| — | Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (via philosophybits) |
Billy Jack, 1971
Billy Jack is convinced that the world is a sick, sad, grotesque, demented place, a world without hope or meaning, except for the sliver of optimism provided by a radiant new generation of rainbow children who will save the world and point the way toward a new golden age with their smiles, laughter, and song. - thedissolve.com
“We the people have no representative of any kind,” he told me at the time, when George Bush was still president. We met at his home out in horse country east of the city, his wife and collaborator of more than a half-century, Delores Taylor, was at his side, nodding. “It’s now the multinationals. They’ve taken over. It’s no different than the 70’s, but it’s gotten worse. And if you use words like ‘impeachment’ or ‘fascist’ you’re a nut on a soapbox.”, Tom Laughlin, Billy Jack - thewrap.com
Photos, gifs: kitchendecor.club, thewrap.com, gfycat.com
Costasiella kuroshimae
Costasiella kuroshimae is a species of sacoglossan sea slug, a shell-less marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusk in the family Costasiellidae.It has the ability to incorporate chloroplasts from the algae it feeds on into its body and use them to do photosynthesis (see kleptoplasty). The type locality is Kuroshima, Taketomi, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands.
photo credits: alif_abdulrahman , Rickard Zerpe
In Finland, speeding tickets are calculated based on your income - causing some Finnish millionaires to pay fines of over $100,000. Source
This is what “equality” looks like in that liberal fairy tale land of Finland. They punish you proportionately to how successful you are. Sounds really “fair.”
Except… it is fair? Because it’s proportionate. I don’t get what’s difficult about that. An impoverished person paying $400 dollar fine isn’t the same as a millionaire paying the same amount. For the poor person, $400 dollars could mean starving. Would you really claim it would have the same consequence for a rich man? Would it even be noticeable to him, while the absence of food in their stomach would be glaring to a poorer man? Would it be fair for a man to starve for the same crime as a man that would be having a three course meal?
By taking income into account, it allows the impoverished able to still survive while paying any fines they may incur. And, ultimately, while $100,000 dollars would be noticeable to a millionaire, they would still get by. And, assuming the law is properly implemented, they would be paying the same equivalent of their yearly income that a poorer person would. That’s what makes it fair. They would be impacted the same way - but you are looking at the amount rather than the equation.
Also, it’s important to make sure that even the rich would pause at the cost of a fine. They need to fear the law just as a poor man does.
Oh no… rich people facing fines that might actually make them consider not doing illegal things because the punishments might actually hurt them… how unfair…
-VFinnish person here. Our speeding ticket system owns and only people who bitch about them are people who wanna break the laws - the loudest whiners are the rich people who think they can just pay their way out of trouble and that’s why we have laws like that.
400 dollar ticket.
Person making 10 dollars an hour: “Fuck, I better slow down”
Millionaire driving a Jaguar: “LOL 400 DOLLARS, FUCK THAT, NYOOM”
Compared to a proportional ticket.
Person making 10 dollars an hour and must pay 400 dollar ticket: “Fuck, I better slow down.”
Millionaire who must pay 100,000 dollar ticket: “Fuck, I better slow down.”
Like wtf. Some people have been so brainwashed by capitalism and worship of the rich that they literally can’t tell the difference between fairness and unfairness anymore.
It IS fair. The fact that it flies in the status quo so much should make you think about that status quo.
OR, maybe, just maybe, and hear me out here, MAYBE the actual reason is that not as many people in this day and age feel a pressing urge to spend money on mediocre food at an exploitative business just because some boobs are under a t-shirt in the same room?
This promise was an exciting novelty only to a pre-internet and wealthier generation which simultaneously felt far less shame in leering at or catcalling women but far more shame in looking at porn. Hooters was softcore pseudo burlesque for married Christian men and the culture permitting its success will likely never be repeated and shouldn’t be.
We’re getting an early start on Halloween here with Grady Hendrix’s delightful compendium of Paperbacks from Hell – the classic pulp horror novels of the 1960s and 1970s.
“I sort of was a film guy originally, and in film there’s this real tradition, going out and finding really obscure movies no one’s heard about and showing them to people to sort of blow their minds, and I didn’t see this happening so much with books,” Hendrix says. “So I was going through a dealer’s bin looking for something, you know, that would grab my attention, a place to start. And I came across The Little People by John Christopher … and it is quite literally a book about a castle in Ireland being turned into a B&B, and the big problem is Nazi leprechauns in the basement.”
Check out his full interview here!
– Petra
