It's kind of disappointing how people think tax reform involves merely tinkering with income tax rates. I might actually pay attention if a politician or pundit mentioned the ideas of Henry George and Arthur Cecil Pigou.

I need to read The Dead Zone again. I forgot how good it was.

I started reading King with The Tommyknockers. it's a miracle I got past that. it's boring as hell.

thalidomide new and improved: . Nobody cares what you think,

You obviously care enough to make a comment.

Chameleon: bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

My favorite King book was Rose Madder but I think I'm the only person in the world who thinks so. If you want to read a "Stephen King book" I would start with The Shining; it has most of his common themes--the Bad Place, the extremely extensive backstory that seems pointless but actually makes you really care about the characters once shiat hits the fan, the Magic Negro, the threatened child, and Bad Things Happening To Good People Just Because They Can.

On the other hand, if you don't mind getting dark, Richard Bachman was a better writer than Stephen King ever was.

/except his last book, which was obviously ghostwritten by King...

I actually liked Rose Madder too. a friend of mine did a paper on it for a mythology class.

Jesterling: shamanwest: They're all excellent, except for Wizard and Glass.

I must have done something wrong when I read that one, I loved that damn book. Didn't think I would either once I realized it was going to be one of those flashbacky love stories...

shiat I liked the whole series now that I think about it. Even the end (the real end end).

Same thing. Only book other than the first I ever liked in that series.

Chameleon: thalidomide new and improved: Why do all of your lame stories originate in Maine of all places,

Hmm, yes. Why would a writer who lived nearly his whole life in Maine with a brief stint in Colorado set all his books in Maine, except for a few set in Colorado? A mystery for the ages, my friend.

...What is weird is I grew up in Naples, ME and until his accident, I had no idea he lived that close to us.

wedding vegetables: Chameleon: bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

My favorite King book was Rose Madder but I think I'm the only person in the world who thinks so. If you want to read a "Stephen King book" I would start with The Shining; it has most of his common themes--the Bad Place, the extremely extensive backstory that seems pointless but actually makes you really care about the characters once shiat hits the fan, the Magic Negro, the threatened child, and Bad Things Happening To Good People Just Because They Can.

On the other hand, if you don't mind getting dark, Richard Bachman was a better writer than Stephen King ever was.

/except his last book, which was obviously ghostwritten by King...

I actually liked Rose Madder too. a friend of mine did a paper on it for a mythology class.

I liked Rose Madder, too!

bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?
I would read the Dark Tower series.
The worst part of the series is the first few chapters in the Gunslinger, after that it just travels along like a speeding train.


The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982)
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991)
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)-Locus Award nominee, 1998[8]
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003)-Locus Award nominee, 2004[9]
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004)-Locus Award nominee, 2005[10]
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004)-British Fantasy Award winner, 2005[10]
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

WhyteRaven74: bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

The Green Mile is well worth it.

IT.

gimmegimme: wedding vegetables: Chameleon: bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

My favorite King book was Rose Madder but I think I'm the only person in the world who thinks so.


I actually liked Rose Madder too. a friend of mine did a paper on it for a mythology class.

I liked Rose Madder, too!

Are the two of you female, by any chance? I have a theory that Rose Madder is particularly attractive to women because most of us love the idea of there being a version of us with powers of a mad goddess...

Weaver95:
I have Republican friends of mine who are either on public assisstance themselves or have an SO and a lot of friends/family who are on public assistance and every day I hear 'em biatch about 'welfare queens' and how they want to see welfare go away forever.

I just don't get it.

It's simple really, they're hypocrites. My closest personal example is my mother, who's never held a job in her life yet complains about people who are unwilling to work and her increasing tax burden. (I have yet to tell her that in order to be taxed, she has to have an income. And that usually requires a job.)

I think it would be fun to find out what percentage of the TEA Party gets government assistance.

Chameleon: gimmegimme: wedding vegetables: Chameleon: bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

My favorite King book was Rose Madder but I think I'm the only person in the world who thinks so.


