a rising tide raises all boats--if you have a boat

Otherwise, you're screwed. Check this out:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher.

But, don't worry! All you need to do is get into that top 1 percent. Which you can easily do by winning the lottery, or becoming a rapper like Eminem, or a basketball player...so, rejoice, poor people!

our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest—	140
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;	145
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,	150
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,	155
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,	160
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!	165
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,	170
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. --William Wordsworth

Mitt Romney: No Questions About the Underwear, Please

So, in a speech that would have made JFK take a double dose of his daily painkiller (hey, Jack, could you spare some?) Mitt Romney got up in front of a really well done fake Presidential seal (he must have hired that "Mission Accomplished" handler that Bush fired) and said that "freedom requires religion." Which doesn't, frankly, make any sense to me on any level. But what really amused me was that it was at the GHWBush presidential library, which got me to thinking about what Dubya's library (should civilization last that long) would look like. I pictured this on the shelves: [redacted] [redacted] "accidentally deleted"x 5 million, My Pet Goat...[redacted] [in Dick Cheney's vault].