Yes, comrades, it's Lecommunist Blocs, the new toy that's sweeping socially conscious and rich, guilty, white neighborhoods across the nation!
You can make real-life Soviet-era apartments for the serfs, complete with listening devices so that the Kremlin can hear every word (and squelch any dissent)!
Gulags...hard labor camps...Communist Party chambers...swank party member palaces...hotels for useful idiot celebrities...even Josef Stalin himself can be built with Lecommunist Blocs!
Each set comes with precisely 100 pieces, all colored gray and all the same size. They are to be distributed ten pieces per person, or else the Secret Police may take you in for "having too many pieces."
Act now, and we'll throw in How To Overthrow the Imperialist Amerikkkans And Avoid Treason and Jail Time* for free. We'll also give you How Rich White Guilty People Can Be Duped Into Hard Line Communism By Convincing Them It's "Social Justice" plus a few "secret" Lecommunist Blocs (the colored ones only Party Leaders have!)
* For residents of Seattle, Madison, San Francisco, Berkeley, Cambridge, Santa Cruz and Austin: we will substitute this book with Hate America, Love the Money for an additional $2.95.
3/31/2007
Make Income Redistribution History, Backwards Sherwood Forest edition
Boston Magazine's John Wolfson does an excellent piece on how the Massachusetts State Lottery is the ultimate redistribution scheme: it takes money from the poor - earned or paid by the government - and gives it to the government, who then distributes it to all 351 cities and towns in the form of lottery aid.
The shiny new fire engine in Weston? Thank the people in West Roxbury who shelled out $300 on a book of scratch tickets and ended up winning a mere $75-80. Newburyport gets to avoid a property tax override because the residents of Lawrence were able to spend 2/3 of their paycheck on Keno. And the city of Lynn probably financed new teachers, firemen, policemen, and other public works for Swampscott, Marblehead, and very small Western New England towns that have all but one Lottery agent, if any.
And, of course, the other people who depend on the poor's paychecks - the ones that have low if not nil Massachusetts state income taxes - is the Legislature, who will happily recoup the monies given in Medicaid, WIC payments, and other government payments in the form of Lottery revenues; if you can entice a poor person to whom you're shelling out benefits to try to become rich and get rid of welfare/debt through the path of least resistance, rather than hard work and education, chances are they'll take the bait...and continue being poor, if not penniless.
The right way to show the poor that the lottery is not the best investment scheme is to show them the real odds of some of these games, not the odds the Lottery promotes*. Treat the Lottery like the do cigarettes, drugs and alcohol - it's a vice, a stupid tax, it's legalized robbery - and make it unattractive and nasty. Reducing the prize payouts from a liberal 71% to a more realistic 52-55%, posting the real odds on the backs of tickets, and showing exactly what taxes will be taken out and how much the prizes are really worth will make the poor think twice on buying a strip of tickets, eliminating or hiding the verification codes on scratch tickets, introducing harder, more complex scratch games (Bingo is a good start), and reducing promotion and public relations may diminish that bromide "You Have to Play" to "Do You Really Want to Waste Your Money On This Scheme?"
So robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then having Paul give back all of his money and arrive in Peter's lap is an "opiate of the masses" that benefits only two people - the wealthy and the government.
*For instant tickets, the odds are calculated by taking the number of tickets and dividing them by the total number of tickets available for that game. For example, the new Red Sox $10 ticket is listed by the MSL as having odds of 1 in 3.55. This is actually correct - if you consider how the prize is paid out (e.g. for $20, you get get $20, two $10's, $10 plus two $5's, etc. and each prize has different odds; the odds of getting $20 as a single value is tougher than getting 4 $5's.) We took their odds and ran it through an Excel spreadsheet, and it indeed came out to 1 in 3.55.
