I am rich and poor at the same time.

A new thing of mine seems to be getting up before noon, going to a coffee shop, and blogging. It seems like a nice and and somewhat productive way to start a day. Seeing that people don't bother going to the links I post, I have decided to take little bits from the articles and then make them a link. The idea is that the small blurb will get your attention and seduce you into reading the entire thing... like a teasing slutty whore! ohh those sneaky whores.

"the slenderest knowledge that may be obatined of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of lesser things."
St. Thomas Aquinas

Here is a great article about Steve Forbes from the San Francisco Chronicle. Its short, its sweet, and its an easy read... so come on... read it....


The (heavily repeated) claim that CNN was a "liberal" news channel was always a source of great hilarity amongst genuine liberals and progressives. It's not hard to be a liberal channel in an environment dominated by companies such as Time Warner, Disney, and GE. Basically, being a liberal news channel in the US is like being a liberal person in Texas: just say that you favor lethal injection over the electric chair because it reduces the suffering of the prisoner and bingo! You're liberal. Dare to suggest that the US military might not be 100% right all of the time, and bingo! Your news channel is liberal.

During the 1990s, average worker pay barely outpaced inflation. But the most affluent 5 percent of families saw their incomes rise 111 percent. The inflation-adjusted incomes of the very top 1 percent increased 184 percent, from $454,200 in 1979 to $1,290,800 in 2000.

Corporate CEOs saw their pay soar 571 percent in the '90s, to a $10 million-plus average. An average worker would have to labor centuries, and in extreme cases a millennium, to equal what some of these plutocrats cart home in a year.

Yet, our tax codes are packed with special breaks for the affluent, and the Bush-era tax cuts are enriching them even more. Contrast that with the fate of a minimum-wage worker, paid $3.35 hourly in 1981, $5.15 since 1997. That is well below the poverty level, and too little, in most regions, to afford even a modest apartment. (Washington's minimum wage is $7.35, the highest in the nation.)