Of three posts, I have one on Scrabble and one on Sarah Palin. coincidentally, this caught my eye:
"Everybody in the family played Scrabble and took great pride in hoarding Ks and Qs and slapping them down in long, fancy words on triple-letter scores." -- Going Rogue, p. 12.
Leaving aside the obvious (that others have already pointed out): there's only one Q and K per game, they aren't generally letters you hoard, the main point of playing a long word is to get the bingo, and triple-letter scores are nice but in this context it seems clear she meant "triple-word". You don't play a long word on a triple letter score.
No, what got me what the word "fancy". She came from a smart family, the message is, an educated family, but they never forgot how humble and folksy they truly were. Oh sure, little Sarah might play QUOKkAS on a triple "letter" score (using the blank), but then they'd all laugh about the fancy words and she'd go help with the dishes.
Perhaps after dinner they'd recite Homer in the original Greek, and then make macaroni art together.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sarah Palin supports illegal immigration
From a Nov. 13, 2009 interview with Barbara Walters.
My question to Sarah Palin is this: would you care to extend the same hospitality to Mexicans illegally living in the US as you've extended to the Jewish settlers?
"I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon," said Palin, "because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."I think what she's saying is that we should ignore any concept of a Palestinian territory, international law or the two state solution that most Israelis and Palestinians want, and instead allow the extremists run the show. How else are we going to get to Armageddon in our lifetimes?
My question to Sarah Palin is this: would you care to extend the same hospitality to Mexicans illegally living in the US as you've extended to the Jewish settlers?
The only thread on the internet that ever settled an argument?
I never actually got a formal declaration of surrender from the man who goes by Baggi and who started the thread. However, after he posted that I had some good points and would reply later, he abandoned the thread and went on to start others. Eventually I posted this and did not get a reply.
"...since Baggi has not delivered a counterpoint....did this thread actually accomplish the impossible and settle an argument?"
Update: turns out he did not concede the argument, although his main rebuttal since I posted this blog entry is that he's actually a unicorn. The entire thread is here. Baggi claimed that the Bush tax cuts (which Obama plans to end and McCain wanted to continue) actually did not benefit the rich for two reasons:
1. Under the Bush tax cuts, the top 20% of earners (or "Top Quintile") got a lower tax cut than the bottom 80% (the next four "Quintiles"), as shown here:
Or in other words, the top 20% of earners ("Top Quintile") saw their tax rates drop only 8.9%, while the next 20% ("Fourth Quintile") got a whopping 15.1% tax cut.
2. The wealthy are paying a higher percentage of the total tax revenue (up two percent from 2000 to 2005)
How do you refute these arguments? Well, let's use some logic and facts of our own. Let's tackle point #1. What's the top quintile all about?
Here's some good data about the distribution of wealth in this country, including this graph:
Yikes - do the top 5% really own 60% of the wealth in the country? If so, the top 20% is meaningless as a demographic. A person in the top 1% might employ someone at the bottom of the top 20% as their driver, but otherwise these are entirely separate groups.
The bottom of the top quintile in 2004 brought home $88K as their annual household income. This is hardly upper class. And yet, using the quintile breakdown we can lump in the $88K earner with Bill Gates. Brilliant.
Why does this matter, though? Well, the very rich are not like us, according to the Washington Post from August 2004.
Okay, I think we've just about demolished the first argument. The top 1% who control some 34% of the country's wealth got a vastly higher tax break than the top 20% overall. And the lower top 20% include those pulling in the princely sum of $88K per year to support their household, which is doing well in some parts of the country and barely scraping by in others.
On to the next claim: as a result (or despite) of the tax cuts, the wealthy are paying more of their share of the total tax revenue, proving that the tax cuts hurt rather than helped them. Well, this is easy enough to demolish with this boring spreadsheet from the Economic Policy Institute.
It's too wide to fit in this blog, but it shows is that that the the top 1% went from pulling in 14.3% of the country's pretax income in 2003 to pulling in 18.1% in 2005, which is a 26.5% increase and more than their 20% tax cut. At the same time the people in the 80% to 95% range (who make roughly between $90K and $150K a year) saw their share of pre-tax income go down.
To dumb down these numbing statistics, the top 1% got a break on their taxes and got even more filthy rich while the rest of us got poorer.
I hope this clears things up. The next time someone tries to say that the rich are overtaxed because they pay most of the tax revenues, smack your hand on your forehand and point them to this page.
"...since Baggi has not delivered a counterpoint....did this thread actually accomplish the impossible and settle an argument?"
Update: turns out he did not concede the argument, although his main rebuttal since I posted this blog entry is that he's actually a unicorn. The entire thread is here. Baggi claimed that the Bush tax cuts (which Obama plans to end and McCain wanted to continue) actually did not benefit the rich for two reasons:
1. Under the Bush tax cuts, the top 20% of earners (or "Top Quintile") got a lower tax cut than the bottom 80% (the next four "Quintiles"), as shown here:
The 2005 total effective federal tax rate as a percentage of the 2000 rate.
