So long, farewell, au revoir, adieu...

Alas, I have abandoned this blog with a resounding thud; my delusions of grandeur confirmed. It is true, I have reached the end of the line at least for the time being. My muse is gone, replaced by the daily rigor of a mind-numbingly taxing work day; my brain power completely consumed by the demands of this particular assignment. I will get through it and I will have accomplished much. Surely, I and my resume will look back with pride.

So long, farewell, au revoir, adieu...I no longer cling to hope of consistency. In fact, I might not ever be back. But, I will be here in spirit for even if I am not writing it all down, some poor sod somewhere will be getting an earful!

Tax Grievance

Today, in a definite affront to the IRS, a 53 year old man carried out a suicide mission against the ageny. He set his house on fire this morning, left a rant on a website, climbed into a small plane and flew it into an IRS building in Austin, Texas causing a major fire and inflicting serious damage. Wow, that is moxie, America usually doesn't have suicide bombers.

I'm not condoning his actions but we can certainly identify with his rage against the agency here on the verge of tax season. I don't know what his particular situation with the IRS was but of the taxes I have to pay, the IRS piece is just one part. I pay plenty in Social Security (FICA) tax, New York State tax and property taxes not to mention sales tax, gasoline tax and all those other taxes that come out of my wages.

Perhaps the IRS has come to represent the evils of rampant taxation in general. Or maybe, because he lives in Texas, where there is no income tax, it was the agency he had to most contend with. I wonder if his actions change the tax situation for his family or if he has now egregiously left his problems to them.

Houston, we have a problem...

So, snow it did, all night and all day. I was thinking this is probably the longest snow storm that I have witnessed. Schools were closed, my husband worked from home but I still had to go to work this morning if I expected to get paid. They let out us a couple of hours early so that was good. At least I got to fishtail myself there and back in the daylight though visibility at times was still challenging.

Tomorrow there is a two hour delay for the schools. I know that people have to shuffle their children to school, blah blah blah but with the school day already shorter than the business day, why are weather issues a catastrophe for them when the rest of us still have to observe our regular hours. I had to quickly make arrangements for my children to spend tomorrow's two hour delay with others so that I can show up to work on time.

The private sector does not take kindly to the vagaries of the school schedule. I remember when my oldest was a toddler and there was little sympathy for me when I was late to work because of an issue with her or her care-giving. With the school year topping out at 180 days, that makes a full 16 weeks or 80 weekdays that the children are not in school where alternate care is required if you are a working parent.

Since we are decades past the need for children to work on the farm and children in all other countries study a lot longer than ours do and America and all people American are no longer the center of the universe and teachers get paid the same as the rest of us for 36 weeks of work and receive a decent lifetime pension and are still complaining that they are not paid enough and the tax dollars continue to fall short of public spending and all of these things continue to add to the imbalance of the current debt-ridden world...Houston, we have a problem.

Snow, Snow Go Away, Come Again Another Day

Hear! Hear! Today, David Brooks, the conservative columnist of the New York Times, commended President Obama and Joe Biden along with the rest of the White House staff for their calm and rational approach to leadership. Miracle. A positive article about the President from the other side no less.

But, it is not enough to soothe my gall at the rush to pre-emptive school closings based on a forecast when not one drop of snow has graced the ground, yet. It is nearly midnight. Why couldn't it wait until morning? What if it doesn't snow enough later on to warrant the pre-hysteria. In my day, you called a snow day after the stuff had fallen to the ground. Last time I checked the weather forecast was just that, a prediction. Now that we regularly call our weather people 'meteorologists', does the gravitas of the title automatically confer actual clairvoyance?

I'd like to go to work tomorrow. They don't honor telecommuting at my new temporary place of business so if I don't go, I'll lose a day's pay. I don't relish the thought of fishtailing myself into the office and I could theoretically stay home. But, it is hard to pass up the opportunity to make some cash. I can always leave early if the bad weather really does materialize and if it does, I'll be cursing in the car all the way home.

Obama's Back Baby!

I haven't spoken for so long I have missed some good stuff. My posts serve as an online diary for me, chronicling my world as I live it; my response to outside forces especially power (politics) and money (finance). What will I think of myself in 2011 without this context to slay my convictions?

So what did I miss? The State of the Union address where the President b-slapped the Democrats, the Republicans and the Supreme Court. Oh no he di'n't!

Then he followed up with a mid-America world tour just to drive the points home. I always liked that line (of many from The Smiths) "it was dark as I drove the point home..." If you know me, you know I digress frequently and often. After all, I am a trivial pursuit.

Anyhow, George Clooney engineered a Live-Aid lite concert to raise funds for Haiti and it was good.

The President again showed some b@lls by attending the House Republican retreat in Baltimore and answered their questions so well that Fox News had to cutaway. Oh no he di'n't!

Since the Democrats are running for the hills and healthcare seems all but dead despite the Democrat majority 59-41 in the Senate, the President now has to swing his own b@lls to the bully pulpit. He has been painting the Republicans as obstructionists and challenging them to come up with solutions.

Obama's Back Baby. I don't know if he'll keep it up but it is a start. But whatever happens, at least I got back my HGTV.

Candidate for Sale

Boy, have I been suffering technical difficulties. My laptop is on the fritz and I can't seem to get myself to a stationary PC to do my post. We have the heat concentrated in a few areas in the house so the laptop gives me the flexibility to write without freezing to death which is what I'm doing now. Since I do not want to be one of those blog writers who suddenly disappears into the blogosphere with nary a notice nor a warning, here I am.

Even though I did not write much down, my brain was a constant whir what with the Supreme Court decision that essentially unleashed unlimited corporate funds, both foreign and domestic, into our election process. The corporation, they determined, is a living being and therefore entitled to free speech. Great! Now they can blatantly undermine the free will of the people by essentially buying elections if they so choose and what can we do about it? Lobbyists just received the largest boost a high court could ever bestow. Congress, so far, has been powerless before them and now, Congress might as well attach sponsorship logos to their suits.

In response, I am offering myself up. I am willing to be a bought candidate. Why not, I'd have fame, power and somehow, after serving in office, I'd be rich. What's not to like for the common man, so sayeth Newt Gringrich. He posited that the Supreme Court decision is great for middle class candidates because now they will have access to a larger donation pool. Oh have we taken a leap back.

Massachusetts Democrats Lose Kennedy's Seat

So the Democrats have lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts, thus losing their super-majority status in the Senate. It was the Democratic candidate's to lose and she blew it.

In theory, the Democrats can still get things done in the Senate but they have steadfastly shown themselves to not have much fortitude when they are up against the Republicans so we probably shouldn't hold our breath. Certainly the healthcare bill is threatened but many of us are not so certain we like it in its current form anyway.

The Republicans will call this a referendum against President Obama and the Democrats and we certainly won't hear the rest of it. But, since most of the masses are still ravaged by the recession, and this past year looks like the year Wall Street rooted the Treasury and laughed all the way to the bank, negative populism can easily overcome the masses. And sadly, it has.

In one short year, Americans appear to be forgetting how the Republicans set the stage for their financial ruin and are quickly voting them back in. But then again, if the solution to fixing the economy was to give money to the financial institutions who caused it, I guess the way to fix the government is to vote back in the people who broke it.