You want crazy? We got crazy all over the place!

Ben Stein likes to play the role of economist because he earned a bachelor's degree in the subject. Sure, nobody hired him but he fancies himself as an expert. Well then, I have a degree in psychology, I guess that makes me a psychologist and I diagnose Stein with a critical case of Stein disease, a mental infliction that results in the compulsion to prove to the world how ignorant you are.

The really illuminating piece of information was that Ben Stein was on Faux and Friends, the Faux equivalent of The View. The show with Gretchen Carlson, who was amazed at the illiteracy of Americans because they spell soldier with a "d".

Perfect place for Stein, and probably the only refuge for an "intellectual" of his caliber.

Yes, free from mental illness. That is, aside from believing that they are possessed by demons, which is actually real so doesn't count as illness at all, really.

Both Stein and Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class. What does that make me? I'm earning nowhere near that amount!

Like 95% of other Americans, it makes you poor. That is, $250,000/year is middle class, not upper class, despite being in the upper percentile of household incomes. That gives you a comfortable income, but it's not like you're lighting cigars with $100 bills at that level. What it really means is that the "middle" of the middle class is much poorer than we might imagine.

The good news is, "poor" in America isn't the same as "poor" in much of the rest of the world, where you're lucky to have a shirt on your back.

Gadsby intends to fast until he collapses and then will stop fasting. So all McCain has to do is stay away from Gadsby until he faints. I fail to see the urgency for McCain to pay any attention of Gadsby. But then I've never believed that 9/11 conspiracy theorists were particularly bright.

Dean Baker, among the many good things he points out economics-wise, often points to these silly notions that amounts like $200,000 or $250,000 a year is middle of the road income. The press often does it, probably because pundits often make a lot of money yet have a self image of being a regular guy, just down home folks. Everybody has a multi-million dollar summer house in Nantucket, don't they, so folks with anything less than that are scraping by.

The notion, put forth here again by a commenter, that $250,000/year is some sort of middle class means, I guess, that virtually everybody in the USA is middle class. Because only about 3% make $200 grand and up. That's stretching the boundaries of middle class so much it becomes a useless category.

Crazy religious ceremonies in Paderborn?

...life imitates art...

If I was there while Gadsby was on a hunger strike, I would taunt him with, "Hey Gadsby why doesn't your god come to help you?" I like the drivers taunting him with eggs as they go by also, and if he hasn't the sense to open his mouth and swallow a few then he deserves to starve.
Jesus' General? Is that like Yosemite Sam? And nutbrain Postelnik with his convoluted insanity. And the German catholics requesting exorcisms? Is eveything becoming unhinged? Perhaps it is better that Carl Sagan is not around anymore; I don't think he can keep or put up with the rampant insanity that has now run amuck as evinced on this site! Good grief, are we going under?

"German Catholics have been carrying out exorcisms, with the blessing of the church."

who knew bobby jindal has relatives in germany?

Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick, Tim Russert died!

My dad, who is from Europe and grew up under Communism, taught me that "middle class" meant the small business owners and petty investors, the lawyers and doctors and brokers and other self-employed professionals, and so forth. The entrepreneurs and the more respectable service providers, the bourgeoisie. You know. The kind of people who actually do make $250,000 per year, more or less.

I looked in the dictionaries and found that the phrase evidently means something else in the United States. But at one time the middle class did have a cook and housemaid and nanny, did have large houses and households, did have businesses. I suppose that in this country, since we did away with our slaves and our servants, we now have machines. (Now I think that's a good thing.)

I think about how much has changed, and I'm kind of shocked we don't think of the phrase "middle class" as rather obsolete.

That hunger striking kook who believes that the government orchestrated 9/11 seems to have ended their hunger strike, yesterday. The ScrewLooseChange site commented on that point being made by one of the major conspiracy sites.

Also, Chuck Shepherd's NewsOfTheWeird site commented on the kook last Tuesday, under the headline 'The lonely vigil of a lathered-up 9-11 "truth" guy', which coincidentally was over the headline 'Your Daily Loser'. The article linked from NewsOfTheWeird does a pretty good job of showing the mental gymnastics which the conspiracy theorists go through to reach their conclusions, showing that the conspiracy theorists have never heard of Occam's Razor before.

As a person living off $12k a year (disability), I'd have to say $250k a year is filthy stinking rich.

Hell, if I had half that I'd consider myself a very wealthy person.

Damn you P-zed! Pulling me back to depressing reality just when I'm riding the high of having survived the final presentation on a hugely stressful project...

What's really wierd about the Arizona 9/11 conspiracy theorist is that he has the backing of Karen Johnson, another conspiracy theorist - and an extreme right Republican state legislator! What is she, jealous that she wasn't let in on the plot?

The bit about Yomin Postelnik was pretty good, but I was a bit saddened to see a "oh noes!!!1!1one Bad words on teh internets!!" response by one of the other bloggers there.

Still, yomin was good for a laugh, and I hope he ends up trying to sue so he gets reamed by the counter-suit.

Both Stein and Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class. What does that make me? I'm earning nowhere near that amount!

PZ,

Convert to evangelical Christianity, deny evolution and write a series of books about it. I guarantee you at least a quarter of a million bucks per year until 2013.

So is $250,000 the median income once Gates and Rockefeller are counted? It's the only way that that middle class figure could possibly make any sense.

If you are making more than $250,000 a year you are in the top 1.5% in the US (US Census Beareau, http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032006/hhinc/new06_000.htm). Being in the top 1.5 % of the world's richest country makes you much more than just 'comfortable' or 'well off'. This is especially true considering the median income is about $30,000. The media does tend to look at things from a perspective of people making more than six figure incomes, a perspective different from that of the vast majority of Americans.

Wait, I think I said "median" when I meant "mean".

As a person living off $12k a year (disability), I'd have to say $250k a year is filthy stinking rich.

As a person living on less than a quarter of your annual income (going on 5 years on public assistance and still fighting to get Social Security), I agree 100%. But what really burns my biscuits is the latest "economic stimulus package." What a fucking disgrace. The folks like me who need it the most didn't qualify because our income was too low. WTF?![multiple interrobangs]

DAMNED STUPID SLIMY CLUELESS DELUDED MOTHERFUCKING BABY-RAPING SHIT-EATING REALITY-IMPAIRED REPUBLICAN ASSHOLES!!!!11oneeleven^11!!!!! $250K, my ass. They should try living on our income.

Ugh, the "economic stimulus package" amounts to the proverbial 30 pieces of silver. Chump-in-Chief wanted to pump just enough money into the economy to postpone a total meltdown until after he's out of office so he can pin the blame on his successor. I feel for ya, MadLol, I am lucky to have 2 jobs (uniquely American), but have a friend who's been out of work for over a year now. Being a bit of a putz, he still considers himself a Republican.

This fellow has a long-winded proof of the existence of God that is little more than concatenated baloney.

Let me remind you of the King of "proof of god" baloney. Mr. George Schollenberger.

There are few sites on teh intarwebs that have the level of concentrated dumb dumbery like old George.

Don't believe me? Wellllll. Take this!

The whole of today's scientists can be seen if one breaks down the parts of any man-made thing. For instance, break down the parts of any automobile. Then, count the number of parts in the automobile. Always, the number of parts will be finite. It is thus clear that the whole of any man-made thing will be equal to the sum of its parts. Since today's scientists do not consider the possibility that God-made wholes exist, they do not investigate the nature of God- made wholes.

A theological scientist must conclude that all created things are wholes made by God with indivisible spiritual atoms. Every whole (or part) that God has made is thus formed by an infinite number of spiritual atoms. Thus, the parts of any God-made whole cannot be counted. This is why we are unable to distinguish and count the parts of a human being. Thus, aGod-made whole can never be known exactly by us. We can only improve our knowledge of the wholes created by God

I know. I know. you need to lay down now. It's ok. I've been there.

Feeling better?

Ok, well just so you know, he goes on like that every single day. And try calling him on the glaring mistakes he makes.

Stock up on aspirin.

I am living proof that one *can* recover from 9/11 conspiracy delusions. Admittedly it's not likely, but it's at least possible.

As a person living off $12k a year (disability), I'd have to say $250k a year is filthy stinking rich.

Hell, if I had half that I'd consider myself a very wealthy person.

Well, my household income is pretty close to "half that much," and while I keep reminding myself how very fortunate I am compared to some others (like you), it sure doesn't feel like "filthy stinking rich" from where I sit.

We have a comfortable lifestyle — we "own" our modest home and have cable TV, broadband internet, and cellphones — but we buy the cheapest cars available and drive them 'til they die (my '98 Escort died Friday at 155K mi. and I replaced it with a Hyundai Access), we spend little on clothes, we don't take fancy vacations, we don't go out to the theater or clubs or sporting events, we rarely go to the movies... except for the unfortunate habit of eating out a lot, we have extraordinarily few luxuries or indulgences. And even with Yale financial aid and outside scholarships picking up ~80% of the cost, we'll have to significantly dial back even this modest lifestyle while my daughter is in school.

I'm not complaining — it is, as I said, a comfortable life — but I'm hard pressed to understand how anyone could call it anything grander than "middle class."

