The Greatest President in US History

January 20, 2001: George W. Bush inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America.


September 11, 2001: 3,000 citizens killed and New York City buried in smoke after the most fatal attack ever executed on US soil.


May 1, 2003: George W. Bush announces "Mission Accomplished" referring to the post-9/11 invasion of Iraq.


March 20, 2003 - Present: WAR, WAR, WAR. The next five years of the Iraq war kills tens of thousands of US soldiers and Iraqi citizens, and costs the US at least $2 trillion.


December 5, 2008: George W. Bush announces that the US is in a recession.



December 14, 2008: A guy in Iraq sums it up better than I ever could have.

Blag Blag Blog

Is anyone honestly surprised by this? Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was just arrested on federal corruption charges, and it's all over the news. Well no shit. Just look at the guy! I've never seen more of a "why am I not surprised to hear this guy is a douchebag" face.

The writing was certainly on the wall. His office is in the state capital of Springfield, 200 miles outside of his home in Chicago. Because he didn't want to live in the Illinois Executive Mansion, he opted to fly private between the two, on $6,000 tax dollars a day. Meanwhile, he requires that the Mansion stay vacant. Not exactly signs of good character here.

After shutting down a relative's landfill (shady) in 2005, he used the term "testicular virility" to refer to himself. That alone almost confirms his douchebag status. His office has been investigated or indicted on charges of hiring fraud, extortion, accepting kickbacks, and shakedowns.

Apparently, Rod Blagojevich went to law school and became a lawyer. I just took two exams on legal ethics, and they didn't even talk about these kinds of crimes...because everyone knows they're illegal. Now the guy has been arrested for attempting to sell Obama's old Senate seat. I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm not surprised at all by this....just look at the guy!

COFFEE!!!!!!!

Caffeine is a helluva drug. It really does make you awake and alert. But oh how sad the coffee comedown is.

I went to Starbucks at 7:00 this morning. I'm not gonna lie - the Starbucks marketing guy has me wrapped around his little finger. When I see those glorious/evil red holiday cups, I start salivating for peppermint goodness as if I was Pavlov's pup. Anyways, there's a huge line when I go there this morning. But the whole place is running like a well-oiled machine. All the employees were working in perfect unison, tossing and flipping cups and utensils, whizzing around each other in that tiny space. It was like a scene out of Cocktail. Every employee seemed overjoyed to be there - big smiles, friendly chit-chat, superb service. The entire room was shiny and perfectly organized, with each pastry pristinely displayed. All the employees were neatly tucked and groomed, standing erectly, speaking clearly. "One doublle-grande nonfat decaf gingersnap latte with whip for Zanzabar!" It rolled off her tongue with such accuracy, I couldn't believe it. At 7:00 AM I was at the back of the line. At 7:04 AM I had a hot coffee in my hand and a smile on my face. How do they do it??
Fucking caffeine. I returned to the same Starbucks at noon (it's finals, give me a break), and I thought I walked into a scene from Full Metal Jacket. It was the end of these poor bastards' shift, and the goods had worn off. The guy who rang me up this morning was now in the corner shaking and vomiting a little. The "barista" that made my drink earlier was now blindly wandering and mumbling to herself, with her apron tucked into her underwear. Somehow all of the employees, male and female, appeared to have a five-o'clock shadow. One guy was just standing there with his hand in the steamer and his eyes rolled back in his head, saying some sort of demonic prayer. The cash register was smashed on the floor, and the "manager" was on her hands and knees attempting to eat all of the money from the till. All the pastries were now jumbled into a corner, and the whole place smelled like burnt pee. The only coherent person in there was the drink-maker, and I suspect he had been snorting coffee grounds all day. When he called out my drink, he said "Threlve nocha gruble concat vavvvv....for Coque." And that really freaked me out because I didn't even tell them my name. Fucking caffeine.

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I'm Going to Smash Bill O'Reilly's Face

Fuck this guy. After Obama won, The Bill O'Reilly "Factor" made made a piss-poor joke of a video segment on how horrific of a city San Francisco is. One of his shitbird interns, Jesse Cockface, went to San Francisco and interviewed a bunch of layabouts and crackhead trannies. After some cheap editing and a 6th-grade commentary, the result is this tour de force of news reporting.

