrageous racist claim or the like. But I'm smart enough to know that if everybody does that, then when I get wrongfully accused of something there won't be anybody intelligent to see through the DA's BS. The case I was on, they had zero evidence. Just a BS story from a stripper. No bloodstains on her dress, no knife, nothing. DA was a damn good lawyer, and the defendant's lawyer was not. Believe it or not, the first time through deliberation, a couple of people actually voted guilty. Had it been a room full of room-temperature IQ's, that case could have easily gone the other way.
Smart people don't weasel out of it if they are smart enough to think of the long-term ramifications of that unethical mindset.
A lot of the ones who didn't return to NO moved to Houston and the surrounding areas. The neighborhood I used to live in had great schools until 2006. Then everything went to hell: increases in violence, decreases in test scores and graduation rates, higher teacher turnover. By the time my kid was old enough to go to kindergarten, the whole district was in shambles. So we moved.
I'm not going to argue that the refugees were the only reason things got bad. The general problems with home values (and thus school district tax revenues) in 2009 certainly played a big part. But there was a definite feeling that somehow school violence was the new normal immediately after our new neighbors moved in.
Those that see terrorists around every corner are weak paranoid LEMMINGS!
I agree, but I find it strange that the one thing the base of both parties agree on is that teh terrists are gonna kill us all! Maybe time for a third party with some common sense to rise up.
Anyone who flies buys into the bullshit that's killing this country.
What?! You want people to fucking drive cross-country instead? WTF?! Planes are a way safer means of travel. Do you like people to die on their way to grandma's house for the holidays or something? Or should we all just stay home?
I think that most air travel is interstate commerce, since you're probably not landing in the same state you left from (except Texas and California). So that would clearly be covered by the Constitution.
As for your Fourth Amendment concerns, I have an interesting story. After getting detained by the TSA for "aggressively grabbing" my carry on, I was told it was illegal to verbally abuse federal agents. I looked at the TSA guy and said, "Wait, you guys are federal agents? So the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution would apply to your searches, right?" At which point he just stammered and walked away. Totally worth missing my flight to see the look on that asshole's face.
One thing people always forget about with this "people would stay home and not work" argument. There are hundreds of thousands of people that don't even use up all of their vacation days every year. Sick employees come to work even when their company has a sick leave policy. People clearly have a bad habit of coming to work when they shouldn't. What drives that? There are several factors, but I think two are the biggest.
First, people like to accomplish things. I was shooting the breeze with one of my hourly employees, and he actually felt uncomfortable because he wasn't getting some work done that he had planned to get done that day. My father-in-law retired with millions in the bank. Yet he still consults from time to time. Does he need the money? No. He just likes to be doing something.
But I think the second factor is even larger, at least for men. Being at work is a lot less stressful than being home dealing with the wife and kids. I reckon after about two or three weeks of staying at home, once all the Legos were sorted and I finally got good at that guitar riff, I would be pounding the pavement pretty hard looking for a job. Any job. And I have a pretty nice family life. I imagine that drive to get back into an office would be even stronger for somebody with four brats and a bitch-on-wheels mother-in-law staying at his house.
Yes. I think it's high time we stop assuming that progressive means smart. There are stupid people of all stripes.
Just the other day I was flying home from LA and there was a nice couple behind me. Obviously very progressive hipster types. But occasionally their conversation would venture into bizarre territory like talking about the health benefits of certain crystals and the aura they could see out the window (aka glory). My favorite was as we were flying into IAH over the piney forest of east Texas: "Oh, look how green it is here! There's no way all of these people could be so bad, living in such a nice place!" WTF?!
That's less than a quarter million per incident. Can't you see what a great value that is? Just think, our government can protect us from hundreds of dollars of damage! Isn't it wonderful?!
It is an aviation term, so its use is completely inappropriate. The FAA are the ones looking like an ass. We are talking about toys, not actual airplanes. I'm not paying $5 to register a damn $15 toy helicopter just because the FAA is retarded. As much as the FAA would love to pretend my son's an actual aviator, he's not, unless he's also an arms dealer for sharing his Nerf ammo with the neighbor kids. I guess my 4yo daughter is a veterinarian, too. And I'd better get a permit from the county before I build my Lego Christmas decorations.