So saying $250K is middle class may be stretching a point, but not by as much as you might think. When I was a kid, $250K would've seemed Beverly Hillbillies rich; nowadays, Mr. Drysdale wouldn't give it a second look.

"As a person living on less than a quarter of your annual income (going on 5 years on public assistance and still fighting to get Social Security), I agree 100%. But what really burns my biscuits is the latest "economic stimulus package." What a fucking disgrace. The folks like me who need it the most didn't qualify because our income was too low. "

You sure you don't qualify? I did, and I don't get enough from SSD to pay taxes...
Good luck with your SSD claim. Mine took 4 years.

Right there with you Bill. In that same range or less. I'm the sole IT manager for a 200 mil a year company that sells products for the housing industry. Business is not good. And considering the fact my wife is a Real Estate agent, I'm betting I'm not joining the "middle class" by there definition any time soon. Luckily we decided to not have kids so we have that, but we still struggle. We built our house with our own hands (my father in law is a contractor who is about as hands on as you can get) so we got a break there (if you want to call it that). But everything else these days is virtually pay check to paycheck with the Real Estate downturn. We are better off that millions of Americans, but any idea that we are Middle class is frankly ignorant.

My opinion on the 9/11 "truth" thing is that the Bush Administration was not behind 9/11 but that's only because the idea hadn't occurred to them.

But then I've never believed that 9/11 conspiracy theorists were particularly bright.

This statement I happen to agree with, not to long ago there was a "Oconomowoc Dems Breakfast". Apparently there are Dems in Wisconsin who believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theory. Here is what else it said...

1. "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" - there is a 20 minute version which hits the highlights. I will ask Dale to help with a Q. & A.

2. 9/11 Mysteries: Part 1 - Demolition. Experts have asked many questions about 9/11 which have never been publicized on public media. Did you know that George Bush's brother was the ultimate authority over the World Trade Center Complex - to which all actions/decisions regarding that facility had to pass? We will simply ask the questions again in our group setting - I think all the questions at least should be public knowledge.

We will go no further.

There will always be some reports on Democratic Candidates from now on until the Election.

As someone living in a household where the total family income is around $250k, it certainly doesn't feel like filthy stinking rich. Implying that it is middle class is certainly a stretch though - from here at least, it's always seemed like upper-middle class. Certainly we could afford a bump in taxes.

To clarify, I think there needs to be a distinction between those who believe the 9/11 "truth" theories and those who don't think they are true but believe Bush/Cheney are (im)morally capable of doing such a thing.

The former is wacky, but I'd argue that the latter ain't.

Look even from frankly well below anybodies idea of a poverty line I can say that $250,000 year is not rich. It's rich if that's what you're making in interest.

The definition of well and truely rich is not needing to work to suport a reasonable life style.

Of course when you have that much money what is determined as reasonable keeps changing.

I think it's also clear that at what 3.5% interest? %250,000 a year is many years away from rich.

$250k is absolutely filthy stinking rich. "Middle class" these days means no / poor health insurance, no retirement accounts, no emergency fund, debt up to the eyeballs, etc. When raises were capped at 3%, and inflation was 4%, and food / gas / housing / electric / water / propane / insurance have all risen far beyond inflation costs, middle class has found themselves struggling. Year on year we get poorer even if we GET a yearly raise, and usually we do not.

I have been an adult for 8 years and they have not been easy ones. My parents are able to have perspective on gas prices - compare them to the 1970s and such - for me, I just see prices increasing 400% in 8 years, and a penny a day right now. Things are already tight. What next? Costs of everything have increased, income has not.

Earning 40k yearly.... know what COBRA was when I quit my job? $13k a year to keep my insurance. Who could afford that? That is more than my HOUSE payment which is already above the 30% of take-home they recommend. I could bankrupt myself buying health insurance, so we are uninsured. Last month that meant an unexpected $1000 broken arm. As long as we don't have a broken arm every 2 months, it's cheaper than paying the discounted health insurance offered through my husband's work.

This middle class family doesn't go to movies, doesn't travel, hasn't vacationed, doesn't eat out (well maybe a pizza once a month), etc. Our house is small and dated. And for the time being, we are doing fine, but if things keep going the way they are, even for 6 more months, there will be nothing else to cut from the budget. What then, when we can't afford heat or gas?

I don't see how it's even arguable that having significantly more money than 95% of the people in the US puts you in a position of economic power. $250k is rich. Even if you want more than you have, right now you have more than most everyone else, and that's how wealth is measured.

Today's Bill Moyers Journal was about extreme inequality in the US. You can watch it here:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06132008/watch.html

Just a quick one before I disappear off to my country retreat - a caravan - for the rest of the weekend.

$250,000! Too early to do the sums but that's a lot of £££'s.

And here I was thinking America was a classless society - silly me! At least here in the UK we can recognise our upper classes.

No chin, silly accent, vacant stare and penchant for twitishness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqkdcT25ss

Coffee!

"No chin, silly accent, vacant stare and penchant for twitishness."

Well, I score 3 out of 4. 4, if you think I talk funny. So apparently I am a very poor upper class person.

PZ, you are earning far more than $250K. Its just that you are not being paid nearly that much.

Regarding the German exorcisms. The Catholic church in Norway (which is minute) recently announced that they were opening up a position as exorcist. It's mind boggling.

My opinion on the 9/11 "truth" thing is that the Bush Administration was not behind 9/11 but that's only because the idea hadn't occurred to them.

To quote someone else, there are two reasons why Bush couldn't have pulled off the 9/11 attacks.

1. It required planning.

2. It succeeded.

Also, wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said that the only way three people could keep a conspiracy a secret is if two of them were dead. Take a look at Loose Change 2nd Edition, the most popular video in the history of the internet. What that video proposes would require that the conspiracists would include American Airlines, United Airlines, staff of the 9/11 building (to hide the months of planting of explosives), the global major media, the property owners, the firefighters (who would have killed 343 of their own in that attack), SWAT teams, the army, the clean up crew, the thousands of forensic investigators, the witnesses, the victims on the jets (unless you believe them to be snivelling cowards as some in the movement do), SWAT teams, the FBI, and the CIA, among many others.

Then again, that video said that the Pentagon was hit by a Navy plane known as "the Whale". And by a cruise missile. And by a shoulder mounted missile launcher. And that the actual flight flew over and away from the Pentagon, yet was somehow missed by the vast majority of the hundreds of witnesses.

Another perception problem is that people who make around 200k and people who make, say, 50k, might look on the surface pretty similar - not too much difference in house size, not too much difference in cars, not too much difference in everyday life. You see the differences when you look more closely. The lower-income family has a much older car, possibly with some weird engine sounds that are a little troubling, but not worth the money to get fixed. The house looks nice, but has loads of deferred structural maintenance that they just can't get to right now. Vacations are a weekend camping at the local state park rather than a trip to Florida (or wherever). Most importantly, they have no safety net. None. One layoff, or one bad medical problem, and it's all over. There's a term for this that I don't remember, but most of what passes for middle class is on a razor-thin margin, hanging on by their fingernails.

Also, the cost of living is so widely different in areas of the country that it makes it hard to compare. A family living on 250k in DC probably does have a similar standard of living to someone making 100k in St. Louis, or 50k in Des Moines. But it's tone-deaf, clueless, and wrong to say that 250k is some sort of middle-living standard, especially since the national median is somewhere around 40k.

Speedwell @11,

My dad, who is from Europe and grew up under Communism, taught me that "middle class" meant the small business owners and petty investors, the lawyers and doctors and brokers and other self-employed professionals, and so forth.

Yes, this is another one of those examples of two peoples divided by a common language.

In Europe, "middle class" does not traditionally imply that the members of this class are the median in terms of wealth. It refers to the bourgeoisie or Bürgerliche, a class between the landowning aristocracy on the one hand and the peasantry/proletariat on the other. Though a broad middle class is possible (and indeed, certainly something to be aspired to), nothing about the historical notion of "middle class" requires that this class be very large at all, nor even that its wealth be less than that of the aristocracy. (And indeed, it hasn't been for at least 150 years or so. The remnants of the old aristocracy who are still stinking rich these days usually are so because an ancestor made a timely decision to join, or marry into, the haute bourgeoisie; and much of the aristocracy, in places where there are still aristocrats, isn't particularly old, being descended from, say, a 19th century brewer or banker or steel mill operator who bought himself a grand-sounding title was ennobled for services to industry.)

In America, by contrast, "middle class" seems to be used to mean "everybody who is neither really poor nor really rich". There is something both charming and healthy about this notion (America has only one "class" in the old European sense; what distinctions there are amongst the people are solely a function of varying economic power). It might be a myth, but it's a benevolent myth and the world is a better place to the extent it can be made reality. But yes, there is a tendency to stretch the meaning to "middle class is everybody except Bill Gates ate one end and that guy eating out of the dumpster at the other", which renders it more or less meaningless.

In other words, "middle class" is one of those terms like "liberal". Indeed, now I think of it, European liberal parties had their origin as factions supporting the interests of the bourgeoisie over those of the older bits of the establishment: crown, aristocracy and church.