Then we asked ourselves what the odds were on getting a certain prize without regards to how the prize is paid (e.g. a $50 prize, no matter how it came out). We noticed that the total odds for a certain prizes actually went down - but the total odds went up! To get any prize on this new ticket, the real odds are 1 in 74.56 - roughly 21 times more than the Lottery advertises! The Lottery also states "you have the best chance to win $100!" Not quite...the odds of winning $100 on that ticket are actually 1 in 54.84. In a book of 100 tickets, this comes out to a ticket, maybe two, giving you that magic $100.
And for the people who think they'll get that $1 million on that scratch ticket they bought all at once, tax-free, think again: 30% in taxes are taken out automatically for all winnings over $5,000, and anything over $600 - $4,999 gets 5% taken by the Commonwealth (since 2004; before then, anything under $5,000 merely had to be reported to the IRS and no mass taxes were taken out).
The shiny new fire engine in Weston? Thank the people in West Roxbury who shelled out $300 on a book of scratch tickets and ended up winning a mere $75-80. Newburyport gets to avoid a property tax override because the residents of Lawrence were able to spend 2/3 of their paycheck on Keno. And the city of Lynn probably financed new teachers, firemen, policemen, and other public works for Swampscott, Marblehead, and very small Western New England towns that have all but one Lottery agent, if any.
And, of course, the other people who depend on the poor's paychecks - the ones that have low if not nil Massachusetts state income taxes - is the Legislature, who will happily recoup the monies given in Medicaid, WIC payments, and other government payments in the form of Lottery revenues; if you can entice a poor person to whom you're shelling out benefits to try to become rich and get rid of welfare/debt through the path of least resistance, rather than hard work and education, chances are they'll take the bait...and continue being poor, if not penniless.
The right way to show the poor that the lottery is not the best investment scheme is to show them the real odds of some of these games, not the odds the Lottery promotes*. Treat the Lottery like the do cigarettes, drugs and alcohol - it's a vice, a stupid tax, it's legalized robbery - and make it unattractive and nasty. Reducing the prize payouts from a liberal 71% to a more realistic 52-55%, posting the real odds on the backs of tickets, and showing exactly what taxes will be taken out and how much the prizes are really worth will make the poor think twice on buying a strip of tickets, eliminating or hiding the verification codes on scratch tickets, introducing harder, more complex scratch games (Bingo is a good start), and reducing promotion and public relations may diminish that bromide "You Have to Play" to "Do You Really Want to Waste Your Money On This Scheme?"
So robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then having Paul give back all of his money and arrive in Peter's lap is an "opiate of the masses" that benefits only two people - the wealthy and the government.
*For instant tickets, the odds are calculated by taking the number of tickets and dividing them by the total number of tickets available for that game. For example, the new Red Sox $10 ticket is listed by the MSL as having odds of 1 in 3.55. This is actually correct - if you consider how the prize is paid out (e.g. for $20, you get get $20, two $10's, $10 plus two $5's, etc. and each prize has different odds; the odds of getting $20 as a single value is tougher than getting 4 $5's.) We took their odds and ran it through an Excel spreadsheet, and it indeed came out to 1 in 3.55.
Then we asked ourselves what the odds were on getting a certain prize without regards to how the prize is paid (e.g. a $50 prize, no matter how it came out). We noticed that the total odds for a certain prizes actually went down - but the total odds went up! To get any prize on this new ticket, the real odds are 1 in 74.56 - roughly 21 times more than the Lottery advertises! The Lottery also states "you have the best chance to win $100!" Not quite...the odds of winning $100 on that ticket are actually 1 in 54.84. In a book of 100 tickets, this comes out to a ticket, maybe two, giving you that magic $100.
And for the people who think they'll get that $1 million on that scratch ticket they bought all at once, tax-free, think again: 30% in taxes are taken out automatically for all winnings over $5,000, and anything over $600 - $4,999 gets 5% taken by the Commonwealth (since 2004; before then, anything under $5,000 merely had to be reported to the IRS and no mass taxes were taken out).
3/30/2007
Lynn invades Swampscott, annexes Marblehead, film at 11
"Lynn students will be slaves to the captains of industry!" saith a pol/hack from Swampscott.