I'm not normally one to whine about government overreach, but half a pound is a bit light to be requiring federal registration. Furthermore, if it doesn't cross state lines, how the hell does the federal government have a right to step in anyway? Last time I checked airplane regulation wasn't listed in the Constitution. Little toys certainly weren't either.
Back when gold was really popular for money, its industrial and medicinal uses were virtually unknown. What does that leave us, aesthetic purposes? So it has value because some people like shiny things? No, it has value because people agree it has value. Since people agree that I can pay them for things with little ones and zeros on a server somewhere, those ones and zeros have value, too. This applies equally to Bitcoin and USD. If suddenly people stop letting me use ones and zeros, whether they represent Bitcoin or USD, then they will cease to have value. Likewise, since people don't generally accept gold bullion in stores or online, it is roughly worthless to me for the purpose of paying my bills.
Yes, everything she touched at Yahoo turned to complete shit:
Acquisitions: Stamped, OnTheAir, Snip.it, Summly, xobni, Astrid. Basically everything but Tumblr or ad companies.
"Improvements" to: message boards, Flickr, sports, the logo, mail
Other shenanigans: NSA webcam pics, Java ad exploit
It was not a good 3.5 years. The only smart things she did was 1) approve repurchasing of some more Alibaba shares that they had sold back right before she took over, and 2) purchasing Tumblr (at least until they Yahoo! it all up. Full disclosure: I avoid Tumblr anyway, so they might have already scuttled this ship, I don't know).
It always cracks me up when my white male Christian employee complains about how mistreated and oppressed white male Christians are. Then when some other group complains about getting mistreated he decries the "victim culture in America." Talk about irony.
The problem is and always will be: what counts as income? The simplest answer would be whatever the total change in a person's net worth is. The sticky part is how to define that. Do a little research on how top executives get paid, and you'll see that the answer isn't immediately obvious. Even something like gifts or inheritance can become a big question. Then there's the issue of bartered goods.
A whole other problem is that some people don't think they should have to pay taxes on certain income, for instance money you make that goes to pay home mortgage interest. Most economists agree that's about the stupidest tax break a society could come up with, but they also agree there's not really any way it will change in the foreseeable future. Other tax breaks for things like medical expenses, R&D, sales tax, charitable contributions all seem like good ideas, but they make the tax code longer. (come to think of it, each of those things don't increase your net worth... so maybe that would work. hmmm...)
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Oh no, there's plenty of stupid on both sides of the aisle. Just look at Hank Johnson's concern about whether Guam will capsize. (Granted, he later claimed that it was a joke... but man, what a deadpan.) Or the whole anti-GMO thing. The thing is, there's a lot of smarts on both sides, too. But the Republicans are so afraid of being called elitist, they just don't let it show. I'll never understand that. I *want* the people in charge of the country to be smarter than I. If they aren't, then just let me run the place and call it a day. We're on the not so slow slide to Idiocracy.
You know they have guns there, too, right?
I was thinking the same thing. If they are still at their 95% failure rate, the fact that they found 2,000 guns means that 38,000 guns made it onto planes. And nothing bad happened. Don't you love security theater?! But by golly you can be sure that no granny made it on with a water bottle!!
Don't you remember right after 911 when they were stopping people about a mile from the airport and checking their cars? Not that that would stop a determined terrorist from making a mess of things. The problem was, since it was real cops without real search warrants, they realized they couldn't legally do anything with any evidence they might find. Not much use if your goal is locking up pot smokers.
I've been really surprised we haven't seen a security line bombing/shooting. It would be way more effective at screwing with America than just taking down another plane. All it would take would be a handful of crazies with guns, and some simple timing. They wouldn't even have to buy tickets, since in most places the security line isn't too far from the boarding pass checkpoint.