There's a case to be made from a Marxist perspective (I don't mean Marxist in terms of advocacy of socialism, red flags and urging of the workers of all lands to unite, but rather Marxist in terms of analysis of capitalism -- who's capturing surplus value from whom, etc.) that the US middle class (sensu americano) is disappearing: the few at the high end becoming the middle class (sensu europeano) while the many are reduced to their service providers, the proletariat. From a certain perspective, a cubicle farm looks very much like a factory or coal-mine.

Yomin is a palindrome of Nimoy. Are you sure the other name isn't Dranoel rather than Postelnik?

Hm. I've always encountered "layer" instead of "class" in German (perhaps that's to sound less Marxist or 19th-century in general), and the "lower layer" is considered to be really poor, as in struggling, and considered to be almost absent in First World countries (at least outside of times of grave recession). As in "China achieved the classless society by abolishing the bourgeoisie, Sweden achieved the classless society by abolishing the proletariat".

And 250,000 $ per year... I may be missing things about the cost of living or especially the taxes*, but it still sounds very, very rich to me. "Upper layer" without question.

* But then, that goes both ways. "Taxes" includes "health insurance" over here.

the "lower layer" is considered to be really poor, as in struggling, and considered to be almost absent in First World countries (at least outside of times of grave recession). As in "China achieved the classless society by abolishing the bourgeoisie, Sweden achieved the classless society by abolishing the proletariat".

wouldn't that be the lumpenproletariat?

When the surveyors come around and happen to ask about my self-definition of economic class, I don't pretend I'm middle class. Somebody writes my paycheck, and it ain't me.

Despite that, I know I'm one of the lucky ones. I make a bit more than most in my area, and I belong to a not-too-bad union (further proof that I'm working class). I get okay raises--not the greatest in the world, but my salary has doubled in 12 years, thanks to normal seniority upticks and some very aggressive union bargaining that bumped my job up two pay grades during that time. My husband has just surpassed what I started out making with the USPS, 12 years ago.

I know I'm one of the lucky ones. But I'm still only a few paychecks away from serious trouble. I can't seem to get ahead (although I do have a retirement plan). I've had some serious medical problems the past few years, which looks like they're resolved now. I had to be off work for weeks at a time (sometimes as many as 6) for a while there, and our finances are still recovering from that.

I hate the "economic stimulus" packages. I have to hold onto that money because it will go onto my tax return next year as income. Check your 1040s, folks. Every time Bush has given us this wad of cash, we have to repay it on the next year's taxes. That doesn't qualify as a rebate to me. A rebate is something I don't a have to pay back. What Bush has been doing is more like an interest-free loan of my own goddamned money that I have to pay back.

Of course there was a conspiracy to commit the september 11 2001 attacks. It was conceived by Osama bin Laden, planned by Khalid Sheik Mohammad and carried out under the operational control of Mohammad Atta.
George W. Bush, in office an entire eight months by the time this happened, would not have had time to lay on such an operation. But hey, feel free to think otherwise.
And while you're at it, can I interest you in a share of this Bridge ?

For Mrs Tilton @#42:
You say:

From a certain perspective, a cubicle farm looks very much like a factory or coal-mine.

Until you've had to go work in a coal mine, then a nice, comfortable air conditioned cube farm can look fairly attractive.

oversimplified distinction on class:

European approach: position in relations of production.
American approach: consumptive lifestyle.

Of course, there's a relationship between the two. But, the expansion of credit in particular has given many people a bourgeois ("middle" in the emerging capitalist order) lifestyle (position in relations of consumption) despite a more working-class (proletarian, although no longer industrial) position in the relations of production.

Shit, I should go back and read a little bit of E.O. Wright, but it's not related to my dissertation or teaching so it's out of bounds for at least 7 months.

I notice an article in business week [don't blame me - it came for free and I can't stop despite strong efforts - damn you free magazine gods] this week wherein an MD complains that he and his wife don't earn enough at 300K a year and that he might vote Republican instead.

I about blew a gasket. I would love to be making a 5th of that.

$250,000!! I doubt it. Obama's increased taxation is more likely to start at about $30,000 to $35,000. Just watch.

Obama said:

I generally define well-off as people who are making $250,000 a year or more, and that means, for example, if we raise the capital gains tax, I would exempt people who are essentially small investors, and really capture the -- those who have done very, very well over the last two decades

So, for all those who suggest that $250,000 is too high a limit, what do you suggest ? What criterias should one apply ?

What about someone who makes $150,000 a year, without working, all in capital gains,(that's what I call rich : someone who doesn't really need to work to live very comfortably, shouldn't the increase in capital gains tax target this guy more, than let's say the guy who makes $150,000 of which only $25,000 in capital gains.
If they are both exonerated, by the capital gains tax increase it seems unfair.

Why not simply calculate the capital gains and only exonerate those who are under a reasonable amount, say $50,000 ? Then, he would really be doing what he is saying, "exempting small investors".

Aquaria: When I got my stimulus check, it very clearly said that it would not be counted as income and we would not have to put it on the tax return next year. That said, it's the government after all, and they could easily change their minds, pass something by quietly tacking the suggestion onto some other more popular legislation, and tax the money away anyway.

Mrs Tilton Thank you for the explanation. It was a really good teaching moment and deeply appreciated!

Frankly about this taxation mess... I'm either too naive or too jaded, one, to understand it, I suppose. It's the government, they can take whatever they want whenever they want by passing some law raising taxes, or declaring assets forfeit, or pretending you grow pot, or pretending you are a terrorist, or nationalizing your industry, or drafting your body, or relocating you to a reservation or camp so they can grab your assets and land, or through any other sort of war they can think up to make on their own citizens.

What difference does it make where they put the cutoff? So long as someone has something and someone else has nothing, there will always be a case made by those who have nothing that those who have something have a moral obligation to redistribute that something in their direction.

I think the definitions of what poor and middle class are has become mangled over the years. Perhaps mostly by pride.

First of all there is a great deal which is just plain situational $250,000 a year income isn't rich if there are $50K+ per adult in student debts and a mortgage on the house. $3,000 a year income can be stinking rich if there was enough in the reserves to carry on without caring. Things like this is generally why you have income in one collum and taxable income in another.

If you are in debt, struggling to pay the bills, putting nothing aside for retirement, have little to no insurance and think three times beofre going to a cheap matinee I'm sorry but despite what the current published poverty line may or may not say, you are poor. Nobody wants to admit to being poor, it's a coping mechanism even more then a stigma, but the fact of the matter is that the poverty line is not only arbitrary but just plain wrong. You might not be desitute (which is what most people think of as poor) but you deserve a hell of a lot more in the way of tax breaks and incentives.

The difinitions of middle class are that you can afford some luxuries and save for a retirement but still have to go to work in the morning. You can see how this could be a very broad range even if you raise the poverty line. But even with that very broad range it is thinning out as more and more people get shuffled off higher or lower, mostly lower.

Rich: you don't have to work, you can if you want to but you don't have to. When you are capable of living off nothing but the interest on investments, you're set.

I think what I'm saying is that making blakent statments about the classes of gross anual income is a gross generalization. Gross generalizations (unless noted from the outset as being such) tend to make me twitch, they are inherently false. Two; the definition of poor should be expanded, esspecially in the land of no public health care, if you can't afford to get sick.... *sudder* lets just at this point state that even other Canadians think I'm left-wing so by American standards that probably makes me a raging commie-pinko-bastard so health care should be free, post secondary education should be paid for by the state, and teachers should have tripple the income they do and be held to higher standards then they are (esspecially grade school and high school wow are there some corkers running loose in those systems). Suffice it to say I have Opinions.

Based off of the census bureau stats feynmaniac linked to in #19, calling the top 1.9% of the country "middle class" seems rather ridiculous, especially since the mean income for the >250k bracket of society ($448,687) is over 6.5 times that of the general population ($66,570). Hell, there are more people making under $2,500 than there are making over $250,000 (2,533 vs 2,240, respectively).

Of course, if Obama really wanted to rake in some more tax $, he could start taxing religious orgs....

You mean Yomin Postelnik was wrong? And here I was ready to hang up my black hooded robe and fangs for good.

And a new study by The Commonwealth Fund shows that the underinsured, those who have health insurance but with high premiums and too little coverage to afford to actually go to the doctor and pay the high copays, has gone up to 40% of the entire population under age 65 (that percentage inclusive of the not at all insured). That's an awful lot of the "middle class", no matter how you define middle.

About religion in Europe, it's still going downhill as fast as ever as far as Christian sects are concerned. 25% of the remaining 4000 churches are set to close within 10 years here in NL. Muslim immigrants are secularizing as well, regardless of the attempts from foreign powers in the middle east to enslave their population from abroad.

It only makes sense that religions are heading back to the extreme fringe like the because thats where the only believers they have left are spending their time.

Regarding MAJeff, OM's comment@48

"But, the expansion of credit in particular has given many people a bourgeois ("middle" in the emerging capitalist order) lifestyle (position in relations of consumption) despite a more working-class (proletarian, although no longer industrial) position in the relations of production."