I actually liked Rose Madder too. a friend of mine did a paper on it for a mythology class.

I liked Rose Madder, too!

Are the two of you female, by any chance? I have a theory that Rose Madder is particularly attractive to women because most of us love the idea of there being a version of us with powers of a mad goddess...

I happen to have been a 15-year-old male when I read the book (give or take a year or two).

I preferred Nancy Drew to the Hardy Boys when I was much younger than that. Why? Partly for the same reason that I loved Judy Blume: I wanted to read about cute girls and try to figure out what they were thinking and how they work.

People have this strange thing about wanting to keep their rightfully earned income for themselves instead of passing it on to a wasteful government.

Do YOU want to have less money in your pocket at the end of the day and think the government should have more? Feel free to donate.

Incidentally what % of each dollar a person earns should they be permitted to keep after all taxes are collected? Tell me what you think is fair.

Let me help you out there with that dick-lighting, you bastards! Get the disco record ready. And a one, and a two......

jjorsett: Proof that money won't make you less of a gibbering lefty nutbag than you naturally are. Obviously the dough is wasted on him, so if someone wants to come up with a bill taxing Stephen King 100% of his net worth, I'll be for it.

*gasp* Why that sounds like... CLASS WARFARE!

Bdub77:

It's much better to create programs that wean defense off the government teat, so to speak.

Dear lockheed: instead of building jets that don't work, or more missles that just get us into trouble when we accidentally target a school. Please begin work on flying cars and better wind turbines.

Thanks,
Sen. Historycat

I like Stephen King and have read most of his books, but....

Did that read like a drunken rant to anyone else?

It's not even that I disagree with what he's saying (I don't), but this read like something you should have saved and slept on before posting.

Dusk-You-n-Me: T.M.S.: Plenty of people you would call rich pay more taxes than you might think.

And yet, less than I might like.

What would you like?

What sort of tax rate would you apply to an American citizen generating income from a dozen countries?

What does "gross wages" mean?

As usual, I'm in a massive minority for thinking that The Stand is bollocks. The characters are boring and one-dimensional, and the plot... isn't.

It, on the other hand, is a deftly woven study in suspense and character development, and well worth two reads.

Snarfangel: I might actually pay attention if a politician or pundit mentioned the ideas of Henry George and Arthur Cecil Pigou.

A Georgist tax system would disproportionately affect the wealthy, which is why no one would ever seriously propose it as tax code (yes, I know there's a suggestion that it would keep the poor from owning homes, but the bulk of the poor already rent).

At this point, here in Pennsylvania, at least, we're going the other way: they're attempting to completely get rid of the real estate tax at any level and replace its revenue by raising the state sales tax.

You don't have to have a Nobel Prize in economics to see that this would benefit the wealthy and soak the poor and middle classes.

BojanglesPaladin: I like Stephen King and have read most of his books, but....

Did that read like a drunken rant to anyone else?

It's not even that I disagree with what he's saying (I don't), but this read like something you should have saved and slept on before posting.

We can only hope he's drinking and snorting cocaine again. Maybe he'll write a good novel.

leslieb: Must reads: Bag of Bones, Bachman Books (it includes Rage, which is my favorite short story)

I'm pretty sure Rage has been cut out of later printings of it (assuming wikipedia is correct) so that might require some hunting in used bookstores.

I'd give The Shining as my own personal vote as a good start.

BKITU: [t1.gstatic.com image 300x168]

We all contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to our revenue, but something more than in that proportion, down here!

We all float our debt to the younger generation down here. We all float...

Stephen King is 100% wrong about rich people.

The majority of them would rather douse YOUR dick with lighter fluid, strike a match, and watch YOU dance around singing "Disco Inferno" than pay one more cent in taxes.

doglover: Adam Carolla is totally a "Fark you, I earned this now keep away type." of 0 to millionaire. He biatches constantly about shiat like how he pays more money in taxes and that's his fair share. Never mind that he was stuck unable to pay them for years until he made it big in comedy.

