Yay! It’s Tax Day, my favoritest holiday ever, just ahead of National Polka Festival Day and George W. Bush’s birthday.
Naturally, I don’t concern myself with taxes, being an arteest rather than an accountant. But Herself, who serves as Mad Dog Media’s Custodian of Records, advises me that the State of Colorado screwed the pooch on our return, sending us a refund check for $199 when in fact we owed $24 and had sent them a check for same.
Goldurned gummint can’t get nothin’ right. Where’s m’tea-bag hat? I feel a protest comin’ on. ‘Specially after reading this Mother Jones piece about how tax-prep outfits scam the poor.
Mad Blog Media 
Be thankful you live in Colorado, Patrick. This just in from the NY Times: Arizona, The “Birther” State
K, isn’t that awesome? Robert A. Heinlein was correct in predicting that America would one day endure a period called “The Crazy Years.” He just got the dates wrong, is all.
It is the crazy years. Those who doubt that we could go absolutely off our rockers should read William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, paying special attention to how nutty the Germans got when things went bad during the later years of the Weimar Republic. I don’t see much difference between birthers and brownshirts.
Beginning to remind me of France in the 1930s. Divided over internal issues, over extended and not prepared to deal with any external threat. Then there’s England during the time of Cromwell. Only thing that saved them from the French and Dutch was the Channel.
Some say we are just settling back down into a world where we are not the only superpower. Can’t happen soon enough. Nothing like a good old external threat of the tribal kind to focus us on important things. Like purging the government of imagined enemies and fellow travelers.
Hey, Ben … and to think, some folks believed Sinclair Lewis was engaging in satire when he wrote “It Can’t Happen Here.”
Wrong Oh Wise, but mistaken, One! The Infernal Revenue Service extended this year’s deadline to the 18th……
Hey, Bruce … toldja I wasn’t an accountant. I don’t even play one on teevee.
How’s life among the Webfeet?
Was wondering … if there had been a gov’t shut-down, how much of the IRS would have been deemed “essential personnel”? There’s a certain logical conundrum in trying to say that when you’re out of money, the folks who collect the money are not important.
Steve, I recall reading something about electronic filing/refunds going on without interruption, but damn’ little else. I think audits were to stop altogether. ’Course, that there feddle income tax is agin the Constitution and a crime against Man, God and Capitalism, don’t you know.
Clicked on the link to the story and got an ad for some sort of “sex furniture”..ol’ Ma Jones must be hard up for revenue these days? These tax prep deals are like the “payday loan” shops the state of Iowa for some reason allows to do biz here. Legal loan-sharking is what it really is, simply preying on the poor and stupid. But they also have gambling casinos here too, more “tax on stupid people” to help fill the state’s coffers. Look for lots more of this kind of stuff if the Repuglicans take over the levers of power! Only one month ’till we leave for Italy….this kind of news just makes me more anxious to get outta here!
Larry, I can see you X-ing those days off the calendar from here.