"Like, as if, grody to the max, barf me out, Mr. Bufu," retorts Lynn students, before making mustaches and missing teeth out of this pol's picture.
Lynn, for those of you who don't know Massachusetts, is a city about 15 miles northeast of downtown Boston, and is a large city in Essex County. It used to be an industrial city, but some sections are actually quite nice and verdant. But this doesn't mean people should run right out to Lynn - some sections rival Roxbury and Dorchester, and are definitely not for casual walking.
"Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin...you don't come out the way you came in." The old ditty is true, we tell you!
"Like, as if, grody to the max, barf me out, Mr. Bufu," retorts Lynn students, before making mustaches and missing teeth out of this pol's picture.
Lynn, for those of you who don't know Massachusetts, is a city about 15 miles northeast of downtown Boston, and is a large city in Essex County. It used to be an industrial city, but some sections are actually quite nice and verdant. But this doesn't mean people should run right out to Lynn - some sections rival Roxbury and Dorchester, and are definitely not for casual walking.
"Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin...you don't come out the way you came in." The old ditty is true, we tell you!
3/27/2007
Morons, Inc.
Jules Crittenden gives us the roll call of idiots, dunces, know-nothings, and other people who should be thrown into the short bus of knowledge and have the truth drilled into them by hardcore Marine Corps DI's from Parris Island.
Item: if Jeff Spiccoli were around today, he'd dope slap Sean Penn - and not just for his cheesy mustache.
Item: Rosie O'Donnell - who thought that in ten years she'd drop from The Queen of Nice to the Queen of Conspiracy Theories?
Item: if Jeff Spiccoli were around today, he'd dope slap Sean Penn - and not just for his cheesy mustache.
Item: Rosie O'Donnell - who thought that in ten years she'd drop from The Queen of Nice to the Queen of Conspiracy Theories?
3/21/2007
Hands off my Egg Foo Young and my Sweet and Sour Chicken!
Anytime we read press releases from CSPI Food Police, it's always the same: attempt to forbid people from eating certain things by hyping how bad it is (fat grams, calories, etc.). People read the article, and do either one of two things.
1. They go out and purchase the things anyway, and enjoy it, Food Police be damned!
2. They research the CSPI's findings, and then actually listen to these self-righteous scaremongers who probably hide those "forbidden" things in their refrigerators.
The Americanized version of Chinese food (there is a difference; more detail in a moment) - the oily, grease-dripping, lotus-flour covered gems of glory - is what has the CSPI Food Police in an finger-wagging frenzy.
We'll agree with them that the stuff that's served in your local restaurant is nowhere near the "real deal" Chinese cuisine you get in Chinatowns across the nation. You won't get exotic noodle soups, dim sum, or any of the stuff Chinese locals consider staples unless you take the trip down to Chinatown and spend an extra couple of bucks for top-shelf stuff. On the other hand, damning all of the local Chinese restaurants for not offering healthier (for CSPI, it would likely be twigs, tofu and anything not involving any form of meat) dishes is not just simplistic, it's elitist and racist.
If you look really, really hard enough for better items, or ask your local Chinese food restaurant, not only will they gladly cook your food to order (it might take longer or it might taste different to other palates), they'll toss in a couple of recipes and direct you to dishes that are exotic, yet affordable, and can be done much more cheaply than ordering it from their place. What's scarier than the fat grams a certain Chinese dish might contain? The relative ease activists like CSPI can scare people, and give them fear and loathing in treats like food.
1. They go out and purchase the things anyway, and enjoy it, Food Police be damned!
2. They research the CSPI's findings, and then actually listen to these self-righteous scaremongers who probably hide those "forbidden" things in their refrigerators.
The Americanized version of Chinese food (there is a difference; more detail in a moment) - the oily, grease-dripping, lotus-flour covered gems of glory - is what has the CSPI Food Police in an finger-wagging frenzy.