On a tangential note, I was thinking about getting a group of Boy Scouts to help me with a service project. I want to hand out copies of the Bill of Rights at the security line at my local airport. Maybe bring a fife and drum to play Yankee Doodle or something. Bwahahaha
I am a counter example. I would vote for Bernie above just about any GOP out there, but if Hillary wins the nomination, I'll probably just have to go third party. There are a few of the sane GOP guys I'd vote for over her, but not Trump or Cruz. And if you think she could actually control that lunatic bull in a china shop, you're dreaming. That's the sort of secret weapon that ends up blowing everybody to smithereens.
It's amazing how many people love to conflate Socialism and Communism. Part of the blame can be placed on the USSR and China. When the biggest two communist examples people can think of bill themselves as Socialist Republics, it is an understandable mistake. The fact that it's automatically associated with EVIL and ANTI-AMERICAN, is a different matter altogether. You would think that the Red Scare of the 40s and 50s was relegated to the past, but I guess it's as alive and well as racism.
Socialism is something practiced already in this country. We have Social Security, interstate highways, public libraries and parks, Medicaid, just to name a few programs that most people are pretty OK with. In fact, most of the people who are anti-socialism would shout to the heavens if you tried to take away any of these benefits.
Socialism can coexist with nearly any type of political system. Communism is (at least by definition) a direct rule by the people (although this has never been fully realized in practice). Socialism allows for personal property, modified capitalism, religious practice; Communism does not. Communism requires centralized economic controls; Socialism does not.
My personal favorite are the RWNJs who further conflate Socialism and Communism with Fascism. Then they throw a "Liberal" in there, because that makes seven kinds of no sense. I guess serving two 4-year terms and peacefully stepping down from office is totally the way a fascist dictator would behave.
What's with the scare quotes? Social justice is the notion that everyone in a society deserves justice. Pretty simple really. I think refugees deserve justice. I think rape victims deserve justice. I think hedge fund managers deserve justice. I think transsexuals deserve justice. The list goes on. You do what is right in your society, and your society should do right by you. Even if you do wrong, you still deserve justice (it just might be bad for you).
What would you like to call people fleeing Syria because of the violence there? I don't think "refugee" is a sugar coat, it is just a helpful term signifying that the person is not from the country. Words seem very important to you, but I find it interesting that you don't offer what terminology should be used. Do you really think it would be meaningful for CNN to talk about the "hostile foreign invading influx" in Cologne? Nobody would know what the fuck you were talking about. If you say they were refugees, everybody has a better picture what you mean.
Give me an example of what you think the "'social justice' crowd" is and how they would go about attacking media outlets. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Would it be a twitter campaign? Oh noes! However will their stock price recover from such a horrible long-lasting event?!
Let's talk about police officers next. I find it sad that you think the "only reasonable thing" a police officer can do in ANY circumstance would be to shoot an unarmed youth. There are several other reasonable things that other police forces across the planet do, that don't end up with dead unarmed people. Surely our cops are bright enough to figure some of these alternatives out. It might also help if they don't give people shit on purpose trying to get their dander up. Take the guy with the bright headlights, for example. What crime did Deven Guilford commit?
So now we get to the real meat of your argument. That the media should report on social justice as if it is some breaking news story. Well, this probably makes perfect sense in your head, because you are using social justice to mean some bizarre mix of things you don't like (although you haven't really defined it). Luckily, most people understand that social justice isn't really a news story so much as an extension of the social contract. You may not like that we try to treat people with dignity and respect, but we do. And I think society is better for it.
There are other ways we could go. Assume all refugees are rapists. Allow cops to be judge jury and executioner. Declare everyone who disagrees with you is weak or angry or irrational. No thank you. I would choose social justice over these other options any day.
I could make the comment that news outlets aren't covering the lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress. And then I could claim that it was some vast anti-choice conspiracy to ignore the crimes of fraudulent so-called journalists. I could even throw in some scare quotes. But I realize that it's probably just because the suit hasn't progressed very far, and it's not clear if it will, so there's no real reason to devote a lot of news time to it. Likewise, CNN's use of the word refugee probably isn't a conspiracy. And maybe, just maybe, news outlets blame police for shooting unarmed youth because they hold police to a higher standard (as do most of their viewers).
