While searching for airline tickets, I mistyped a domain name and ended up at American.com. On this site I found a link to an article titled The Upside of Income Inequality.
Of course your first instinct my be to shout something like "Down with those damn rich people! They are always taking all of the money!". Well according to this article they are actually earning all of the damn money. The ditch which sat between the high school educated worker and the college educated worker has become a chasm. Apparently while the high school educated group has grown with inflation, the college educated group has been growing far above it. This is thought to be due to the shift in America's economy away from labor and towards information management. Anyway, the article points out that while the gap grows larger is doesn't mean that the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer. (Note: the rich always get richer, it's what they do best) It's actually the middle class that has excelled and pulled away from the lower end of the spectrum and is moving up towards the rich.
One other thing that caught my attention in this article is that women and minorities seem to benefit the most from a college education in terms of income growth percentage. I suspect that this is because of the disproportionately low income they might have made before becoming college educated. But hey, what do I know?
I was reading this article on abc.com about a show they taped on the 5th of May that will be aired on the 9th. You can read more about it here. As I started reading it I noticed an ad over on the right and it made me laugh quite a bit, so I thought I would share it with everyone else. Click on the image below for the full size version.
I saw a banner on some site for another site called SeeMyGrill.com. Curious I clicked to check it out, and BAM!!! Staring me back at me is young clover with what looks to be possibly the most obnoxious grill on the site. I almost spit my drink all over my desk. I'm still trying to figure out if he can close his mouth with that grill on. Maybe he has a little spray bottle he carries around with him to re-moisturizers his grill through out the day…? lol Reminds me of the old "Gold Overdose " joke in that movie "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka". (Edit: OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!ONE! is he wearing Richie Rich pajamas!?)
So of course after finding this I just had to check the site out a bit more. Here are a few funny entries that I found:
pimpin_gator is currently ranked number 10. Personally I think he got robbed. That grill is straight pimpin!:
jaws_new_addition of course is rated number 1. Which is as it should be, because even with out the bling, sharks have the baddest mutha fuckin grills around:
EDIT: I just realized that I never put a link to the website for the wonderful man that wrote my favorite song. Check out Jonathan Coulton 's site when you get a chance, he makes lots of great songs. Here is the page for the Code Monkey Song, and someone even made the Code Monkey Song Game .
Code Monkey get up get coffee Code Monkey go to job Code Monkey have boring meeting With boring manager Rob Rob say Code Monkey very dilligent But his output stink His code not "functional" or "elegant" What do Code Monkey think? Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself Code Monkey not say it out loud Code Monkey not crazy, just proud
Code Monkey like Fritos Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew Code Monkey very simple man With big warm fuzzy secret heart: Code Monkey like you
Code Monkey hang around at front desk Tell you sweater look nice Code Monkey offer buy you soda Bring you cup, bring you ice You say no thank you for the soda cause Soda make you fat Anyway you busy with the telephone No time for chat Code Monkey have long walk back to cubicle he sit down pretend to work Code Monkey not thinking so straight Code Monkey not feeling so great
Code Monkey like Fritos Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew Code Monkey very simple man With big warm fuzzy secret heart: Code Monkey like you Code Monkey like you a lot
Code Monkey have every reason To get out this place Code Monkey just keep on working See your soft pretty face Much rather wake up, eat a coffee cake Take bath, take nap This job "fulfilling in creative way" Such a load of crap Code Monkey think someday he have everything even pretty girl like you Code Monkey just waiting for now Code Monkey say someday, somehow
Code Monkey like Fritos Code Monkey like Tab and Mountain Dew Code Monkey very simple man With big warm fuzzy secret heart: Code Monkey like you
It's simple. You record a short message damning yourself to Hell, you upload it to YouTube , and then the Rational Response Squad will send you a freeThe God Who Wasn't There DVD. It's that easy!
(Yea i'm lazy and that was modified copy from their site…)
[This is an old post that I never really finished. So I wrapped up the last little thought that I had on the topic and posted it anyway.]