Hereing lie the roots of our current economic free-fall. As far as production goes, "we ain't got no stinkin' production" anymore.

The article on the hunger striker cites the Popular Mechanics report on 9/11 conspiracy theories.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?pa…

They tell us that the hijacked aircraft couldn't be found because the hijackers had turned off the transponder. "ATC had to search 4500 identical radar blips crisscrossing some of the country's busiest air corridors." This one sentence has two howlers.

First, 4500 radar blips refers to the total number over the continental United States, including Florida, California, Washington State. If an aircraft disappears in New York State, one isn't going to search the entire United States within the next fifteen minutes.

Second, "identical radar blips" is a major howler. What is the difference between a commercial aircraft broadcasting a transponder signal and one not broadcasting a transponder signal? That question belongs on "It Pays to be Ignorant." What color was George Washington's white horse? Who wrote the autobiography of Ben Franklin and what historical figure was it about? How do you spell USA? What is the rate of change of a constant?

If radar spots 20 commercial airliners within fifty miles, and 19 broadcast a transponder signal and one doesn't, guess which one is the missing aircraft. Three guesses -- the first two don't count. The other 19 aircraft will all be where they're supposed to be, while that one aircraft will be where none is supposed to be. There has to be some method in the Air-Traffic-Control system that catches when a transponder signal disappears, and marks the primary radar signal.

The Popular Mechanics report was propaganda, nothing more.

re: speedwell @ 11
"I think about how much has changed, and I'm kind of shocked we don't think of the phrase 'middle class' as rather obsolete."

It's the term "working class" that has been untimely flushed down the Memory Hole. If you earn a salary working for someone else, you're still a wage slave.

ms. tilton @ 42
(I don't mean Marxist in terms of advocacy of socialism, red flags and urging of the workers of all lands to unite, but rather Marxist in terms of analysis of capitalism -- who's capturing surplus value from whom, etc.)

The latter kind of leads to the former...once you have a clearer understanding of what is going on, you ask yourself "what is to be done?"; at least that's how it played out historically on the world stage in the late 19th century through most of the 20th.

"Both Stein and Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class. What does that make me? I'm earning nowhere near that amount!"

I agree, $250,000/year is way above middle class. But the notion is not quite so crazy in places like New York City, and Washington DC, with their astronomical cost of living. I'm also thinking of Congressmen, who need to maintain residences in both their districts and DC. (Just an aside here...)

DLC @47,

For Mrs Tilton @#42:
You say:

From a certain perspective, a cubicle farm looks very much like a factory or coal-mine.

Until you've had to go work in a coal mine, then a nice, comfortable air conditioned cube farm can look fairly attractive.

Yes. That would have been the point of my words, "from a certain perspective". Indeed, from another perspective, for example, that of the medieval farm, even work in a 19th c. urban factory might have looked good. Again, I commend you to study of the notion of "perspective".

As it happens, Marx would classify me as middling if not haute bourgeoisie; but for many years earlier in my life I put in my time both in cubicle farms and in hard manual labour. The cubicles share with my present station a lack of serious work-induced physical exhaustion and any but accidental bruises. In other ways, though, the cubicles and the assembly line are like as peas in a pod. If you lack the experience to understand that, well, I'm happy for you, and hope you'll be able to maintain that innocence throughout your life. But unless and until you come to know what you're talking about, you'll also understand me, I trust, when I invite to go fuck yourself, and to come back when you have some basis for participation in this discussion beyond regurgitating the Republican slogans you've memorised.

Mrs Tilton, I mean no disrespect, but telling someone to go masturbate himself and not come back until he had experience struck me as hilarious. :)

Interesting debate about class in Europe and the US. I will say that in Denmark, as in most of rest of Europe, class is more job-type oriented than income oriented. Which might explain why social mobility is harder in the US than in Europe (see this post for some links to studies about social mobility in the US).

"First of all there is a great deal which is just plain situational $250,000 a year income isn't rich if there are $50K+ per adult in student debts and a mortgage on the house."

Uh, no. $250k is rich. $250k and squeaking by after paying your mortgage and $100k in in student debts is still rich.
If you don't have that money, you wouldn't have been able to get that $100k worth of education. Sure, you might not be able to earn that $250k without that education, but still... all you're arguing is that it's hard to live the lifestyle of a person with $250k with much less than that.

Yes, it's going to take more than a $30k income to buy a house in San Francisco or Manhattan... but that doesn't mean middle class is higher in those areas - that means middle class people can't own homes there, period.

Your ability to spend more than you earn doesn't mean you stay in a middle class range since you're barely managing to make it from $20k paycheck to $20k paycheck.

Middle class families don't send their 2-4 kids to Yale or Harvard or Stanford. Maybe community college.

Middle class families very possibly might not have health insurance.

And measuring by past standards, by 1950's standards doesn't count either. Middle class is not defined by a standard of living, its defined by what the bulk of people can afford.

Owning a home, two cars, and sending all the kids to college on one adult's income is no longer middle class.

What is US$250,000 worth in proper British Pounds now? About a tenner? Yup, you're poor ;)

If you don't have that money, you wouldn't have been able to get that $100k worth of education. Sure, you might not be able to earn that $250k without that education, but still... all you're arguing is that it's hard to live the lifestyle of a person with $250k with much less than that.

Ah yeah, you can get that education without the money, that is how you end up in debt. Well you can here anyway. The collateral for the loan is the idea that you will be employable with the education you get. Here you can't get the student loan if your parents make enough money to pay for you themselves... it kinda screws the kids that aren't speaking to their parents who want education, there are other issues like not being able to declare bankruptcy from education loans too. But those are specificly here. I really don't think Canada is the only place with Student loans.

But you missunderstand me, I'm not saying it's difficult to live of $250K a year, just that not all $250K situations are created equal and making blanket statements is irrational.

And yes it is judged by standards of living because poverty is judged by standards of living and the overal health of nations is judged by average standard of living. It all falls appart when you start hanging nation wide average numbers on those standards becuase no, things don't cost the same everywhere. To judge poverty by standards of living but middle class by gross anual income is to leave probably thousands standing in both camps. What is wrong with a little consistnacy?

Obama said:

I generally define well-off as people who are making $250,000 a year or more,

Thanks for the quote. This puts a somewhat different spin on someone's earlier claim that Obama thinks $250K/yr is middle class. What he really said here (if you read between the lines) is that $250K/yr is a political boundary above which nobody can reasonably claim they can't afford to shoulder their fair share of the cost of a just society. If you listen to Obama's speeches, you'll know he understands the pain threshold is much lower than that.

As for myself, at $100K+/yr household income for a family of 3, I'd never claim to be struggling, but anyone who claims I'm rich has got some 'splainin' to do to convince me. Mind you, I'm talking about "rich" in the context of Western industrialized nations in general and the U.S. in particular: I'm well aware that I'm insanely rich compared to the vast hordes of the truly poor around the world, and I thank FSM daily that my family and I have been so generously touched by His noodly appendage.

To me, it's more a matter of standard of living than any fixed amount of income: I think of "middle class," in the current-day, first-world context, as meaning that one's family's physical needs (shelter, food, healthcare, transportation, education, safety) can be reasonably provided for, along with some measure of security against future setbacks and obstacles, all within a reasonable amount of effort and worry (i.e., hard but not body- or soul-crushing toil; prudent concern but not mind-killing fear). In the post-WWII U.S., that's generally included a pretty broad range of incomes, but that income range is being squeezed.

At my income level (both my wife and I work full time, and I get generous benefits with my job), I can fairly comfortably place myself in that range. I could (and gladly would) pay somewhat more in taxes in support of a more just, better functioning society, but I couldn't afford to pay much more (unless the cost was offset by a benefit like, for instance, single-payer healthcare), and my family's lifestyle could not survive the loss of even my wife's (smaller) income for any significant length of time. Loss of my job would quickly leave us poor, unless I were able to replace it with an equivalent position almost immediately. In short, we're fortunate to be very comfortable, but we have very little margin for error.

To me, "well off" (which I think means something a bit less grand than "wealthy" or "filthy stinkin' rich") means the ability to meet all your family's needs with minimal effort and/or complete confidence. If you can live a "middle class" lifestyle without breaking a sweat, I'll call you "well off." It would require more than just a little more income for me to reach that point... but I concede that with $250K/yr I'd be over that line. But maybe only just.

The fact that people making six figures feel the way I do about their economic security, BTW, makes it all the more vital that we redress the economic inequities of our society. My somewhat tenuous good fortune doesn't make me think "let them eat cake"; it makes me think "if I feel this vulnerable, FSM only knows how folks making 1/3 as much are getting by."

Which is why we so desperately need Obama instead of McCain. He may not be the revolutionary some hope for, but we'll never have that short of an actual revolution. Which might be the only way out if we give the Republicans another 4 years at the helm.

#55: "Based off of the census bureau stats feynmaniac linked to in #19, calling the top 1.9% of the country "middle class" seems rather ridiculous..."

Yes, it seems that way, yet upper-income folks like Bill Dauphin, Rev. BigDumbChimp, and Chris #30 tell us that the label fits. And I agree. I recently realized that I grew up in a household in the top 10% of income, if not the top 5%. Yet it was a split-level ranch with an unpaved driveway and an unfinished basement. Rather than live in a lavish house, my parents saved more of their income and were able to retire early. That's where the money went.

