The Social Security Issue

Interesting Data:

Top ten highest concentrations of Social Security beneficiaries, by state ...

West Virginia 22.4%
Maine 20.1%
Arkansas 19.9%
Florida 19.6%
Pennsylvania 19.3%
Alabama 19.3%
Kentucky 18.7%
Iowa 18.5%
Mississippi 18.5%
Missouri 18.1%

Worst demographic for President Bush on Social Security, by age ...

In the new Washington Post/ABC poll, President Bush has a 38% approval rating on Social Security and a 55% disapproval. 7% have no opinion.

Which is his worst age bracket? 18-30 year olds. They give him 33% approval/60% disapproval.

So, what's my take on this whole Social Security business?

Consider the pros and cons.
Social Security guarantees you to have money for retirement. It's controlled by the government and required of all US employees. Sure, it sucks that you're being forced to do something with your money, but you'll get it back when you're too old to work. Work now and collect later. If you want to save even more money, you can have portions of your paycheck direct deposited into a bank account.

President Bush's plan is to take away Social Security altogether and is trying to convince us that his bank account idea replaces it.

That's a load of bullshit. You can already put money into your bank account from a paycheck. He's not introducing something new.

He's taking away the one thing that guarantees your future should you become unable to work.

No poor person is going to keep an account of money for when they retire. They'll keep it and use it then. This is almost a guarantee.

You know what that means?
- increased personal spending under his term (boost economy aka capitalism aka corporations)
- people that are too poor to afford saving money now will have to work when they get old in order to pay the bills
- the rich get richer (and always remember -- when that happens, the poor get poorer)
- should someone ever become disabled, they're screwed.

Great idea.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King

"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

"Beyond Vietnam" speech given to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church, New York City, April 4, 1967.

MLK is one of my favorite people in history... right up there with John F. Kennedy and John Lennon.


ps: President Bush said on Monday he would not rule out military action against Iran if that country was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program.
He and what army? [dKos]

Air Force proposal sought gay sex weapon

The Pentagon briefly looked into making a weapon that would render enemy troops sexually attracted to one another, according to an official document uncovered by a watchdog group that monitors research into biological and chemical weapons.

The proposed aphrodisiac was part of a weapons development plan circulated in 1994 at the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

The aphrodisiac chemical would be designed to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. The resulting widespread homosexual behavior, the proposal suggests, would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal blow" to morale.

[more from PlanetOut]

... Non-lethal blow?

*snicker*

Oh, wow...

CBS chief Les Moonves said he won't rule out giving the one-and-only Jon Stewart a role on the CBS Evening News now that Dan Rather is gone.

I think this is amazing! If we can get Dave Attell to do sports, Dave Chappelle to take care of weather, and a couple of puppets from Crank Yankers to head out and do some field reporting, this could be the BEST NEWS TEAM EVER!!!

[VH1 Best Week Ever - bestweekever]