Yet he doesn't explain how the US with nearly highest rates generates some of the lowest tax revenue percentages of the countries listed? Why is that I wonder?

I, too, wonder.

It is utterly baffling, because certainly the answer couldn't be that U.S. corporations avoid paying tax.

http://www.ctj.org/corpfed04pr.pdf

It is quite a conundrum. A riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

the place to look for revenue leakage is Congress, and it's pork

Revenue is on the "income" side of the ledger. Spending, whether on pork, beans, or Vienna sausage, is an "expense." The graph looked at revenue as a percentage of GDP, not the budgetary bottom line. Nice try.

My only point was that corporations don't pay the 35% tax rate depicted in the graph, and so to attempt to draw any conclusion based on completely false data is as pointless as, well, arguing with scooter.

Continually changing your argument must be exhausting. I feel like I did as a child when I put a gerbil in its "exercise wheel," getting the same vaguely bored amusement watching the simple-minded little thing run pointlessly round and round.

While scooter is on a well-deserved hiatus, let us ponder:

What is the difference between "revenue leakage" and "tax revenue leakage?"

What does either have to do with "pork?"

What is scooter's argument, since he seems to concede that corporations do not pay the 35% tax shown in the graph, and thus must agree that said graph is utterly meaningless?

In the interest of fairness, I feel constrained to state that I wholeheartedly agree that Congress is more responsible for the plethora of tax loopholes than the folks at CTJ. Such trenchant analysis does not go unnoticed, scooter, and I am behind you 100% on this one.

No.

They were pre-vanquished by the fact that they didn't do any science to back up their claims.

This whole idea that there is a "debate" between some disgruntled flat-earthers and an ex-Vice-President I just find tiresome...

We tried mightily to bring freedom to the ME

"The United States said Monday Lebanon's Hezbollah movement must renounce violence and disarm before it can be considered a legitimate political factor... Despite Hezbollah's strong election showing, officials here say the United States still considers it to be a terrorist organization..."

http://www.payvand.com/news/05/jun/1039.html

We tried mightily to bring freedom to the ME

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday the U.S. position on Hamas as a terrorist organization has not changed, despite the militant group's stunning victory in Palestinian elections..."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182857,00.html

We tried mightily to bring freedom to the ME

"Despite the show of U.S. support demonstrated by this astounding quantity of arms sales, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is very poor. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2000 Human Rights Report, the Saudi government’s "human rights record remained generally poor in a number of areas,” with reports of arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention and physical abuse of prisoners..."

http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/saudi_arabia.htm#political

Definitely not directing this at PartyofDog, who in addition to having a kick-ass alias is stuck with the same Americo-centric media as the rest of us. But early on - in those fugue-state days after 9/11 - I spent a fair amount of time learning how to pronounce "Sheikh Usamah bin Laden" and "Al-Qa'ida." True, it ain't easy, but neither is it rocket science. And, as stated above, I blame the media.

English users' lack of sophistication about languages in general causes unnecessary and annoying variation. For example, the spelling "Al-Qaeda" got into the media before the more accurate "Al-Qa'ida," probably because journalists respelled the Arabic name, meaning The Base, according to a Latin rule they learned in school, the one that governs the pronunciation of puella ~ puellae: POO-ELLA ~ POO ELLEYE. So Al-Qa'ida, pronounced al-QAÏDa, gets spelled Al-Qaeda, and then pronounced al-KAYDA. So now we have both pronunciations current in English. You may also see spelling variants such as al-Qa'ida, al-Qaeda, and Al-Qa'idat al Jihad.http://www.nthposition.com/vestandgoose.php

So hearing "al-KAYda" just grates. Not sure why. Maybe I just feel I have to know how to pronounce the names of those who want 3,000 of my fellow humans dead. P'raps I'm just a jihadi-coddling surrender monkey (though one preferring buffalo mozzarella to Brie) that way...

There may be an unlimited supply of explosives in Iraq, but there is not an unlimited supply of people who know how to wire the detonators.

It's chickenhawk "insights" like these that drive me up the wall, not least because we'll be hearing such drivel for a generation or more after the inevitable exit from Iraq.

Now, IANADW (I Am Not a Detonator-Wirer), but it seems to me that detonator-wiring is a learnable skill. Even if this "diabolical" scheme were to be put in practice, I have a hard time believing it would slow down the production of IEDs, EFPs, or any other of the alphabet soup of hellweapons for any more than the week or so it would take the insurgents to figure out this "potentially effective" ploy.

The idea that we can kill our way out of this - or any - conflict strikes me as a failure of imagination so profound that I marvel that these people can find their way home without help...

I got a funny feeling that we're going to discover one day that it's an Arabic pun for "Fuck Bush Avenue."

I know I'm a cynic, but I'm just saying...