While "middle income" can be defined mathematically, "middle class" is a nebulous term. Emily @ #33 is middle class, and lives on the fringe (by Western standards). Lynnai @ #54 says that's not middle class, that's poor. I agree with Lynnai @ #68 that the fudged definition of "middle class" is too broad to be meaningful.

I really don't think Canada is the only place with Student loans.

In France, there are no tuition fees for higher education. It's all financed by taxes.
Some of the most elite schools (such as Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole Normale Supérieure...) pay you an income during your studies, in exchange of an engangement of work in a public administration for a minimum duration, also financed by taxes.
It's not a perfect egalitarian system, but I would never want to change it for the American one.

If you can live a "middle class" lifestyle without breaking a sweat, I'll call you "well off."

I agree. You describe my case. I worked for an employer for 12 years, started my own business, sold it, and now have enough capital, from which I get interests, which are taxed at the lowest rate. I'm single, own my house with no debt. I don't make much income from my interests, but I can't complain.
And yes, I think it's completely unfair that I pay less taxes each year than a salaried worker making say $60,000 a year working like hell.
But what can I do, I'm following the rules, I'm not just going to give my priviledges away unless all those well offs do the same. It's the system that is unfair, if it taxes more labour than capital income.
I only have one vote, it's those who are not in my case, and have many ,many votes, who need to realize how they're being screwed, and change this system.

Regarding John @ 60...
You're presuming that ATC has individual people staring at each individual radar blip, waiting for the moment that it might disappear. You also seem to believe that ATC had all of the flight data then as it does now, including info on aircraft where the transponders were turned off. You also assume that the ATC staff knew which states had missing aircraft in it, saying that they didn't have to check the entire United States when it wasn't known how many aircraft were involved, or where the aircraft were.

It's nearly 7 years later John, and the 9/11 conspiracy theorists still can't figure out the conspiracy nor the theory. Larry Silverstein with controlled demolition? John Ashcroft with particle based space weapons? The US army with aircraft refuelers and real-time 3D holographic technology? The Navy with their transport craft "the Whale"? All you're missing is Colonel Mustard with the candlestick.

In France, there are no tuition fees for higher education. It's all financed by taxes.
Some of the most elite schools (such as Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole Normale Supérieure...) pay you an income during your studies, in exchange of an engagement of work in a public administration for a minimum duration, also financed by taxes.

I understand Sweden is similar and it to me smacks of being truly civilized! A friend of my SO had a prolonged illness (in Sweden, he was a citizen at the time) and picked up a few extra degrees while bedridden just for something to do. I think it's brilliant! Education enriches all of society (and I want more because I think it's fun).

I make $45K a year, which isn't bad for one person with no dependents (except the kitty), but I live in NY. I have two roommates and still pay nearly $800 a month in rent. I get by okay though, which is why I don't understand why "middle class" people (like my parents) aren't willing to pay a little more in taxes to even things out a little for the people who don't make as much as they do. But then that's why I'm the black sheep democrat/socialist of the family...

Before you start chattering on about Obama saying $250,000 is middle class, know your facts. Obama does not believe that $250,000 is middle class. Obama acknowledges that only 3% of the population make this amount of money. Currently, you don't have to pay social security taxes after a $105,000 of income. Obama plans to create a hole where people have to pay up to $105,000, then don't have to pay anything else unless they make over $250,000. For wealthy americans (over $250,000) they have to pay 6% on everything over $250,000.

For the middle class: 1) $500 per person tax cut for each working americans ($1000/family). 2) match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn less than $75,000. 3)Eliminate social security for seniors who earn less than $50,000. 4) create an automatic pension for every workplace (employees may opt out). 5) pool all individuals and small business to create nationalized health insurance program. 6) Roll back Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy and decrease tax havens. 7) a $500 tax credit to homeowners who make less than $75,000 but don't itemize.

Not to mention: Net neutrality, stopping non-bid government contracts, building a public website where all government contracts and expenditures can be viewed, taxation on windfall profits for oil companies, roll back tax breaks for oil companies, create a green jobs program and more. If you want to know what his issues are go here!

Pharyngula,
I did not hyjack anyone's wikipage and the only reason there's going to be a lawsuit is because these guys keep posting false accusations, placing my business number on their website, google stalking me and commenting on other threads, bumping positive links off and replacing them with negative ones, etc. Russell Glasser, the co-admin of the site you mentioned, has admitted to as much.
I also offered to debate Martin Wagner provided he stop lobbing these accusations, etc., but he ignored the request and instead posts a thread about "me hiding from debate." Nice to see how sick some militant atheists really are and how low they'll go to attack anyone with a different opinion.

blah blah blah

You're a creationist liar. Fuck off.

For those interested, here's the whole story:

Before I go to the mainstream media about so many of harassment tactics meted out, I'd like to get some opinions from atheists, in the interest of fairness.

As so many people on this forum know, I wrote a column about logical proof of the existence of a Divine Creator. In no place did I call atheists evil or even imply it. I simply said you're wrong and laid out some reasons why. Now I understand that you disagree. And I disagree with many columns written every day. But I don't react like this:

After writing the column I was the subject of a targetted write-in campaign. Many people on this forum wrote in to the Publisher asking how dare they run such an "illogical" column and demanding that they retract it. These tactics are more reminiscient of the communist party and the KGB than anything American. Those who engaged in same should be truly ashamed.

But it didn't stop there!

I also received both a torrent of emails and a torrent of calls to my business from all over the country. Some came from other parts of the world as well. 90% of these were harassing, badgering and profanity laced.

But it didn't stop there either!

One Martin Wagner of atheistexperience posted a post with my name in it 500 times, diriding me a nincompoop, making fun of my name, etc. and then kept googling my name (AS HE ADMITTED TO ON THIS FORUM) and upping it so that it comes up second on any search. When I contacted his co-administrator he at first apologized but then later started googling me and writing comments in his full name.

Their website also published my business number and the name of an employee.

Did it stop there? No.

I asked someone who works with me and who saw the scope of the harassment to find out if Martin had done this before and how widespread it was. What he found was that Martin Wagner had a series called the Hepcats and if you go to what he called his official site http://hepcats.comicgenesis.com/, he was offering 3 updates a week and asking for paypal donations, but that no updates had been provided for over a year. This person emailed Martin and confronted him about it. I understand that as a result Martin changed the official site. Martin denies promising 3 updates but it's the first thing you see. The only other prominent part are the paypal links. I hadn't gotten a chance to look at it till tonight, but it is shocking.

But then Martin accused me of attacking his wikipedia page. I can assure everyone that I did not. Unlike Martin, I'm not a harasser. Just a columnist who gets harassed. In fact, my wikipedia page was minorly attacked by one of his goons, but that's not worth getting into.

I did, however, think that the guy who found the Hepcats info did mess with his wikipedia page. But when I confronted him about it he a) assured me he wouldn't do something that could backfire so easily and b) tonight he pointed out that in all likelihood, as Martin had been moderating my comments, one of his cronies faked my IP and proceeded to write the ridiculous things he attributes to me or my webmaster. This makes sense to me, especially since a few weeks ago, before the writing of the article, I'd been minorly attacked on about's atheism board and when both I and someone in the office responded, I publicly posted the IP address to show that there were no multiple usernames.

If anyone wants to know the true scope of Martin Wagner's lack of honesty (in case the Hepcats story isn't enough), one only has to look at his website where he still accuses me, in the title of a post, from "running and hiding" from debate (for saying that I can't debate on 50 boards and then offering a transcript of a similar debate that I was in). In fact, on Fri. I emailed him trying to settle this by agreeing to a full debate as long as him and his cronies stop playing games. He didn't publish the comment and keeps accusing me of running from debate instead.

I'm not going to sit back and take this outright defamation and onslaught. I reached out to both Martin and Russell several times to resolve this. They instead chose to keep google stalking me (WHICH, AGAIN, THEY OPENLY ADMIT TO), for the express purpose of trying to harm my name and my business (as their cohorts are very specific about in comments that Martin and Russell allow published) and posting derogatory comments all over the internet. They've downed positive links on my google search and keep bumping up negative ones and their manipulation of google is constant and ongoing.

If you think that these tactics and this ongoing harassment speaks well to atheists and to their cause, then give Martin, Russell and the Atheist Community of Austin, who's office manager Don called and harassed me twice after an employee called to simply find out Martin's contact info to save us from doing a public search. If, however, you think that these tactics are reminiscient of the Bolsheviks and the KGB, then maybe you'd like to ask them to backdown before they further harm the atheist cause.

I recognize that Martin is simply a liar, a bully and a thief and that Russell is simply a two faced lackey. I want to see if more respectable atheists believe that this harms their reputation as a whole, something I've always taken great care not to do.

I am looking to resolve this as I don't like pointing to the examples of some to be reflective of an entire group. That's why I'm asking if there's anyone here who would like to let them know the damage that they are doing to your cause. I would like to see if they speak for almost all atheists or for only the most militant.