Adam Carolla is a professional douchebag who got his start on radio as the idiot sidekick to Dr Drew and would otherwise be hustling handjobs for cash on Sunset Blvd. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

Stephen King on a mediocre day is still superior to the vast majority of writers.

LikeALeafOnTheWind: My favorite King story is Mrs Todds Shortcut
My favorite King book is The Stand
just finished 11/22/63. it was good, i liked its take on time travel, it was sorta slow in the middle though, not great, but worth reading.
next up is the dome book, but id like to read all the dark tower books, i read the first couple books ages ago, but need to start over.

I'm just warning you, the Dark Tower books...meander quite a bit. And they get really, really weird, even for Stephen King.

GBmanNC

Smartest
Funniest
2012-05-01 07:27:54 PM
bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

"Pet Sematary" is my favorite and probably his darkest novel, "The Shining" is his scariest. Most would agree he is at his best with the short story though.

I don't know... Gerald's Game is pretty frikkin' dark.
wild dogs eating your husband's corpse while you are chained, naked to a bed right next to him. *shiver*
Cujo, when the little boy is dying from dehydration...

Recommended Stephen King stuff:

The Gunslinger (has one of the best opening lines in fiction)
Different Seasons
The Mist
From a Buick 8
1408
Cell
N.
Under the Dome
On Writing

His short story collections (Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Everything's Eventual, Just After Sunset) contain a lot of very good stories as well. All most all his book have enough interesting ideas and situations to be worth reading once.

If he can find one person willing to do this to save one cent in taxes, I will vote democrat for life.

randomjsa: Do YOU want to have less money in your pocket at the end of the day and think the government should have more? Feel free to donate.

False equivalence

These guys and their right-wing supporters regard deep pockets like Christy Walton and Sheldon Adelson the way little girls regard Justin Bieber ... which is to say, with wide eyes, slack jaws, and the drool of adoration dripping from their chins.

I used to work for Sheldon Adelson. He's like the Jewish version of Randall Flagg. To know that scumbag is to want to wash your hands every thirty seconds.

/BTW, I like Jewish people, I wanted to marry one once, still can't find a decent latke anywhere.

How could they possibly douse their dicks in lighter fluid when the Republicans mouths are so securely wrapped around them?

bigbadideasinaction: I'm pretty sure Rage has been cut out of later printings of it (assuming wikipedia is correct) so that might require some hunting in used bookstores.

I did not know this. I'm glad I found an older paperback edition with Rage still in it.

Artcurus: I have to say that 11/22/63, King's latest novel, is probably the best he's ever written. On level with The Stand and IT.

And for you "IT" lovers, there's a very nice surprise in 11/22/63.

they have to fark a giant spider at the end?

fusillade762: This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

A good or service provided to you and charged for? Shocking.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

A good or service provided to you that charged for? Deep.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The TV that you bought with your money, presumably in the dwelling you rented or bought with your money, at which point you used cable television... A good or service provided to you in exchange for money, where upon you determined what the weather was going to be... Based as much on private corporations as anything else unless you think the government owns everything from the raw material manufactures to every single entity involved with the development of technology. Perhaps you've heard of Lochheed Martin? That would be a private company with defense contracts, but I'm totally sure that satellite you're talking about was only made by government workers just like the technology used to launch it was only created by the government.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A product you bought with your own money, once again trading it for a good or service, from a privately owned company, who purchased the cereal from a different privately owned company, who purchased the grains to make the serial from a privately owned company.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Your car that you bought with your own money from a private company, using gas that you bought from a private company, at a gas station owned by a private company.