So, as many of you know there was recently a report stating that 2% of the population of the world owned 50% of the wealth. More than likely you thought (just like me) "Those rich bastards! Always hording all the money to themselves! Someone needs to give 'The Man' the old 'what for'!!"
After reading the article on BBC and on Slashdot I was steamed. Then I noticed a link to a site in a Slashdot comment. It was a site that lets you enter your annual income and showed you where you rated on the global rich list. To my suprise I was part of the top 2%. I certainly didn't feel rich yesterday as I haggled with the mechanic to get him to do a half ass job on my breaks so that I could afford to pay for the work so that I could get to work the next day. After a bit of tinkering I discovered that $44,016 is the magic number that puts you in the top 2%. Well apparently these calculations are based on your annual income relative to the world wide average annual income of $5,000. It does not take in to account some major factors such as cost of living or the size of the family that you support. So some one making $5,000 annually in say Nigeria could easily be living like a king, while some one making $44,016 in NYC, London, or Tokyo could be eating cat food and crackers just to get by. Anyway, I found this amusing and just thought i'd pass it along.
We really need to properly define what a WMD is. This article said he was arrested on charges of "attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction". Are they referring to the hand grenades he thought he was getting in trade for stereo speakers? If that is a WMD then we are in serious trouble because that mean that any idiot anywhere in the world can get their hands on "WMDs" in a matter of hours, for a few buck.
Let's call this what it is; an attempted terrorist attack. Let's saves the WMD chatter for the discussions about how none existed in Iraq…
I'm not trying to down play what this idiot was doing. If he was going to set off a grenade in a crowded mall at Christmas time then there is nothing the government can do to him that is horrible enough.
It appears that the Evangelical Church has come out. The Rev. Ted Haggard was found to be buying drugs and getting "massages" from gay male escorts. According the accused (Haggard) he bought Meth but never used it. He was just curios about it. He also supposedly only received massages from the gay escort who was his Meth hookup. Apparently after the National Association of Evangelicals publicly voiced supported for gay marriage ban amendments his gay lover was upset at the hypocrisy and decided it was time for Haggard to come out. You can find the original article here. Here in Tennessee there is a proposed state level constitutional amendment on the ballot in this mid-term election. The exact wording of the proposed amendment is as follows:
"The historical institution and legal contract solemnizing the relationship of one man and one woman shall be the only legally recognized marital contract in this state. Any policy or law or judicial interpretation, purporting to define marriage as anything other than the historical institution and legal contract between one man and one woman, is contrary to the public policy of this state and shall be void and unenforceable in Tennessee. If another state or foreign jurisdiction issues a license for persons to marry and if such marriage is prohibited in this state by the provisions of this section, then the marriage shall be void and unenforceable in this state."
The Tennessee Equality Project is working with a campaign they call Vote No on 1. They outline many reason why the law is fruitless. The primary one being that it is already illegal to grant marriage certificated to same sex married couples here in Tennessee.
The opposition is Family Action Council of Tennessee and their campaign RealMarriage.org or "Vote Yes on 1. I for one find it funny they the Family Action Council of Tennessee uses FACT as an acronym they should have come up with a name that fit the acronym FAITH instead. There is very little fact on either of the opposition sites, but more than enough faith to go around.
The photo to the right of an Evangelical Church makes a lot more sense to me now. (The obviously doctored photo to the right came out much better than my GIMP skills should allow. I guess when you have some artistic inspiration the sky is the limit. Hehe…)
It appears that the Evangelical Church has come out. The Rev. Ted Haggard was found to be buying drugs and getting "massages" from gay male escorts. According the accused (Haggard) he bought Meth but never used it. He was just curios about it. He also supposedly only received massages from the gay escort who was his Meth hookup. Apparently after the National Association of Evangelicals publicly voiced supported for gay marriage ban amendments his gay lover was upset at the hypocrisy and decided it was time for Haggard to come out. You can find the original article 