Any tax functionary has the power to destroy your life for reasons he or she may keep secret.
At this point in American history, the death-by-tax-harassment penalty is primarily reserved for citizens exercising their First Amendment rights by uttering words unpleasant to politicians in power, that is, conservatives, "patriots", and those who question the purity of politicians' motives.
Four decades ago, the same horror was aimed at the reverse slope of prevailing orthodoxy, liberals, doves, and everyone else who believed the sitting president's mindset was well illustrated by his decision to dress his personal guards like Paraguay's admirals.
The current president, speaking Friday through a hapless mouthpiece named Jay, explains that the tax agency is independent, above politics. Therefore he, personally, like Nixon before him, is pure and worthy of your infinite trust.
May 13, 2013
Benghazi, the short version
Four Americans died, unprotected by the American government they served. The Central Intelligence Agency reported, somewhat accurately, the killers were organized Islamic terrorists executing a plan.
This posed problems for Barack Obama, running for president in 2012 and for Hillary Clinton, running for president in 2016. Therefore they ordered the reports soaked in lye, sudsed, and bleached white, all to the conclusion that Mr.Obama and Ms. Clinton were blameless and, in fact, strong leaders. And wise.
Now, eight months later, as lies are publicly aired. Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton have issued the new talking points: "Republicans are politicizing Benghazi."
This posed problems for Barack Obama, running for president in 2012 and for Hillary Clinton, running for president in 2016. Therefore they ordered the reports soaked in lye, sudsed, and bleached white, all to the conclusion that Mr.Obama and Ms. Clinton were blameless and, in fact, strong leaders. And wise.
Now, eight months later, as lies are publicly aired. Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton have issued the new talking points: "Republicans are politicizing Benghazi."
May 9, 2013
Die, Tourist Scum
Let me tell you about dock law. I mean the kind of dock you fish from, and swim.
I have one across the road on the canal. It's a modest little thing. For the privilege I pay the village of Smugleye-on-Lake $100 per annum plus a little to my insurance company for an SOL-required $1 million liability policy.
To get it I had to run a nearly year-long political uprising against the SOL village council which a few years earlier decided "no new docks adjoining city right-of-way." For reasons you would find boring, this was a piece of statist, intrusive, purposeless nonsense.
We won the point. I paid the city extortion, bought the dock sections, and in two days of heavy grunt labor in cold water, installed them. Since then I've raised and lowered the deck three or four times to maintain a convenient height above the fluctuating lake levels. Each shift eats up about a half a day.
The Iowa DNR is not to be denied, either. Until a couple of years ago, little docks like mine were called "Class 1." While you had to endure a bit of senseless paperwork to get the state permit, they were free. Then came a gleam in the collective politico-bureaucrat eye. "Hey, Sidney, if we start calling all the Class 1 docks Class 3 docks we can squeeze a $125 registration fee out of all those rich bassards by the lake." Done. Absolutely nothing in the real, physical world changed except a noticeable reduction in this rich bassard's bank account and a concomitant increase in cash for DNR drones to piss away.
One more thing before I get to the red meat. It isn't my dock. Because it abuts a piece of property which belongs to the village (it shouldn't), every goddam fisher-couple and their six low-average kids from Humboldt, spewing used Pampers and Lil Debbie cake wrappers in their wake, have exactly as much right to it as I do. Yep, I clean up after them Monday mornings.
---
Now I note your sarcastic remark that this doesn't sound like cause to go full-Mencken. In fact, I agree. No throat-slitting is justified, but in a just world I would be permitted, nay encouraged, to hide in the bushes and snipe at their too-tightly- jeaned fat asses with my Daisy Red Ryder just because the slobs are fouling my usufruct.
Because this morning I went down to collect the makings of my first crappie breakfast of the season. I dressed the yellow lead-head jig with a piece of worm, tossed it in, and moved the rod butt toward my handy rod holder, attached to a dock stanchion.
Gone.
What sort of snake-belly SOB goes to a bit of trouble to steal a 50-cent semi-rusty piece of iron? From a usually harmless old guy who, as detailed above, rather heavily inconvenienced himself to enhance your weekend away from the trailer park? Jayzuss. Aren't their any garage sales in your declining neighborhood?
I will dream tonight of catching this spawn of the social cesspool and beating him severely about his nether regions before the grand finale, to wit: Strip and spread-eagle his Bud-Lighted carcass, pour four ounces of high-test gasoline over his pubic hair and light it off while humming the Campfire Girls' arrangement of This Little Light of Mine.
What could be fairer?
---
Otherwise rather pleasant, since you're kind enough to ask. I caught many, but only four were big enough to kill. As God is my witness, God made no better breakfast than eight small crappie filets less than an hour from their spring frolic in 45-degree water to the hot cast-iron. (You fry them in about an inch of butter, just so they don't stick to the pan.)