For starters, he has no clue what the phrase "carpet bombing" means; that was painfully clear in the debate. He said the federal government wants to crack down on school districts that don't allow transgender kids to use the showers of their identified gender. He has a problem with OSHA/ADA guidelines on toilet seats. He thinks Barack Obama is somehow unique in writing signing statements and executive orders. He said that expanding Medicaid will make it harder for the poor to get healthcare (WTF?). He told Catholics that Democrats said, "Change your religious beliefs or we'll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals." He's against net neutrality.
As a matter of opinion, he's just creepy. He cooks bacon on a gun. Also, if Republicans complained because Obama hadn't even served for one entire senate term, then they should have the same issue with this cat. But they won't because when a Republican has no experience, he's an "outsider." When a Democrat has no experience he's "unqualified."
Lobbying is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment guarantees your right to petition the government. Whether or not corporations should be granted that right is a different question.
First off, the entire idea of having a screen like that in any seat the driver can see is fucking idiotic and will cause crashes.
It's a Microsoft product. Of course it will cause crashes. The good thing is, when your Microsoft Car crashes, just restart it and everything will be back to normal.
Absolutely untrue, and shame on you for perpetuating such a horrible myth.
I could have easily gotten out of jury duty by making some outrageous racist claim or the like. But I'm smart enough to know that if everybody does that, then when I get wrongfully accused of something there won't be anybody intelligent to see through the DA's BS. The case I was on, they had zero evidence. Just a BS story from a stripper. No bloodstains on her dress, no knife, nothing. DA was a damn good lawyer, and the defendant's lawyer was not. Believe it or not, the first time through deliberation, a couple of people actually voted guilty. Had it been a room full of room-temperature IQ's, that case could have easily gone the other way.
Smart people don't weasel out of it if they are smart enough to think of the long-term ramifications of that unethical mindset.
A lot of the ones who didn't return to NO moved to Houston and the surrounding areas. The neighborhood I used to live in had great schools until 2006. Then everything went to hell: increases in violence, decreases in test scores and graduation rates, higher teacher turnover. By the time my kid was old enough to go to kindergarten, the whole district was in shambles. So we moved.
I'm not going to argue that the refugees were the only reason things got bad. The general problems with home values (and thus school district tax revenues) in 2009 certainly played a big part. But there was a definite feeling that somehow school violence was the new normal immediately after our new neighbors moved in.
Those that see terrorists around every corner are weak paranoid LEMMINGS!
I agree, but I find it strange that the one thing the base of both parties agree on is that teh terrists are gonna kill us all! Maybe time for a third party with some common sense to rise up.
Anyone who flies buys into the bullshit that's killing this country.
What?! You want people to fucking drive cross-country instead? WTF?! Planes are a way safer means of travel. Do you like people to die on their way to grandma's house for the holidays or something? Or should we all just stay home?
I think that most air travel is interstate commerce, since you're probably not landing in the same state you left from (except Texas and California). So that would clearly be covered by the Constitution.
As for your Fourth Amendment concerns, I have an interesting story. After getting detained by the TSA for "aggressively grabbing" my carry on, I was told it was illegal to verbally abuse federal agents. I looked at the TSA guy and said, "Wait, you guys are federal agents? So the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution would apply to your searches, right?" At which point he just stammered and walked away. Totally worth missing my flight to see the look on that asshole's face.
One thing people always forget about with this "people would stay home and not work" argument. There are hundreds of thousands of people that don't even use up all of their vacation days every year. Sick employees come to work even when their company has a sick leave policy. People clearly have a bad habit of coming to work when they shouldn't. What drives that? There are several factors, but I think two are the biggest.
First, people like to accomplish things. I was shooting the breeze with one of my hourly employees, and he actually felt uncomfortable because he wasn't getting some work done that he had planned to get done that day. My father-in-law retired with millions in the bank. Yet he still consults from time to time. Does he need the money? No. He just likes to be doing something.