We'll agree with them that the stuff that's served in your local restaurant is nowhere near the "real deal" Chinese cuisine you get in Chinatowns across the nation. You won't get exotic noodle soups, dim sum, or any of the stuff Chinese locals consider staples unless you take the trip down to Chinatown and spend an extra couple of bucks for top-shelf stuff. On the other hand, damning all of the local Chinese restaurants for not offering healthier (for CSPI, it would likely be twigs, tofu and anything not involving any form of meat) dishes is not just simplistic, it's elitist and racist.
If you look really, really hard enough for better items, or ask your local Chinese food restaurant, not only will they gladly cook your food to order (it might take longer or it might taste different to other palates), they'll toss in a couple of recipes and direct you to dishes that are exotic, yet affordable, and can be done much more cheaply than ordering it from their place. What's scarier than the fat grams a certain Chinese dish might contain? The relative ease activists like CSPI can scare people, and give them fear and loathing in treats like food.
3/20/2007
Narcissist-Leninist, si! Answer Questions? no!
hugo chavez, he of the "free oil bribes" that Joe Kennedy likes to promote, is avoiding one certain reporter in Orlando named Andreas Oppenheimer and his valid questions.
They are not the soft-ball questions Baba Wawa asked on 20/20. These are rational, adult questions that do not have pat answers - at least not ones the useful idiots will swallow like such flavorful candy. "You" in this case is the Venezuelan thug and chief narcissist/Leninist himself:
Our answers: military coups easily mollify protestors and give the dictator-for-life power much quicker; closing down independent TV stations gives you more time for insane, narcissistic ravings from a South American thug; fidel castro is popular because people are conditioned to fear him, as speaking out against fidel is a one-way ticket to a Cuban gulag, and OAS human-rights inspectors aren't loaded full of foreign useful idiots, political activists masquerading as celebrities, fawning editors of newspapers who wish their government could be overtaken in such a raw display of power, and publicity-hungry hucksters who believe the only way the world works is villains = good and heroes = bad. Oh, and those OAS people don't have those kicky blue hats that don't have sulfur in them.
They are not the soft-ball questions Baba Wawa asked on 20/20. These are rational, adult questions that do not have pat answers - at least not ones the useful idiots will swallow like such flavorful candy. "You" in this case is the Venezuelan thug and chief narcissist/Leninist himself:
If you are so democratic, why do you glorify military coups? If you are so progressive, why do you close down independent television stations? If your hero [f]idel [c]astro is so popular in Cuba, why doesn't he allow a free election? If you respect human rights, why don't you allow OAS (Organization of American States) human-rights inspectors into your country?
Our answers: military coups easily mollify protestors and give the dictator-for-life power much quicker; closing down independent TV stations gives you more time for insane, narcissistic ravings from a South American thug; fidel castro is popular because people are conditioned to fear him, as speaking out against fidel is a one-way ticket to a Cuban gulag, and OAS human-rights inspectors aren't loaded full of foreign useful idiots, political activists masquerading as celebrities, fawning editors of newspapers who wish their government could be overtaken in such a raw display of power, and publicity-hungry hucksters who believe the only way the world works is villains = good and heroes = bad. Oh, and those OAS people don't have those kicky blue hats that don't have sulfur in them.
3/10/2007
You know you're in Boston when...part 2
...you're at BU and someone says, "I remember when the BU School Bus was free" and then points to the Green Line trolley...
...a "spukie" is a sandwich, not some kind of low-level mobster...
...a "hoodsie" refers both to the ice cream cup and the young teenage girl...
...the three examination schools (Latin Academy, Latin School, Bryant School of Math and Science) don't have kids hanging around MBTA stations to intimidate other passengers...
...you turn on WRKO, and you just joined Howie Carr's "Wizard of Uhz" segment...
...you turn on WTKK, and you just joined Margery Eagan and Jim Braude argue over
some trifling nugget...
...you turn on WBZ, WCVB, or WHDH, and before they give you breaking news on a fire, a homicide, or gossip, they go right to the weather...