Bill O-bag aired this segment shortly after he said "[I]f Al Qaeda comes [to San Francisco] and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco." Really? It's OK with you, B.O., to destroy and kill everyone in San Francisco? I know we're a bit too liberal and progressive for you, but WOW, that's a pretty harsh thing to say about one of the most beautiful and beloved cities on the planet. You know, forget about the fact that San Francisco is a cultural icon, a global banking center, and a national leader in technology development. Who cares about the 7 million Bay Area residents, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or the world's only operating Cable Car system. Ya know, it's one of the most expensive cities in the world because of the red-light district and the homeless people. We let people be gay and smoke pot, so we should all die in a fiery terrorist attack! Yeah, that's fair and balanced.

Alright then, William. If that's how you're going to play, let me tell you what the people of San Francisco think of you. No one in San Francisco would mind if Al Qaeda locked your entire family in the bottom of a porta pottie, shit on them for a week, and then dumped them in a giant blender set to "puree." Bill, we would also be perfectly fine if Al Qaeda then hung you with meat hooks by your racist cellulite and dunked you head first in your family/shit-puree until you choked on your wife's heart of stone.

I'd go on, but I have a gay wedding to attend, after which I'm going to have some interracial sex and smoke a blunt while watching Family Guy. Suck it you old bigot - we're the future.

Headline Potpourri

"Pirates Grab More Ships, Captured Tanker Docked"

Is anyone else as fascinated and befuddled by these frequent pirate news stories as I am? Maybe it's a result of the painfully cheesy Pirates movies, but I was convinced that pirates were now a complete fiction. But apparently in Somalia, where shit continues to be a disaster, pirates are jacking ships with AK-47's on a regular basis. And these aren't just ships, but insanely massive tankers loaded to the gills with oil. A ship four times the size of an aircraft carrier, carrying a cool $200 million in oil. These modern day pirates must be far more bad-ass that Orlando Bloom.



"Impeach Obama"

OK, this isn't actually a headline, but a t-shirt. Really? Already? He's not the President...that's not even possible. You could've impeached him from his Senator seat, but he already resigned it. Can you impeach me? Can you impeach my cat, please? I'm sure you hate the shirts with the Obama heads on them, but your shirt just doesn't make any sense. You can't impeach someone for winning.




"Obama Chooses Eric Holder to be Attorney General"

Oh no! Oh no it's happening!! Obama picked another kinda-black guy to be the Attorney General, the highest law enforcement officer in the country! That makes two kinda-black guys...what will we do!? Do you know what this means? Somalians are pretty black too...Pirates! Pirates are taking over our government!!!

IT'S GAME TIME

MC PLESS

No, it's not the newest rapper on Def Jam records. It's not a late-night DJ on Energy 92.7. It's the rules of working. MC PLESS is an acronym for the six elements that are absolutely essential to any job.

With today being Wednesday, annoyingly referred to as "hump day" in the work place, I thought I'd make an entry especially for you 9-to-5'ers (or 8-to-6, for an unfortunate few of you). It's a tough job market out there, and sadly most of us hate our jobs. But you've gotta set limits for how horrible your job is. So your job should have at least one of the following six factors, and ideally two or three. If your job satisfies none of the six MC PLESS factors, please stand up in your cube right now, vomit all over your desk, steal some pens, and walk out the door forever.

Money: This one's pretty self-explanatory, and it's at the beginning for a reason. The primary reason why most of us work is to get $krilla. But just because a job pays you something, doesn't mean that the job satisfies the Money requirement. The money a job gives you needs to be balanced with how many of the other six elements the job satisfies. If money is the only thing of value that a job provides you, then that money should be worth more to you than the time you spend at that job.

Cause: Working for a cause that you believe in is great. It's rewarding, fulfulling, and it gives you good karma. Unfortunately, money often prevents us from working for a cause we believe in, because you can't live on a volunteer's salary. But we all support a variety of things. Your cause doesn't have to be fixing the environment or ending drunken-baby-syndrome. I have a friend who loves movies, and thinks Netflix is an excellent service. If he worked for Netflix, he would be supporting a cause that he believes in.

People: The people that you work with can make or break your job. Even if you don't get paid enough, and even if you're not working for a cause, spending 40 hours a week with people you really enjoy being around can make it worth it. Being a ditch-digger could be fun if you get to do it with your friends.

