In this episode Bob and Mark revisit poverty.  Many on the left have transformed the poor into the most sacrosanct segment of our society.  Any honest criticism of the poor is dismissed with a wave of the "blaming the victim" rhetorical wand.  They discuss the case of Brenda Kelly, just one of the many props that leftists trot in order to garner support for their anti-poverty programs.  Bob and Mark refuse to be cowed by the "blame the victim" tactic and point out that the true "solution" is the re-introduction of personal responsibility.  Most importantly, Bob and Mark announce that the show will be going live starting March 4, 2007 at 8:30pm EST.  If you're interested in participating, email them at

TheHippieKillers@gmail.com.

Links

Brenda's Newspaper article (make sure you follow the multi-media link)
http://v2.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=130028

Dayton Daily News Article about Food Stamps
{subscriber only, article not really all that interesting}

Other links of interest:

Profile of the Working Poor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2003.pdf

Wikipedia article about the Working Poor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor

A side-discussion about economic exploitation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation

Point counter-point with Business Week and Thomas Sowell
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_22/b3885001_mz001.htm
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell060104.asp

Government links discussing measuring poverty                   
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/07poverty.shtml
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povdef.html
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/05fedreg.htm
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/faq.shtml#differences
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh04.html

Link to the liveshow feed.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/TheHippieKillers

This show really has no central theme.  The original topic grew stale while waiting to be

discussed and that left Bob and Mark with no topic.  But that didn't stop our intrepid hosts from putting something out anyways.  If you come away with anything from this episode you will learn what it's like to be in Bob's shoes when Mark brings out a couple of his "theories."  And we find out that Mark and Bob had slightly different conceptions of just exactly who comprises the "hippies."

Links

The Sanity Squad
The particular episode Mark was referring to
If you haven't read Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morals, where he develops his theory of ressentiment, here's a decent essay about it