Two identical envelopes arrived in the morning post. Two commands from the halls of the mighty. In large block letters I am directed to OPEN IMMEDIATELY.
Go to Hell.
They contain demands for my annual tribute for permission to own my vehicles and trailers. Today is August 3. The licenses expire September 30. A statutory grace period delays actual delinquency and penalty until October 31.
My masters are getting cash-flow savvy. If they can cow me into paying 88 days early, they collect interest and I lose it. Tough luck, citizen.
I know. We're taking about maybe 17 cents cash management advantage, but principle, man, principle. Also entertainment value.
I'll put the still-sealed envelopes into the tickler file. About Oct. 28 I'll stop by the court house and submit in person. I like making the tax collector get her upholstered butt out of her upholstered chair and actually deal with one of the proles who paid for them.
Gee, it's not even lunch time and I've already committed an act of wanton disrespect to a bureaucrat. Feels quite good, actually.
Aug 3, 2011
Aug 2, 2011
Little Abigail, Only 4 Years Old and Already An Enemy of the State
There's a picture of this diabolical 4-year-old here, along with an explanation of why her lemonade stand was shut down as a menace to the safety and tranquillity of Coralville. Some background:
Coralville is the spawn and sprawl of Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa in the county widely referred to as the Johnson SSR.
RAGBRAI is awkward letter salad for the Des Moines "Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa." It began in 1973 as a lark for two good writers on the Register payroll. It grew to attract thousands of riders and the greed of every hamlet it traverses. I mean, this thing sells papers and makes big money. If you run a seedy bar along the way, RAGBRAI makes your year.
This year the route traversed Coralville, and a number of little kids there decided to pick up some change. What could be more American than such a spirit of entrepreneurship centered on bicycles and lemonade stands under the hot summer sun? For cryng out loud, that's Norman Rockwell's America.
Ambitious Abby enlisted her dad, a medical student, to help. She sold about five bucks worth of lemonade at 25 cents per before the forces of law and order swooped down.
She did not have a special two-day RAGBRAI permit, costing $400, to sell her treats. Officer Friendly came -- and he was friendly, according to reports. He was also a little embarrassed by this particular crime-fighting assignment. He told her, "The Law is the Law."
So where did this contribution to American criminology come from? Why, from the good taxpaying merchants of Coralville, who, of course are merely looking after your personal well-being.
"Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the ordinance was passed to protect riders from possible health risks."
Pardon the vulgarity, Josh, but do you really expect anyone to swallow that shit?
We could have retained a bit of respect for you had you reported accurately, "We were scared stiff that every quarter in Little Abby's pocket was a quarter out of ours. We sort of view a quarter in someone else's pocket as a personal insult."
There's nothing wrong with your greed as such. You become a vile excuse for a man only when you spew banalities about protecting the public while pressuring your political allies to write laws which permit only you to earn a profit.
Which brings us to your servants on the public payroll. In another source:
"Police Chief Police Chief Barry Bedford ... said Monday that he feels bad about shutting down the stands, but he said the ordinance is in place to prevent “renegade vendors” from setting up stands without paying the vendor fee and profiting from RAGBRAI. "
It's probably crass to wonder just how bad Chief Bedford feels since Chief Bedford wrote the ordinance.
Oh well. It's over and we need to move on.
No, wait. There's more. Stand by for a followup report on the state revenue authorities raiding Abby's house with a warrant to confiscate the unpaid 7 per cent sales tax. I mean, 35 cents there, 35 cents there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
I suppose one permanent result is an Abby with a fear-filled respect for the law, all law. This is a good thing indeed, isn't it?
Coralville is the spawn and sprawl of Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa in the county widely referred to as the Johnson SSR.
RAGBRAI is awkward letter salad for the Des Moines "Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa." It began in 1973 as a lark for two good writers on the Register payroll. It grew to attract thousands of riders and the greed of every hamlet it traverses. I mean, this thing sells papers and makes big money. If you run a seedy bar along the way, RAGBRAI makes your year.
This year the route traversed Coralville, and a number of little kids there decided to pick up some change. What could be more American than such a spirit of entrepreneurship centered on bicycles and lemonade stands under the hot summer sun? For cryng out loud, that's Norman Rockwell's America.
Ambitious Abby enlisted her dad, a medical student, to help. She sold about five bucks worth of lemonade at 25 cents per before the forces of law and order swooped down.
