Does Michele Bachmann benefit from "socialism" ?

"Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) — so fond of accusing the Obama administration of foisting socialism on an unwilling America — has apparently been the recipient of about a quarter of million bucks in government handouts...

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate her stake in the Wisconsin farm is worth up to $250,000. Her income from the farm has grown from $2,000 a year a few years back to as much as $50,000 for 2008."

Bachmann's family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann's recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized — or "socialized" — businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls.

As MinnPost points out, it important to emphasize that there is nothing illegal or immoral here re the farm income. But it must be at least a bit awkward for someone who rants endlessly about the need for free, unsubsidized markets.

Helmcken Falls, B.C.

Nice photo. Location unspecified - apparently some northern boreal forest.

Found at Pixdaus.

Update: Identified as Helmcken Falls in Wells Gray Provinial Park, British Columbia.

Ninja parade

I saved this for New Year's Day, then forgot to post it. Source unknown.

Split personality

"AMBIDEXTROUS is ambidextrous — its first half draws on the first half of the alphabet, its second on the second."

Via Futility Closet.

Marital harmony

From the Non Sequitur website.

Henri Matisse at work

"Henri Matisse sculpting nude female figure while sitting in bed in his apartment, Nice, France -November 1951."

Via Ordinary Finds. Photographer: Dmitri Kessel

Tree with ribbon-like appendages

I presume this is some type of mangrove, but I don't know for sure.

Red mangroves, which can survive in the most inundated areas, prop themselves above the water level with stilt roots and can then absorb air through pores in their bark (lenticels). Black mangroves live on higher ground and make many pneumatophores (specialised root-like structures which stick up out of the soil like straws for breathing) which are also covered in lenticels. These "breathing tubes" typically reach heights of up to thirty centimeters, and in some species, over three meters. There are four types of pneumatophore—stilt or prop type, snorkel or peg type, knee type, and ribbon or plank type. Knee and ribbon types may be combined with buttress roots at the base of the tree. The roots also contain wide aerenchyma to facilitate oxygen transport within the plant.

Photo credit. Click to biggify.

Goldman Sachs bonuses: $23 billion

"Along with Wall Street’s resurgent bonuses will come a jump in an ancillary benefit: tax breaks...

The tax deductions, which will increase the bottom line of the banks, are perfectly legal and not new. They come as compensation for 2009 has roared back after the largest banks paid back billions of dollars in federal aid, an outlay still fresh in the minds of taxpayers. As pay goes up, so do the deductions...

The biggest tax break will go to Goldman Sachs. It expects to award its employees $23 billion in bonuses — the most in its history — after having paid back $10 billion. Because most employee compensation is a deductible expense under tax laws, Goldman Sachs, which is technically taxed at a top corporate rate of 39 percent, will save about $9 billion in federal income taxes on the bonuses it pays out for 2009, Mr. Willens said.

"The Worst Decade in Modern Times"

The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth...

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well...

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 - and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.

And the net worth of American households - the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts - has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s...

But beyond these dramatic ups and downs lies an even more sobering reality: long-term economic stagnation. The trillions of dollars that poured into housing investment and consumer spending in the first part of the decade distorted economic activity.

Capital was funneled to build mini-mansions in Sun Belt suburbs, many of which now sit empty, rather than toward industrial machines or other business investment that might generate economic output and jobs for years to come...

Weatherman wears green tie...

... in front of green screen. You know what's going to happen, but it's still fascinating. Reminds me of that hole in Goldie Hawn's stomach in (forgot the name of the movie)*.

Via VideoSift.

*"Death Becomes Her" - Hat tip to bigjohn.

Newpaper employment

A startling graph, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Marketwatch.

An adventurous woman...

“The first woman to navigate a dirigible solo was an (unknown) American woman, piloting the airship ‘Dixon’. Jan 01, 1910”

Via (exclamation mark).

Morality vs. Religiosity

"If a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won’t discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn’t make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe."

Text credit Sam Harris, via Suicide Blonde.

Happy New Year

Illustration credit E.H.Shepard, via Suicide Blonde.

How many seconds are left in 2009?

Go to Google and do NOT enter anything in the search box. Just click "I'm feeling lucky." It will count down for you.

Found at Reddit.

Update: Did you spend New Year's Eve watching this link? (neither did I). But you can follow the directions and see a little something.