This Yomin Postelnik character seems like he has gone off of the deep end. After reading about his exploits, I can only come to the conclusion that he is in need of much help.

I hope he gets it.

Nah. He's just a fucking liar.

hey Yomin! You don't have proof of shit...

You're an asshole. And you're boring.

Sue me.

Lying and mental instability are not mutually exclusive. This guy seems to have a hatred for those who question his immoral dishonest actions.

I understand Sweden is similar

Tuition as such is free (you have to buy textbooks etc). In addition students get a stipend (not enough to live on) and access to cheap loans.

Middle class isn't a number, IMO. I'd definitely agree that the number is well below $250K a year, but there are places in this country that the cost of living is so high or so low that "middle class" is clearly relative. If we didn't have to pay for our health insurance (which is ridiculously expensive, has a co-pay that shocks medical office workers, and pays for prescriptions begrudgingly after forcing us to jump through hoops and then changes the co-pay depending on the phase of the moon. . .) and the dental/orthodontal care for a family of four, and eyecare for everyone, our own retirement savings (no pension, no company contribution towards retirement) and the expenses that go with living in New Jersey, we'd be hella rich. Hoo-boy! However, knowing that the number on the statement for "gross pay" becomes really small even before any discretionary spending, I can vouch that it's not a valid measure of economic class. I'd bet, though, that at $250K, you are probably not paying as much out - you probably have better company benefits than we do, and you might even have a lawyer and/or accountant who helps you pay less in taxes than we do, and that alone would be enough to push you out of the top of the middle class. Sure would be nice to try living like that. . .

HidariMak @ 72:

I made no such assumption, just use (what should be) ordinary common sense. I refuted the idiotic claims made by Popular Mechanics. If an aircraft disappears in New York, you don't go looking for it in California within the nest half hour. If an aircraft loses contact, or doesn't respond to orders, you know where it was at last contact. And if an aircraft turns off its transponder, there will be one blip without transponder information.

Any disappearance will be transitory, and the aircraft will be discovered in a straightforward search if it's still flying.

It should be obvious that Popular Mechanics was spouting nonsense in that section.

Before I go to the mainstream media about so many of harassment tactics meted out, I'd like to get some opinions from atheists, in the interest of fairness.

Yo stupid: harrassment is a crime. The correct place to take a charge of harassment is to the police, not the mainstream media. That you are taking different steps does not encourage us to believe your version of events.

PZ, where are the black boxes from 9/11? Where's the wreckage? Where are the photos from Pentagon cameras? The government is feeding into this by not showing what was found.

Are you serious??? Did you see what the twin towers were reduced to???? A smoldering pile metal and concrete. Maybe there's no black box left. Maybe the plane was pulverized into tiny little bits... there's no need to wonder about what happened to the plane because it was fucking recorded on VIDEO.

I'm as liberal as the next guy. But the fucking pondering about some grand conspiracy to take us into Iraq is fucking stupid. Not when the public is so gullible. And all it takes is a pathetic media and a lying administration to get us there.

Not when the public is so gullible. And all it takes is a pathetic media and a lying administration to get us there.

Domke, David. 2004. God Willing? : Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the 'War on Terror,' and the Echoing Press.

The notion that the Bush Administration committed 9/11 in order to invade Iraq is comparable to the notion that the Nazis committed the Reichstag bombing in order to invade Czechoslovakia -- the notions are absurd. I am unaware of any "troofer" who asserts either notion (although no doubt a few have). The obvious motive in both cases was to terrorize the population, and persuade them to accept a "national security" state and destruction of civil liberties.

What would have happened had 9/11 not occurred? Anyone remember the campaign to punish three of the "Felonious Five" on the US Supreme Court for fundamental conflict of interest that required recusal in Bush v. Gore? Anyone remember Senator Jeffords who changed from Republican to Independent, thereby switching control of the Senate? The fight against the Bush Administration was just gaining momentum.

After 9/11, the Bush Administration was in complete cover-up mode. They fought Congressional attempts to investigate -- Cheney even warned congressmen that they might be charged with treason. They fought the establishment of the 9/11 Commission for a year, and then grossly underfunded it (far less money than for each of the Space Shuttle commissions) and tried to appoint Henry Kissinger chairman. They stalled and stonewalled all attempts to obtain documents and testimony.

Anyone who thinks they know about 9/11, answer these questions:

• What does the FBI's most-wanted page on "Usama bin Laden" say about 9/11?
• What does the 9/11 Commission's Report say about the collapse of WTC Building 7?
• Where does the Report cite the official flight manifests of each of the hijacked flights, to establish that the hijackers were aboard the planes?
• What does the Report say about the telephone records of the telephone calls from Flight 77?
• What does the Report say about air hijack exercises occurring on 9/11?

Steve_C,
I have looked at the pictures, and I watched it all live that day.I also know that some aircraft parts are so incredibly durable that they could practically be dropped from ORBIT and still be recognizable. The engines, for example. Very high heat tolerance, incredibly heavy internal parts.I didn't see any at the Pentagon. Or the open field.

I am not a conspiracy kook. I just want to know where all of the collected evidence is stored, and what it says. The government has denied all requests, claiming issues of national security. What am I supposed to think?

PZ seems to get incredibly dense whenever Obama is in the picture.

I know. Nowadays you can just say the name and you know it's something stupid. This it's misrepresenting Obama's taxation plans, and there it gets a little unreal. Both Stein and Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class.

No, Stein talks about $5 million as wealthy, while Obama refers to $250,000/yr as the beginning of that category -- no other politician goes that realistically low.

What does that make me? I'm earning nowhere near that amount!

It makes you nowhere near wealthy, dummy.

I have looked at the pictures, and I watched it all live that day.I also know that some aircraft parts are so incredibly durable that they could practically be dropped from ORBIT and still be recognizable. The engines, for example.

You've looked at what pictures? Pictures of recognizable parts of Flight 77 strewn throughout the inside of the Pentagon are easily found on the web.

just use (what should be) ordinary common sense

Using just ordinary common sense will give you an IQ of about 100.

Many people on this forum wrote in to the Publisher asking how dare they run such an "illogical" column and demanding that they retract it. These tactics are more reminiscient of the communist party and the KGB than anything American.

No, actually they're not, you stupid ignoramus.

If anyone wants to know the true scope of Martin Wagner's lack of honesty

No one does.

I recognize that Martin is simply a liar, a bully and a thief and that Russell is simply a two faced lackey. I want to see if more respectable atheists believe that this harms their reputation as a whole

No, moron, any more than it harms the reputation of x-eyed people as a whole, where x is Martin's eye color.

recently realized that I grew up in a household in the top 10% of income, if not the top 5%.

20% of Americans think they're in the top 1%. That's one of the reasons they are so retarded about taxes.

Based off of the census bureau stats feynmaniac linked to in #19, calling the top 1.9% of the country "middle class" seems rather ridiculous

I just love how people read a claim that someone said something, and then incorporate it into their mental net as if it were a confirmed fact. It's the same stupidity-breeding process that bible thumpers employ. Who is "calling" that? Certainly not Obama. Instead of trusting PZ's dishonest characterization, try reading Obama's actual words.

Steve C said:

I'm as liberal as the next guy. But the fucking pondering about some grand conspiracy to take us into Iraq is fucking stupid.

Particularly when none of the 9/11 terrorists actually came from Iraq or had any connection with the Iraqi government. Isn't this a bit of an oversight for such an overarching conspiracy to be guilty of? Couldn't they have found, in all of the US, patsies that at least hailed from the correct country?

Of course, if Obama really wanted to rake in some more tax $, he could start taxing religious orgs....

No, he couldn't. Politics is not fantasyland.

$250,000!! I doubt it. Obama's increased taxation is more likely to start at about $30,000 to $35,000. Just watch.

You're likely to say a lot of other stupid things. Just watch.

But it's tone-deaf, clueless, and wrong to say that 250k is some sort of middle-living standard, especially since the national median is somewhere around 40k.

And who, other than PZ misrepresenting Obama, is saying that?

"Both Stein and Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class. What does that make me? I'm earning nowhere near that amount!"

I agree, $250,000/year is way above middle class.

It's lovely how many people here said "I agree with PZ's lie". It's just like Uncommon Descent, except that they often use partial quotes instead of just making it up.

As someone living in a household where the total family income is around $250k, it certainly doesn't feel like filthy stinking rich. Implying that it is middle class is certainly a stretch though - from here at least, it's always seemed like upper-middle class.

And who implied that? PZ LIED -- it was as big a whopper as Bill Dembski has ever told. "Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class" -- no Obama never said anything of the sort, but so many fools who populate this blog who think they are so smart can't be bothered to even read his link.

So is $250,000 the median income once Gates and Rockefeller are counted? It's the only way that that middle class figure could possibly make any sense.

So many morons here. No one other than PZ connected $250,000 with middle class.

TM,

Obama said :
"I generally define well-off as people who are making $250,000 a year or more"

So, how would Obama define people who are making, let's say, between $100K and $250K ?
??
Middle class ?

So isn't someone who makes 250K, according to Obama, barely getting out of the middle class ? Or barely entering into the well offs (which is equivallent).