She did not have a special two-day RAGBRAI permit, costing $400, to sell her treats. Officer Friendly came -- and he was friendly, according to reports. He was also a little embarrassed by this particular crime-fighting assignment. He told her, "The Law is the Law."
So where did this contribution to American criminology come from? Why, from the good taxpaying merchants of Coralville, who, of course are merely looking after your personal well-being.
"Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the ordinance was passed to protect riders from possible health risks."
Pardon the vulgarity, Josh, but do you really expect anyone to swallow that shit?
We could have retained a bit of respect for you had you reported accurately, "We were scared stiff that every quarter in Little Abby's pocket was a quarter out of ours. We sort of view a quarter in someone else's pocket as a personal insult."
There's nothing wrong with your greed as such. You become a vile excuse for a man only when you spew banalities about protecting the public while pressuring your political allies to write laws which permit only you to earn a profit.
Which brings us to your servants on the public payroll. In another source:
"Police Chief Police Chief Barry Bedford ... said Monday that he feels bad about shutting down the stands, but he said the ordinance is in place to prevent “renegade vendors” from setting up stands without paying the vendor fee and profiting from RAGBRAI. "
It's probably crass to wonder just how bad Chief Bedford feels since Chief Bedford wrote the ordinance.
Oh well. It's over and we need to move on.
No, wait. There's more. Stand by for a followup report on the state revenue authorities raiding Abby's house with a warrant to confiscate the unpaid 7 per cent sales tax. I mean, 35 cents there, 35 cents there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
I suppose one permanent result is an Abby with a fear-filled respect for the law, all law. This is a good thing indeed, isn't it?
Bozo saves America
The hyper coverage of inflamed rhetoric winds down. We'll have a contrived high-noon crescendo of cymbals and tympanis when the senators say "okay, dammit,'' but for practical purposes it's over. Geithner can keep borrowing and Bernanke can keep printing.
Maybe 5 per cent of Americans understand that there were no budget cuts. In the first place, there are no budgets in place even for the new fiscal year beginning in 59 days. Those "saved" billions and trillions are reductions in notional dreams of what might be budgeted -- a little or a lot -- beginning Oct. 1, 2011 and extending into the hazy decade of the 2020s.
If you share Barney Franks' vision, the slashes are more horrible than they sound. Barney would in a heartbeat set up a new cabinet department authorized to expend unlimited sums to define and protect the rights of transgendered Americans. His dream budget also envisions free ice cream at Acorn rallies.
If you share a bed with Michele Bachmann, you dream of a federal budget of zero, not counting special appropriations for hiring shamanshrinks to help homosexuals pray away the gay. (Stop shuddering, fellows. I meant only metaphorical nearness on an imaginary Posturerpedic.)
The Obama dream budget is the amount necessary to buy -- with your money and mine -- 270 electoral votes.
---
That's what we're cutting, something -- not much -- from a mysterious "n." So if you follow the upcoming super committee follies with a feeling that the Tremendous Twelve haven't the faintest clue about what they're doing -- other than capturing air time and ink -- rest assured that your logical facilities are intact.
If you share Barney Franks' vision, the slashes are more horrible than they sound. Barney would in a heartbeat set up a new cabinet department authorized to expend unlimited sums to define and protect the rights of transgendered Americans. His dream budget also envisions free ice cream at Acorn rallies.
If you share a bed with Michele Bachmann, you dream of a federal budget of zero, not counting special appropriations for hiring shamanshrinks to help homosexuals pray away the gay. (Stop shuddering, fellows. I meant only metaphorical nearness on an imaginary Posturerpedic.)
The Obama dream budget is the amount necessary to buy -- with your money and mine -- 270 electoral votes.
---
That's what we're cutting, something -- not much -- from a mysterious "n." So if you follow the upcoming super committee follies with a feeling that the Tremendous Twelve haven't the faintest clue about what they're doing -- other than capturing air time and ink -- rest assured that your logical facilities are intact.
Aug 1, 2011
Journalism in America: the economics beat
This arrived in my inbox from our pal JAGSC. It's a photo cutline from a Texas newspaper report on the drought.
"A cotton plant has sprouted through a piece of parched, cracked earth in a West Texas field near Lubbock that was not irrigated. The irony: While supplies are low, cotton prices are their highest in years."
"A cotton plant has sprouted through a piece of parched, cracked earth in a West Texas field near Lubbock that was not irrigated. The irony: While supplies are low, cotton prices are their highest in years."
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