Maul of America

Hostel Treatment

The fact that I didn't submit an entry for The New Yorker's 320th "Cartoon Caption Contest" won't force me to reserve comment on this week's winners.



Note how the last "finalist" totally misses the Trojan horse legend clearly alluded to in the cartoon:

• "Beware the hidden service charge." - I would have said: "Beware of hidden service charges." But, not bad.
  
  
• "No one attacks quite like the French." - Comme ci, comme ça.
  
  
• "You have any small bills?" - Keep the change.

No Fun League

In case anyone's interested, "fakesweep.com" is still available.  META!

From Network World:

"Super Bowl super bust: US seizes 307 websites; grabs $4.8M in fake NFL merchandise

...the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said special agents this week seized a total of 307 websites and snatched up 42,692 items of phony Super Bowl-related memorabilia along with other counterfeit items for a total take of more than $4.8 million - up from $3.72 million last year.

Sixteen of the sites the agency shut down during this operation known as Fake Sweep, were illegally streaming live sporting telecasts over the Internet, including NFL games. Two hundred ninety-one website domain names were illegally selling and distributing counterfeit merchandise, ICE stated."

The Millionaires's Tax

In "Romney’s Tax Returns and Effective Tax Rates of the Rich," Scott Hodges outlines how the tax returns for filers with an Adjusted Gross Income of one million dollars or more, basically only .2 percent of all the tax returns filed, account for a full twenty percent of all revenue collected.

Sounds progressive to me. 

"For the entire universe of American taxpayers, the average tax rate is 11 percent of our AGI. The highest average tax rate paid by anyone earning under $100,000 is 8 percent. That shows the power of the sundry tax credits available to the 'middle-class.'

By contrast, millionaires pay an average rate of 25 percent. Although taxpayers earning between $2 million and $5 million pay an average tax rate of 26 percent, while those earning more than $10 million pay an average of 22 percent. We can speculate that one of the reasons for this is that much of their overall income comes from capital gains, which is taxed at 15 percent (only 20 percent of the total AGI for these $10 million-plus taxpayers is from salaries). However, even with this 'preferential' tax rate on capital gains, the data clearly shows that their overall average tax rate is at least twice that of the nation as a whole."

Office Humor

This lame Moveon.org video parody of "The Office" poking fun at Mitt Romney is my new Rorschach test.  If someone likes it, that tells me they're full of shit.

Reasons (I always have reasons):

1. It's both unfunny and WAY too long.
2. Justin Long doesn't look or sound like Mitt Romney.
3. Did Moveon.com realize the irony that Justin Long was a paid spokesperson for Apple which sent thousands of American jobs overseas.

Save Ferris

A teaser video has hit the webosphere hinting that Matthew Broderick will use a Super Bowl ad as a vehicle to reprise (sorta) his Ferris Bueller character.  

One can only hope that's all it is.

From Time:

If the report holds, that would mean that the Super Bowl’s millions of viewers could find themselves staring at commercials starring a graying Ferris Bueller in a Hangover-addled 30-second plot line that involves the character careening around in Honda vehicles. Sounds par for the course for Bowl ads — meaning, it might be surreally fun.

See What He Did There?

Newt Gingrich claims that his tattered personal history and past infedelities are actually a good thing.  When life gives you lemons, make urine.

From CBN.com:

"So, I think in that sense, it may make me more normal than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect and maybe not understanding the human condition, and the challenges of life for normal people."

Whiplash

A beyotch of a driver backs into another car, then she and her asshole of a friend try to pin it on the victim.  Fortunately, for some reason, the driver of the car hit had a camera mounted on the dashboard that recorded the entire incident.  Watch the couple's reaction when they realize it.

A YouTube commenter attempts to provide subtitles:

0:10 - Driver: Hmm? Okay wtf
0:21 - Man: Dude, look at what you did to our ride
0:24 - Woman: PERFECT!
0:25 - Man: We are going to have you sign some papers
0:28 - Driver: Ohh really? Look (points at the camera)
0:31 - Woman: Hmm, what? ... Ohh shii... *embarrassed*
0:40 - Woman: Great, just great. (holds the car) Son of a bitch!

 

 

Radical Dude

Time Magazine's January 23rd cover story, "Warren Buffett Is on a Radical Track" spends 5000 words dicussing Warren Buffett's nontraditional views on how the wealthy should pay their "fair share" BUT doesn't ONCE mention that his own company, Berkshire Hathaway has has been fighting the IRS over a billion dollars (give or take) since 2002.

This alone doesn't necessarily invalidate ANY of Buffett's views on taxation. BUT, in the context of the article (again, 5000 words), it has to be worth at least one fucking footnote.

The Time piece references material from the Bershire Hathaway 2010 Annual Report. Here's a statement from page 54 of that report:

"At December 31, 2010 and 2009, net unrecognized tax benefits were $1,005 million and $926 million, respectively. Included in the balance at December 31, 2010, are $774 million of tax positions that, if recognized, would impact the effective tax rate."

An "unrecognized tax benefit" is the difference between the numbers that a company submits on its tax return for a given time period and what it thinks it will actually end up owing after negotiating with the government.  So, one could argue that Buffet, if he really means what he says, should tell his accountants to just pay the damn money and save the IRS a lot of fuss and bother. 

But that might be too radical.

Marky Meme

According to the Washington Post, Mark Wahlberg's has apologized for claiming that things would have turne out differently had he been on board one of the doomed September 11th flights.

In the meantime, the actor's audacious statement created a great Twitter topic: #ifwahlbergwerethere

"Batman would no longer be the hero Gotham needs right now."

"Honestly, it WOULD have been a three hour tour. A three hour tour."

"Netflix instant would not only be free but have every movie, ever"

"The Iranian hostage crisis would have only lasted 222 days"

And my personal favorte (which, ahem,  happens to be my own):

"The "Planet of the Apes" remake would have been great. Oh, wait..."

Love Scenes

Press Play's VERTIGOED "mash-up" contest (which ends at 5PM ET on Friday, January 20th) challenges entrants to take part or all of Bernard Herrmann's "Scene D'Amour," from Vertigo (1958) and swap it into the soundtrack of another film WITHOUT making ANY changes to either.

It's an exercise in juxtaposition that meant to demonstrate how Herrmann's famous score can elevate a lesser work or potentially make a great scene even greater.

In my case, I "Vertigoed" the grisly few last minutes of Seconds, a 1966 John Frankenheimer film starring Rock Hudson. 

Amazingly, the timing of "Scene D'Amour" wedges itself quite nicely into something that it was never intended for.  Of course, the tone of the film's ending becomes somewhat different -- almost triumphant.  At the risk of ruining my odds in the contest (not that I have really have a snow ball's chance - there's a lot of really great entries out there), I must admit that I prefer Seconds' original darker, a cappella ending.

Seconds - Vertigoed from Matt Maul on Vimeo.