...instead of paying $2.65 a gallon for regular gas, you drive an extra two miles to the Shell the corner of Mass Ave and Columbus Ave, where it's $2.43 per gallon, or take a ride to the South Shore, where it's $2.30-$2.39 per gallon...
...Mass Ave and Stuart Street are at a crawl, and you hear about a three car accident on I-93...
...The Mayah mangles up an innocent word, and it shows up on Howie Carr's column...
...if you lived anytime between 1960 and 1995, the Combat Zone was a nasty, sleazy, seedy place where you could watch XXX rated movies and watch strippers - but was several steps up from Times Square...
...young black kids sell (scam!) overpriced and stale candy to unsuspecting people, who don't realize their "football team/basketball team" is led by a con artist...
...you try to order a "cabinet" (similar to a milkshake) in a restaurant and you're either (a) directed to Home Depot or Lowe's or (b) given directions to Newport Creamery.
...you attend a sports game and you realize $20 only gets you two hot dogs, two beers and maybe a cheap pennant that will last all of three seconds...
...if you're looking for hot chicks or hunks, you'll get a better chance at your local KFC than at the meet markets on Lansdowne Street...
...Bob Lobel, whenever a sports team loses miserably, brings out a bobble head doll covered in a paper bag, or brings out the panic button, or tells the audience, "Send the kids to bed, we're about to show the (Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox) highlights..."
...you remember Candlepin Bowling on Saturdays with Bob Gillis, which was followed by the Pro Bowling Tour with Chris Schenckel and Nelson Burton Jr...
UPDATE: a Mattapan/Dorchester/Roxbury list...if it's a response to our list, it's an impressive one!
...a "spukie" is a sandwich, not some kind of low-level mobster...
...a "hoodsie" refers both to the ice cream cup and the young teenage girl...
...the three examination schools (Latin Academy, Latin School, Bryant School of Math and Science) don't have kids hanging around MBTA stations to intimidate other passengers...
...you turn on WRKO, and you just joined Howie Carr's "Wizard of Uhz" segment...
...you turn on WTKK, and you just joined Margery Eagan and Jim Braude argue over
some trifling nugget...
...you turn on WBZ, WCVB, or WHDH, and before they give you breaking news on a fire, a homicide, or gossip, they go right to the weather...
...instead of paying $2.65 a gallon for regular gas, you drive an extra two miles to the Shell the corner of Mass Ave and Columbus Ave, where it's $2.43 per gallon, or take a ride to the South Shore, where it's $2.30-$2.39 per gallon...
...Mass Ave and Stuart Street are at a crawl, and you hear about a three car accident on I-93...
...The Mayah mangles up an innocent word, and it shows up on Howie Carr's column...
...if you lived anytime between 1960 and 1995, the Combat Zone was a nasty, sleazy, seedy place where you could watch XXX rated movies and watch strippers - but was several steps up from Times Square...
...young black kids sell (scam!) overpriced and stale candy to unsuspecting people, who don't realize their "football team/basketball team" is led by a con artist...
...you try to order a "cabinet" (similar to a milkshake) in a restaurant and you're either (a) directed to Home Depot or Lowe's or (b) given directions to Newport Creamery.
...you attend a sports game and you realize $20 only gets you two hot dogs, two beers and maybe a cheap pennant that will last all of three seconds...
...if you're looking for hot chicks or hunks, you'll get a better chance at your local KFC than at the meet markets on Lansdowne Street...
...Bob Lobel, whenever a sports team loses miserably, brings out a bobble head doll covered in a paper bag, or brings out the panic button, or tells the audience, "Send the kids to bed, we're about to show the (Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox) highlights..."
...you remember Candlepin Bowling on Saturdays with Bob Gillis, which was followed by the Pro Bowling Tour with Chris Schenckel and Nelson Burton Jr...
UPDATE: a Mattapan/Dorchester/Roxbury list...if it's a response to our list, it's an impressive one!
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