According to this White House press release, the federal government is ringing in the new year by simultaneously raising tax rates (i.e., penalizing people for working) and extending payments to two million people who do not work (i.e., rewarding people for playing Xbox). Has this ever happened before at any time in the history of the U.S. (or anywhere else in the world for that matter)?
We took a boat tour of Newport Harbor last week to see Christmas lights on the bayfront homes and yachts.
Current and former owners of these fabulous abodes include Nicolas Cage, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richie Sambora, Peter Falk, Mark McGwire, the William Wrigley family, the Snyder family (founders of In-N-Out Burger), the FaBrizio family (founders of Simple Green), Shirley Temple, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Charles Schulz, George Argyros, and local luminaries like Fletcher Jones Jr and the Segerstrom family (owners of South Coast Plaza).
In the early 20th century, lots in Newport Harbor were selling for $75. Amenities such as electricity, paved streets, sewers, streetlights and water were lacking and roads to the area were largely undeveloped. Basically, you were buying the right to live on a mud flat at a three-hour drive from civilization, so even at $75, sales were slow.
The sellers then placed a coupon offer in Sunset magazine: buy a two-year subscription to Sunset and get $25 off the price of a lot. So — $50 instead of $75.
I wish someone in my family tree had had the foresight to buy one because you couldn’t get a bayfront lot today for less than about $10 million. Not a house — that’s just for the lot.
This guy was driving too slow
The I-15 to Las Vegas is mostly two lanes of traffic in either direction. This could work out okay if slower drivers stayed in the right lane but they don’t. You’ve got people driving at or below the speed limit in the left lane, which creates a blockade and jacks up the travel time.
In Paul Epps’s America, the area between Barstow and Vegas would be patrolled by military-style helicopters and any vehicle being passed on the right would be taken out by a well-placed missile.
“Wouldn’t that make things even slower?” my son asks.
“Initially, it might. But think about the deterrent effect. I think you’d find that in a very short time, slower drivers would stay in the right-hand lane where they belong. Good question though. You ask a lot of great questions.”
We spent a few days in Las Vegas over the holidays. Of course what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but I will go so far as to say that we saw a magic show at the MGM Grand Hollywood Theater featuring a performer whose name — I will say this much — is the same as a Charles Dickens character.
I expected him to be self-absorbed and boring but he was actually unassuming and funny. Good show.
The Hollywood Theater will sell you a tropical drink, like a daiquiri or a pina colada, in one of these silver chalices for $19 and you can take it home with you. Non-alcoholic drinks are also available and with the non-alcoholic drinks, they throw in a package of M&Ms or a bag of kettle chips. Alcohol or M&Ms, take your pick.
I love my chalice. I have it at home with me now. I drink Coke Zeros out of it and I feel like I’ve got a lot of class.
I love to go to Starbucks! When we go to Starbucks, I get to have some whipped cream in a cup, which is called a pup cup. During the holidays, I get pup cups in the red holiday cups!
My last video got 32 views, which my owner says is the most ever on YouTube except for Gangnam Style, which I don’t understand because I’ve seen that video and it’s stupid.
An alleged fight between two female blackjack dealers at the Bellagio hotel-casino in Las Vegas sent one of the women to the hospital and the other to jail.
It was the second violent incident inside a Las Vegas Strip casino in recent days. Last week, an Illinois man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself in the lobby of the Excalibur resort. The woman was an employee of the resort.
There’s bells and there’s holly, the kids are gung-ho
True love finds a kiss beneath fresh mistletoe
Some families are messed up while others are fine
If you think yours is crazy, well you should see mine
It used to puzzle me how parents could stand to live at a distance from their adult children. Now I think it’s because it’s a bit embarrassing to have your kids see how absurdly vacant your life has become now that your parenting days are over.
A lot of species, once they get too old to have and raise offspring, they just die. They don’t hang around forever and make everyone uncomfortable.
But we’ve always had guns. Since the country was founded July 4, 1776, Americans have had guns, and for most of that time, we’ve managed to live with each other without a mass murder a week.
It can’t be just the guns.
One of the most appalling things to me about modern American society is the way increasingly graphic violence is peddled as entertainment. Turn on the TV: mass murder is entertainment. Grotesque, violent death is “great television.”
Serial killers in movies are the heroes. They can’t be killed off because they’ve got to come back and kill more people in the next sequel.
I know John Wayne used to kill people in movies, but when the Duke shot people, they just grabbed their gut and toppled over. It couldn’t possibly have been more fake. Now when someone gets shot in a movie, they have to be shot in the head. Shooting someone in the head is horrific. And there has to be blood spatter on walls or bystanders or both. And this is entertainment.
It diminishes humanity. It’s bad karma to pretend to kill and be killed for public amusement. It’s bad karma to trifle with death.
If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.