PZ wrote : "...Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class."

PZ didn't "lie". Some misinterpreted what he wrote. As usual.

And you are making a big fat strawman.

The notion that the Bush Administration committed 9/11 in order to invade Iraq is comparable to the notion that the Nazis committed the Reichstag bombing in order to invade Czechoslovakia -- the notions are absurd. - John

There was no "Reichstag bombing" - though there was a fire. Majority opinion among historians is that the Nazis were not responsible, and that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was solely responsible, as he claimed at his trial, although the possibility of Nazi involvement has not been ruled out. The Nazis made use of the incident, trying to pin it on the German Communist Party, just as the Bush administration made use of 9/11, trying to pin it on Saddam Hussein. Conspiracies do occur in politics - but far more common is the opportunistic exploitation of fortuitous events. In the 9/11 case, a conspiracy would have had to involve so many people it is highly implausible none of them would have talked. The concealment of records is easily accounted for by the desire to cover up incompetence, and the long-time links between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family, which in turn had links with bin Laden.

Nick Gotts:

There was no "Reichstag bombing" - though there was a fire. Majority opinion among historians is that the Nazis were not responsible, and that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was solely responsible, as he claimed at his trial, although the possibility of Nazi involvement has not been ruled out.

I thought that the Reichstag fire was a firebombing; I might have been wrong. I don't know whether the Nazis were involved or not. It is idiotic to say that they did it in order to invade Czechoslovakia. Likewise, it is idiotic to say that the Bush Administration committed 9/11 in order to invade Iraq.

In the 9/11 case, a conspiracy would have had to involve so many people it is highly implausible none of them would have talked.

It's just not true that a huge number of people need know about the conspiracy. Only ten or so need actually know (twenty tops). In any case, how do you know that nobody talked? The way everyone appears to react to anyone saying something against the Bush Administration about 9/11, talking would appear to be futile.

Anyone remember the Downing Street memos? How about the repeated Bush (and other Republican) statements that we invaded Iraq after Saddam refused to allow weapons inspectors in? How about the complete news blackout of the dead body of the young female aide found in Representative Joe Scarborough's Florida office? That was summer 2001, while the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy issue was screaming in the media.

The official story is infested with lies. The 9/11 Commission's report was a coverup. I showed earlier that at least one section of the Popular Mechanics report was blatant propaganda.

Did anyone bother to look for answers to the questions that I posed?

The only thing that could possibly have paralyzed our air security during 9/11 is the US government -- at least without supernatural aid.

John@107
I thought that the Reichstag fire was a firebombing; I might have been wrong.
You are wrong. Your failure to check facts that are a google away does not inspire confidence.

It's just not true that a huge number of people need know about the conspiracy. Only ten or so need actually know (twenty tops).

Bilge. You would need people to recruit and train the actual operatives, get them into the country, ensure they didn't blow the gaffe and were not prevented from boarding, and ensure that all these processes were untraceable afterwards. Or are you one of the industrial-strength loonies who insists there weren't any planes?

The way everyone appears to react to anyone saying something against the Bush Administration about 9/11

What a prize piece of idiocy. Anyone with any sense denies that the Bush administration ordered the bombings. Very many do not deny that they were grossly incompetent in the run-up to the bombings, and grossly dishonest afterwards.

None of your examples of dishonesty or cover-up appear to have any direct connection to 9/11, so I fail to see their relevance. Of course the Bush administration are a bunch of liars, murderers and war criminals. The point is, setting up such an attack would have been incredibly risky; and if they had, impossible to conceal for long.

Do you have a single, solitary piece of positive evidence of the conspiracy you tout?

@108 in the run-up to the bombings -> in the run-up to the attacks

(Oh dear, now I've let slip that I know there weren't any planes and it was all done with bombs!)

Nick (@109):

Give yourself a break; the attack used planes as if they were bombs (or perhaps missiles). Surely that's what you meant by "bombings."

truth machine (@damn near everywhere):

Gee, somehow I managed to post a clarifying opinion WRT Obama's comments about $250K incomes without calling the founder of our (online) feast a liar; howcome you can't? The conflation of "$250K/yr" and "middle class" is easily understood as the sort of misunderstanding and conversational drift that often occurs in these threads: It doesn't require thinking of PZ as a liar, nor of the commenters as morons. Calm clarification will suffice here; no hysterical screeching or armwaving is required.

no hysterical screeching or armwaving is required.

Bill...you're talking to Truth Machine, dude. Just sayin'.

As several other commentors have pointed out, "middle class", like "liberal" or "neocon", is a term that had been used so inflationary that it had become almost meaningless.

There is a stratum of society called "Mittelstand", literarily "middle estate" in Germany. These are private persons or corporations that employ less than 500 persons and/or make less than 50 million euros a year. Now if you ask me, anybody making 49 millions a year and employing 499 people is frickin rich. At the same time, newspapers speak of a "middle-class-crunch" because unemployed people get 300 euro ALG 2 (= combined unemployment benefit and welfare) rather than 350 euro welfare a month. Of course, an unemployed person that had to get along with 350 euros a month, 4200 euros a year never belonged to the middle class in the first place. If middle class can mean anything from multi-millionaires to people on the dole, what does it mean at all?

Nick@108:

You are wrong. Your failure to check facts that are a google away does not inspire confidence.

If it wasn't a firebombing, it was something close. The Reichstag was gutted by the fire. At worst a nitpicking error, that doesn't change what I said.

And what about the persistent error (lie), told directly in the face of contrary evidence, that we claim that 9/11 was a grand conspiracy to invade Iraq?

Why don't you denounce Popular Mechanics's propaganda, in particular the section that I refuted above? What I wrote was clearly accurate.

None of your examples of dishonesty or cover-up appear to have any direct connection to 9/11, so I fail to see their relevance.

Let's see. The fact that the 9/11 Commission Report cites patently false telephone records to establish Barbara Olson's telephone calls isn't relavent? (Note 57: "The records available for the phone calls from American 77 do not allow for a determination of which of four "connected calls to unknown numbers" represent the two between Barbara and Ted Olson...")

What about the fact that the Commission never cites the official flight manifests (except possibly with UA93) to establish that the terrorists were aboard the flights? (The terrorists used their own names. If they were aboard, the manifests would have indicated so, and the report would have cited them.)

This should be immediately obvious: The official story is infested with lies and coverups. It is manifestly wrong to conclude that the official story is valid.

This should also be immediately obvious: The fact that aggregious scandals (Downing Street memos, Lori Klaussitis) can be suppressed nationwide means that it is easily possible for the Bush Administration's involvement to be suppressed in the media.

Do you have a single, solitary piece of positive evidence of the conspiracy you tout?

Here are three:

• Minneapolis FBI agent Colleen Rowley said that a superior in the FBI rewrote a memo, removing a critical section supporting a request for a warrant to look at the computer of a man who was later dubbed the twentieth hijacker. (For the clueless: this was active suppression of investigation. More generally, there was persistant playing dumb when "the light was blinking red.")
• Four planes went off course, didn't respond to communications, were hijacked -- with literally zero military response. (The only case where fighter planes actually got into the air to chase after one of the planes, according to the 9/11 Report, was the case of the Phantom Flight 11 -- a nonexistant plane allegely flying south toward DC. The Otis ANG planes only took off at the time the real flight 11 hit the North Tower, and then only went off the Long Island coast.)
• Video of the plane hitting the South Tower (allegedly Flight 175) shows that the plane had something akin to a third jet engine underneath the right wing, next to the fuselage. It produced the same burst of light that the jet engines did when penetrating the wall, and that nothing else on the plane did. In other words, the plane wasn't a commercial airliner.

  http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~johnm/Three-Lightbursts/150fps-small.wmv

And no, I'm not one of those lunes who believes there was no plane.

John,

You're so wrapped into the conspiracy that you fail to see the obvious and see things where there's nothing.

Why the fuck would the need to shoot a missle into the building when the plane itself is a giant fuel bomb.

There's no burst of light. The plane moves from a shadow into the light. The right wing is on the sunny side.

Do we have to talk about waving flags on the moon next?

Okay, I misspelled "Lori Klausitis" but those who Google should find the correction. In any case, here's a nice web page with the essentials.

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/congressman_joe_scarborough.htm

The fact that the nationwide media maintained a virtual complete news blackout on her dead body found in Republican Joe Scarborough's office at the same time that they were vilifying Democratic Gary Condit about the disappearance of Chandra Levy, shows that nationwide news blackouts and coverups are easily possible, at least for the Republicans.

So let's not hear any more bull-oney about 9/11 being too big to cover up. The Lori Klausitis episode involved hundreds of times the cover-up.

As a long-time reader and sometime commenter on this forum I find PZ's misrepresentation of Sen. Obama's stands to be hypocritical. For someone who demands (and this is true of most of the commenters to this site) that scientific evidence be presented honestly and fully, I would expect that he would do the same for other areas of interest.