Top Quintile = 91.1%
Fourth Quintile = 84.9%
Middle Quintile = 85.5%
Second Quintile = 76.2%
Bottom Quintile = 67.2%
Or in other words, the top 20% of earners ("Top Quintile") saw their tax rates drop only 8.9%, while the next 20% ("Fourth Quintile") got a whopping 15.1% tax cut.
2. The wealthy are paying a higher percentage of the total tax revenue (up two percent from 2000 to 2005)
How do you refute these arguments? Well, let's use some logic and facts of our own. Let's tackle point #1. What's the top quintile all about?
Here's some good data about the distribution of wealth in this country, including this graph:
Yikes - do the top 5% really own 60% of the wealth in the country? If so, the top 20% is meaningless as a demographic. A person in the top 1% might employ someone at the bottom of the top 20% as their driver, but otherwise these are entirely separate groups.
The bottom of the top quintile in 2004 brought home $88K as their annual household income. This is hardly upper class. And yet, using the quintile breakdown we can lump in the $88K earner with Bill Gates. Brilliant.
Why does this matter, though? Well, the very rich are not like us, according to the Washington Post from August 2004.
The effective federal tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has fallen from 33.4 percent to 26.7 percent, a 20 percent drop. In contrast, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers -- whose incomes averaged $51,500 in 2001 -- saw their tax rates drop 9.3 percent.
Okay, I think we've just about demolished the first argument. The top 1% who control some 34% of the country's wealth got a vastly higher tax break than the top 20% overall. And the lower top 20% include those pulling in the princely sum of $88K per year to support their household, which is doing well in some parts of the country and barely scraping by in others.
On to the next claim: as a result (or despite) of the tax cuts, the wealthy are paying more of their share of the total tax revenue, proving that the tax cuts hurt rather than helped them. Well, this is easy enough to demolish with this boring spreadsheet from the Economic Policy Institute.
It's too wide to fit in this blog, but it shows is that that the the top 1% went from pulling in 14.3% of the country's pretax income in 2003 to pulling in 18.1% in 2005, which is a 26.5% increase and more than their 20% tax cut. At the same time the people in the 80% to 95% range (who make roughly between $90K and $150K a year) saw their share of pre-tax income go down.
To dumb down these numbing statistics, the top 1% got a break on their taxes and got even more filthy rich while the rest of us got poorer.
I hope this clears things up. The next time someone tries to say that the rich are overtaxed because they pay most of the tax revenues, smack your hand on your forehand and point them to this page.
Words that SHOULD be in the Scrabble dictionary
Yeah, I realize that the compilers of the Scrabble dictionary had a tricky task in front of them. Real languages evolve, and it's not clear when a word jumps from slang to legitimate usage, or when a foreign word has made the jump. Then there are the nouns derived from verbs. Obviously "thinker" is legitimate, but what about "alluder"? The powers that be say no, and I can't really argue with that one.
However, every so often I feel like I'm being actively punished for having a better-than-average vocabulary. It's a bit aggravating to be told that MERKIN is not a word by the same people who decided, in their quite finite wisdom, that ZA (meaning pizza) was a word for the ages. When was the last time you heard someone say "ZA" - the early 90's? And even back when it was in occasional (mostly ironic) usage, I believe you'd write it as 'za, with the apostrophe.
Someone has to say it: ZA was simple pandering to the anti-Z lobby. And I'm sure I'm not the only one annoyed by the fact that there are two letter words that use both Q (QI) and Z (ZA, ZO in the UK dictionary), but there are no two letter words using C or V, which are worth much less.
Okay, but that's not what I'm here to rant about. What I'm here to rant about are words that should be in the dictionary but aren't. In no particular order:
RATIONER
ANTERIORS
MERKIN
SOJU
With more to come...
However, every so often I feel like I'm being actively punished for having a better-than-average vocabulary. It's a bit aggravating to be told that MERKIN is not a word by the same people who decided, in their quite finite wisdom, that ZA (meaning pizza) was a word for the ages. When was the last time you heard someone say "ZA" - the early 90's? And even back when it was in occasional (mostly ironic) usage, I believe you'd write it as 'za, with the apostrophe.
Someone has to say it: ZA was simple pandering to the anti-Z lobby. And I'm sure I'm not the only one annoyed by the fact that there are two letter words that use both Q (QI) and Z (ZA, ZO in the UK dictionary), but there are no two letter words using C or V, which are worth much less.
Okay, but that's not what I'm here to rant about. What I'm here to rant about are words that should be in the dictionary but aren't. In no particular order:
RATIONER
(Noun) One parceling out supplies to others; one restricting the usage of an object.
Usage: She asked the rationer whether she would be allowed a second egg this week.
http://www.definition-of.com/rationer
Heck, even the Wall Street Journal uses this word!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676.html
ANTERIORS
Yes, anterior is an adjective. But news flash! It's also a noun. And there's no reason it cannot be pluralized.
http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/ANTERIOR
Noun: anterior an'ti(-u)-ree-u(r)
A tooth situated at the front of the mouth
"his malocclusion was caused by malposed anteriors"
MERKIN
Ignorance of the existence of genital wigs is no excuse. Seriously...this is just a pathetic omission.
SOJU
I'm less than shocked that this tasty Korean alcoholic beverage isn't yet recognized as a legal play. But it still should be.
With more to come...
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