I have one across the road on the canal. It's a modest little thing. For the privilege I pay the village of Smugleye-on-Lake $100 per annum plus a little to my insurance company for an SOL-required $1 million liability policy.
To get it I had to run a nearly year-long political uprising against the SOL village council which a few years earlier decided "no new docks adjoining city right-of-way." For reasons you would find boring, this was a piece of statist, intrusive, purposeless nonsense.
We won the point. I paid the city extortion, bought the dock sections, and in two days of heavy grunt labor in cold water, installed them. Since then I've raised and lowered the deck three or four times to maintain a convenient height above the fluctuating lake levels. Each shift eats up about a half a day.
The Iowa DNR is not to be denied, either. Until a couple of years ago, little docks like mine were called "Class 1." While you had to endure a bit of senseless paperwork to get the state permit, they were free. Then came a gleam in the collective politico-bureaucrat eye. "Hey, Sidney, if we start calling all the Class 1 docks Class 3 docks we can squeeze a $125 registration fee out of all those rich bassards by the lake." Done. Absolutely nothing in the real, physical world changed except a noticeable reduction in this rich bassard's bank account and a concomitant increase in cash for DNR drones to piss away.
One more thing before I get to the red meat. It isn't my dock. Because it abuts a piece of property which belongs to the village (it shouldn't), every goddam fisher-couple and their six low-average kids from Humboldt, spewing used Pampers and Lil Debbie cake wrappers in their wake, have exactly as much right to it as I do. Yep, I clean up after them Monday mornings.
---
Now I note your sarcastic remark that this doesn't sound like cause to go full-Mencken. In fact, I agree. No throat-slitting is justified, but in a just world I would be permitted, nay encouraged, to hide in the bushes and snipe at their too-tightly- jeaned fat asses with my Daisy Red Ryder just because the slobs are fouling my usufruct.
Because this morning I went down to collect the makings of my first crappie breakfast of the season. I dressed the yellow lead-head jig with a piece of worm, tossed it in, and moved the rod butt toward my handy rod holder, attached to a dock stanchion.
Gone.
What sort of snake-belly SOB goes to a bit of trouble to steal a 50-cent semi-rusty piece of iron? From a usually harmless old guy who, as detailed above, rather heavily inconvenienced himself to enhance your weekend away from the trailer park? Jayzuss. Aren't their any garage sales in your declining neighborhood?
I will dream tonight of catching this spawn of the social cesspool and beating him severely about his nether regions before the grand finale, to wit: Strip and spread-eagle his Bud-Lighted carcass, pour four ounces of high-test gasoline over his pubic hair and light it off while humming the Campfire Girls' arrangement of This Little Light of Mine.
What could be fairer?
---
Otherwise rather pleasant, since you're kind enough to ask. I caught many, but only four were big enough to kill. As God is my witness, God made no better breakfast than eight small crappie filets less than an hour from their spring frolic in 45-degree water to the hot cast-iron. (You fry them in about an inch of butter, just so they don't stick to the pan.)
May 7, 2013
Official announcement
The following have been called to the attention of your author who, as authorized by the High Committee of The Internet, officially declares them boring.
--Chris Christie's lap band surgery. (For those of you without Wiki, Dr. Skilsaw cuts you open and fastens a radiator hose clamp around your upper gut system. It is supposed to make you eat less and look more leanly presidential.)
--Lindsay Lohan, boobs and all, due to her continuing teevee interviews explaining that she really not all that much of a drug-addled nincompoop.
--The crisis of finding 12 square feet of disposal space for one of the amateur terrorists of Boston.
-- Mika Brzezinski, especially her book about the difficulty of being a bony Polish ice princess in a world of Twinkies and Ding Dongs.
-- Jodi Arias, boobs and all. (N.B. This subject will be briefly removed from the ennui list if and when Miss Arias is found guilty and sentenced to death. Discussion will be permitted on two narrow fronts.The first is whether any actual harm to society will be done if her existence is terminated. The second is the morality of ritualized death at the hands of the state.)
--Chris Christie's lap band surgery. (For those of you without Wiki, Dr. Skilsaw cuts you open and fastens a radiator hose clamp around your upper gut system. It is supposed to make you eat less and look more leanly presidential.)
--Lindsay Lohan, boobs and all, due to her continuing teevee interviews explaining that she really not all that much of a drug-addled nincompoop.
--The crisis of finding 12 square feet of disposal space for one of the amateur terrorists of Boston.
-- Mika Brzezinski, especially her book about the difficulty of being a bony Polish ice princess in a world of Twinkies and Ding Dongs.
-- Jodi Arias, boobs and all. (N.B. This subject will be briefly removed from the ennui list if and when Miss Arias is found guilty and sentenced to death. Discussion will be permitted on two narrow fronts.The first is whether any actual harm to society will be done if her existence is terminated. The second is the morality of ritualized death at the hands of the state.)
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