Learning: Often times you need a job simply because it's teaching you something you want to learn. Clerkships, liscence training, employer-paid education assistance, etc. A shitty job that teaches you a skill or gets you certified is still worthwhile.

Environment: This includes location, commute, comfort, amenities, perks, etc. Google has a fantastic work environment - infinite free food and drinks, massages, nap rooms, comfy chairs, etc. My first job out of college had a terrible environment - reverse-osmosis water and bulk Tylenol was the only thing they provided for us. It's important that you enjoy something about the environment where you work.

Stepping Stone: Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and work at a job as a means to an end. If you wanna be a Senior Whatever, you have to be a Junior Whatever first. If you wanna work on Wall St., you have to gain experience at a smaller firm (like J.T. Marlin) first. If a job is nothing but a means to an end, it's not necessarily a bad thing. But you must set a deadline for yourself for when that end has been accomplished.


There you have it. MC PLESS, the rules of working. So the next time you're looking for a new job, or considering quitting your current job, run a little MC PLESS test, and try to maximize each of the six factors. Happy hump day!

Things You Can Buy for $1.2 Trillion

The Fed has been dropping coin lately like an old lady in Vegas. $300 billion for the very un-stimulating stimulus plan, $200 billion to save Fannie and Freddie's ass, and $700 billion for the gargantuan multi-bank bailout. That totals 1.2 trillion dollars. Yup, $1,200,000,000,000.00. That's a lot of bling. Just imagine what you could do with that kind of loot. Let's explore.

If you had a $1.2 trillion stack of thousand dollar bills, it would be 90 miles high.

You could buy the Trump Tower in New York, park a hundred 2009 Rolls Royce's on each it's 58 floors, and fill each Roll's with gold....something I suspect some of these fucking bankers were actually doing.



You could get a massage every day...for the next 33 million years.

You could buy MTV, and replace all the actors on The Hills with sophisticated robot-actors that would out-act the current cast.



You could buy every Taco Bell in the country, and stock it to the gills with Patron tequila (mmmmmm....)



You could give every human on earth $179.10.

You could remake the Lord of the Rings film trilogy 4,000 times....and I would kill myself.

You could buy the Cullinan I, the world's largest diamond....3,000 times.



You could buy every single American a PS3, Grand Theft Auto IV, and a pound of weed....and have an epic online mega-destruction tournament.



Wow, it sure is hard to think of any single thing that costs $1.2 trillion. Oh wait, I know!

You could fund the "wait, why are we doing this again?" war in Iraq for 15 years....we're half way there baby!

Are you low on GUSTO? Just add the following:

Strength and Honor


Guess what time it is?


What is heaven?


I like corndogs


Kimbo is my hero


Just found some serious, monster bass:


What will I be for Halloween!?!


Kitten War

May the cutest kitten win!


New tax laws!

Estate and gift tax: an overview

One of the oldest and most common forms of taxation is the taxation of property held by an individual at the time of their death. Such a tax can take the form, among others, of estate tax (a tax levied on the estate before any transfers). An estate tax is a charge upon the decedent's entire estate, regardless of how it is disbursed. An alternative form of death tax is an inheritance tax (a tax levied on individuals receiving property from the estate). Taxes imposed upon death provide incentive to transfer assets before death.

Gift tax laws are generally designed to prevent complete tax avoidance by this route. The Federal Estate Tax is integrated with the Federal Gift tax so that large estates cannot be shielded from taxation by lifetime giving. Many states also impose an estate tax.

The Federal Estate Tax is set forth beginning in § 2001 of the Internal Revenue Code. (26 U.S.C. 2001). The Federal Gift Tax is set forth beginning in 26 U.S.C. 2501. Generally, the Gift Tax applies to any transfer made without receiving value in return and without regard to intent.

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 provided for ten years of increasing exemptions from the estate tax. In 2005, the law exempts the first $1.5 million of an estate for an individual (or the first $3 million for married couples). The law includes a sunset clause for the estate tax to be restored in 2011. Recently, legislation proposed in Congress making the full repeal of the estate tax permanent; so far, no such legislation has succeeded.

Pirates II

http://piratesthemovie.com/

Love Song