By the way, all of these private companies I keep mentioning can't run massive deficits, or they would go out of business. They have to be responsible in the things they do because they cannot operate at a loss forever.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

On the way out the door you deposited your mail with the US Postal service, which has run a deficit that would drive UPS or FedEx out of business long ago before you drop your children off at government run schools that produce some of the worst results in the world in spite of spending the 4th most per student, but surely the government can do BETTER than private businesses.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

So your point in so many words is that the government provides goods and services that they force you to pay for in the form of taxes? And what, we would all just be so much better off if we took an ever increasingly large chunk of the money out of the private sector and those 'irresponsible' people in the free market who actually have to make a profit if they want to stay in business? This is your great come back that you think is ever so witty and brilliant?

The federal government alone has spent 5 trillion more dollars than it had in the last 3 1/2 years. Wait wait, let me guess, its because they're not able to charge as much as you think they should for a government good or service? Or maybe it's because since they cannot go out of business due to bad choices, they waste a lot of money, or even crazier... The government is in the business of providing goods and services it has absolutely no business getting involved in, particularly since it has a track record of waste, fraud and abuse that would put any other company in prison.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fark forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

Remind me again where all the tax money that makes any of this possible actually comes from? Oh that's right! It comes from the people of the United States! Shocking I know but all that greedy, evil, horrific profiteering has made every single solitary thing you named possible because without it the government would have had no money to collect.

thalidomide new and improved: This somewhat Rich guy on Stephen King:

"Go fark yourself, asshole. Nobody cares what you think, Why do all of your lame stories originate in Maine of all places, and who do I see about getting my money back for my admission to Dreamcatcher?"


What an interesting thing to say to one of the best selling authors in history. Or stupid... maybe I meant to say stupid.

Just out of curiosity, randomjsa, what's it like being a completely worthless human being? Did you notice you lack basic human traits like honesty or compassion on your own, or did someone have to sit down and explain it to you?

/were you born this way or are you just morally reprehensible by choice?

doglover: Satanic_Hamster: Notice how it's always the people who became millionaires from humble backgrounds and through the fruit of their own labor who have no problem paying more taxes.

No, I don't.

Adam Carolla is totally a "Fark you, I earned this now keep away type." of 0 to millionaire. He biatches constantly about shiat like how he pays more money in taxes and that's his fair share. Never mind that he was stuck unable to pay them for years until he made it big in comedy.

Meanwhile Warren Buffet was a senator's son, which means he's never really been in the "have nothing" category at all. In fact, in the book Snowball we see that his dad pulled numerous strings to get his boy ahead at a young age and basically groomed him for success.


A good point to make. And Carolla is a freakin' crybaby. I'd love to have his problems.

I have no idea how many times I jacked it to the underage gangbang in IT while I was in my teens, but I would conservatively estimate it to be somewhere below 1000.

Chameleon: gimmegimme: wedding vegetables: Chameleon: bextraordinary: If a Farkette was looking for a new book to read and wanted to get into Stephen King's stuff, where would you Farkers recommend she begin? Any books to definitely avoid?

My favorite King book was Rose Madder but I think I'm the only person in the world who thinks so.


I actually liked Rose Madder too. a friend of mine did a paper on it for a mythology class.

I liked Rose Madder, too!

Are the two of you female, by any chance? I have a theory that Rose Madder is particularly attractive to women because most of us love the idea of there being a version of us with powers of a mad goddess...

hmmmm I am the only Stephen King fan that I know who really liked Rose Madder...I am also female...interesting.


Also, I feel the need to point out how strange this thread is. The way it keeps flip flopping between talking about books, taxes, short stories and welfare...it's just weird.

Satanic_Hamster: Buuutttt....

Notice how it's always the people who became millionaires from humble backgrounds and through the fruit of their own labor who have no problem paying more taxes. It's the trust fund babies and the leaches who were always rich who are screaming bloody murder.

I can't say I blame them. If I wasn't convinced I could climb the ladder, I would be screaming bloody murder too.

randomjsa:

before you drop your children off at government run schools that produce some of the worst results in the world

December 2010: "The United States has fallen to 'average' in international education rankings ... [with] scores around 500 on a scale that goes up to 1,000...."

Try again.