But I think the second factor is even larger, at least for men. Being at work is a lot less stressful than being home dealing with the wife and kids. I reckon after about two or three weeks of staying at home, once all the Legos were sorted and I finally got good at that guitar riff, I would be pounding the pavement pretty hard looking for a job. Any job. And I have a pretty nice family life. I imagine that drive to get back into an office would be even stronger for somebody with four brats and a bitch-on-wheels mother-in-law staying at his house.
Just the other day I was flying home from LA and there was a nice couple behind me. Obviously very progressive hipster types. But occasionally their conversation would venture into bizarre territory like talking about the health benefits of certain crystals and the aura they could see out the window (aka glory). My favorite was as we were flying into IAH over the piney forest of east Texas: "Oh, look how green it is here! There's no way all of these people could be so bad, living in such a nice place!" WTF?!
Also, some rednecks are progressive.
KiChing, a startup that's actively addressing Mexico's unique e-commerce challenges
Really? They named a company intended for Mexican markets something that basically translates into KiFuc?!
That's less than a quarter million per incident. Can't you see what a great value that is? Just think, our government can protect us from hundreds of dollars of damage! Isn't it wonderful?!
It is an aviation term, so its use is completely inappropriate. The FAA are the ones looking like an ass. We are talking about toys, not actual airplanes. I'm not paying $5 to register a damn $15 toy helicopter just because the FAA is retarded. As much as the FAA would love to pretend my son's an actual aviator, he's not, unless he's also an arms dealer for sharing his Nerf ammo with the neighbor kids. I guess my 4yo daughter is a veterinarian, too. And I'd better get a permit from the county before I build my Lego Christmas decorations.
I'm not normally one to whine about government overreach, but half a pound is a bit light to be requiring federal registration. Furthermore, if it doesn't cross state lines, how the hell does the federal government have a right to step in anyway? Last time I checked airplane regulation wasn't listed in the Constitution. Little toys certainly weren't either.
Back when gold was really popular for money, its industrial and medicinal uses were virtually unknown. What does that leave us, aesthetic purposes? So it has value because some people like shiny things? No, it has value because people agree it has value. Since people agree that I can pay them for things with little ones and zeros on a server somewhere, those ones and zeros have value, too. This applies equally to Bitcoin and USD. If suddenly people stop letting me use ones and zeros, whether they represent Bitcoin or USD, then they will cease to have value. Likewise, since people don't generally accept gold bullion in stores or online, it is roughly worthless to me for the purpose of paying my bills.
And what gave the gold value? I would much rather be paid in tiny bricks of ABS than gold flecks.
Yes, everything she touched at Yahoo turned to complete shit:
Acquisitions: Stamped, OnTheAir, Snip.it, Summly, xobni, Astrid. Basically everything but Tumblr or ad companies.
"Improvements" to: message boards, Flickr, sports, the logo, mail
Other shenanigans: NSA webcam pics, Java ad exploit
It was not a good 3.5 years. The only smart things she did was 1) approve repurchasing of some more Alibaba shares that they had sold back right before she took over, and 2) purchasing Tumblr (at least until they Yahoo! it all up. Full disclosure: I avoid Tumblr anyway, so they might have already scuttled this ship, I don't know).
It always cracks me up when my white male Christian employee complains about how mistreated and oppressed white male Christians are. Then when some other group complains about getting mistreated he decries the "victim culture in America." Talk about irony.
The problem is and always will be: what counts as income? The simplest answer would be whatever the total change in a person's net worth is. The sticky part is how to define that. Do a little research on how top executives get paid, and you'll see that the answer isn't immediately obvious. Even something like gifts or inheritance can become a big question. Then there's the issue of bartered goods.
A whole other problem is that some people don't think they should have to pay taxes on certain income, for instance money you make that goes to pay home mortgage interest. Most economists agree that's about the stupidest tax break a society could come up with, but they also agree there's not really any way it will change in the foreseeable future. Other tax breaks for things like medical expenses, R&D, sales tax, charitable contributions all seem like good ideas, but they make the tax code longer. (come to think of it, each of those things don't increase your net worth... so maybe that would work. hmmm...)