First, Obama didn't call $250,000 "middle class". Second, his tax hole covers the middle class by excluding social security payroll taxation on all money earned above $105,000 up until $250,000. That would seem to make it apparent that he believes middle class at least starts at $105,000. Third, we have in our country another class of income called the "upper-middle" class. That would seem to fall below $250,000. Fourth, science is precisely in the jam we have today because a bunch of ignorant Americans listed to hyperbole and didn't do their due diligence in finding out their candidate's true platform. For everyone of you who didn't find out the real issues in 2000 or 2004, who refused to dig deeper into what was happening in our country or who sat on your hands while Bush was voted into office (either time). SHUT UP!

Come back here and post on Obama's Platform when you have more than ignorance to go on.

PZ: Poorly done. I expected that you would at least give the same consideration to these issues that you expect from science. Do we need to take all of what you have said on your blog with the same disregard as I do for your characterization of Obama?

@ truthmachine #97
You are right that Obama didn't call $250,000, but some commenters on this blog did.

Grumpy said in comment #4;
"That is, $250,000/year is middle class, not upper class, despite being in the upper percentile of household incomes."

Bill Dauphin @ #25;
"So saying $250K is middle class may be stretching a point, but not by as much as you might think."

I think people were responding to these comments rather than to anything Obama said.

P.S. I love your comments truth machine, you old curmudgeon. Please continue commenting here!

Yes Feyn! But it was PZ who said..."Both Stein and Obama are chattering away as if an income of $250,000/year is just barely getting out of the middle class." That is the comment that launched it all.

Shorter John: Where's my tinfoil hat?

John @#113 - you do know that commercial airliners store fuel in their wings, not in the engines right?

Yes, your government is incompetent; yes, it tried to cover up it's incompetence post 9/11; yes, it tried to use 9/11 as an pretext to invade Iraq; but it is patently ridiculous to claim that such an elaborate setup was created or even required as a pretext for an Iraq invasion.

Ok, enough troll food for today.

P.S. I love your comments truth machine, you old curmudgeon. Please continue commenting here!

The charm wears off after a while.

The charm wears off after a while.

Kseniya, don't take TM's comments to heart. You're at least 16.79 times the person that grudge-bearing pissant with anger issues is.

Well, thanks, B. I'm fine. You probably already know that I have no interest in flaming t.m., and we know he purports to value the truth, so there it is.

I was reading in Dawkins' TGD that anyone can baptize anyone else and if the Catholic Church finds out about it, they consider the baptized a Catholic. Seriously freaked me out. Some crazy could go around shooting people with a squirt gun and chanting "With this water, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," and it counts! I wonder if you can debaptize someone with the same gimmick.

*squirt squirt* "With this dihydrogen oxide, I debaptize you in the name of the Science, of the Reason, and of the Rational Thinking." Oh, man, I have some church potlucks to crash. j/k, j/k.

Seriously freaked me out.

This is even more fun.

What if you use hydrogen peroxide instead?

Re:#92
Yes, I saw piles of trash, and some of it looked as if it came from an aircraft. You're missing my point. We have four separate aircraft incidents in which the black boxes did not survive, the conversations with the tower were not released, photos and video have been buried under the aegis of national security, and reconstructions or examinations of the parts were not published or even attempted. All of this feeds into wacko conspiracy theory. Let's get a little sunlight on the matter by releasing all of the evidence for public review.

"We have four separate aircraft incidents in which the black boxes did not survive"

Do you have any evidence for this claim? Whack job conspiracy sites need not apply.

So many morons here.

And you need to respond to each and every single one of them personally?

You seem to live by some "one thought, one comment" rule. I recommend you change that. It distracts mightily from what you say.

Steve_C @114:

You're so wrapped into the conspiracy that you fail to see the obvious and see things where there's nothing.

Oh? What do I fail to see? I saw in the video exactly what's there. The three lightbursts are among the brightest objects in the frames.

Projection alert! You all do what you accuse me of doing -- in this case, it's not reading what's there and reading what's not there.

Why the fuck would the need to shoot a missle into the building when the plane itself is a giant fuel bomb.

Oh? Could you tell me where I said that they shot a missile? Read what I wrote, not what I didn't write. The only thing I said about a missile was that the third object might possibly have been a missile.

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~johnm/South-Tower-Photos.html

In any case, I don't have to speculate about why they did what they did. The evidence is there SOMETHING similar to a jet engine was on the right underside of the aircraft -- something not found on a commercial aircraft.

Finally, how do you know that the "fuel bomb" of the aircraft would really suffice to destroy the skyscrapers? This is a serious issue, involving the temperature of the fireball, where it burned, etc. (I'm an agnostic about that, but to someone with a sense of physics, it's not obvious that the planes could necessarily caused the skyscrapers to collapse.)

There's no burst of light. The plane moves from a shadow into the light. The right wing is on the sunny side.

Are you actually denying seeing three bursts of light along the wing position as the plane enters the building? Two right at the jet engines just after they enter, and one a frame later at the right underside next to the fuselage?

If so, you're the first to actually deny seeing the three bright dots. Invariably, if people don't see the three bright dots (three lightbursts) it's because they're not looking -- they don't see the phrase "three bright dots" even when it's staring at them right in the face.

I'm clearly not talking about the reflection from the wing. The light I refer to is clearly not a reflection, because it continues to blur and defuse after the plane disappears -- reflected light disappears immediately.

I think that defenders are so caught up in attacking conspiracy theories, that they can't read straight.

Do we have to talk about waving flags on the moon next?

You can talk about whatever you want. But get the facts straight. Once you start lying about what a conspiracy theorist says, you are wrong and you are useless in refuting the conspiracy theories.

Nick Gotts @119

Shorter John: Where's my tinfoil hat?

Shorter Nick Gotts: When evidence is presented, resort to insults.

Reuben @120

John @#113 - you do know that commercial airliners store fuel in their wings, not in the engines right?

The outer two lightbursts match the jet engines, not the fuel tanks. (Just look at the pictures or the video.) The more-than 10000 gallons of fuel produced zero light in the first tenth of a second (lack of oxygen). A gallon or two being delivered to the fuel tanks at that instant burned immediately to produce the light.

The middle light was similar, and matches nothing on a commercial 767.

Please try to read with comprehension.

Yes, your government is incompetent; yes, it tried to cover up it's incompetence post 9/11; yes, it tried to use 9/11 as an pretext to invade Iraq; but it is patently ridiculous to claim that such an elaborate setup was created or even required as a pretext for an Iraq invasion.

Government incompetence doesn't explain the facts. And no evidence has been produced that 9/11 was any more complicated than (say), invading Iraq -- which they did. And FOR THE LAST TIME stop repeating the DAMN LIE that I claim that 9/11 was committed to invade Iraq!

And anti-Nazis claim that Reichstag was a Grand Nazi Conspiracy to invade Czechoslovakia. (Sarcasm, of course.)

Use ordinary reading comprehension.

Ok, enough troll food for today.

Oh? Who's the troll? One who presents facts and analysis? Or one who ignores the fact, and responds with insults, lies, and crackpottery?

Example of crackpottery: claiming that we say that 9/11 was a Grand Conspiracy to Invade Iraq.

Steve @92

I think that black boxes from flights 93 and 77 were found, and claims have been made about the ones that hit the towers. But yes, information was suppressed, altered, and destroyed. In any case, those who trust the official story even while admitting to all the lies, coverups, etc. are being quite gullible.

You know the liars are lying, yet you still believe them. Trust in the good faith of those who demonstrate manifest bad faith. Believe the official story when we know it's based on lies and deception?

How do the believers respond when shown the FBI web page on "Usama bin Laden"? http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

But then the believers are also those who can't read straight and resort to insults when someone presents facts.

Steve:

Just in case of misunderstanding, "you" in the second paragraph didn't refer to you personally, but to the believers of the official conspiracy theory.

Hey John,

Regardless of the supposed motivations, what I don't get is why the US government would put together such an elaborate plan. Wouldn't it make more sense to just attack one WTC building? The net result for their nefarious aims would be the same, but it would reduce the chances of you 9/11 truth folks figuring out their game. (Not to mention killing fewer innocent civilians.)

Dietrich: I don't know enough to speculate about why they made a particular choice. Why four instead of one? (Why not?) Why the Pentagon along with the WTC? My summary of the attacks goes as follows:

1. WTC -- the Spectacular Attack
2. Pentagon -- the Self-Injury made to make the criminal appear a victim.
3. The heart-warming, tragic tale of heroism and self-sacrifice.

The Pentagon in particular is a major absurdity as a terrorist attack by commercial aircraft -- an absurdity only surpassed by the mode of attack. From the air, the Pentagon looks like a pancake. It isn't any taller than the tail section of Flight 77. So they not only attacked it, they attacked it along the edge (the obvious target would be the roof), skimming 40 feet above the ground at three-times landing speed.

Then they hit the Pentagon at the spot that would probably cause the least damage. Wing 1, renovated with built-in shielding designed to shield the rest of the Pentagon from such a hit. A spot on Wing 1 that was still under construction and mostly empty. (The photos show a construction trailer, giant spools of cable, computer monitor on a file cabinet, etc.) A little over 100 casualties from the Pentagon.

I don't have to explain why they made every choice that they did. I'm not a mind-reader, and one can go into an endless loop talking about why they zigged instead of zagging.