Change in the weather.
Herself is putting the finishing touches on our income-tax paperwork this morning.
She’s refreshingly scrupulous that way. Even though the Repugs have whittled the IRS down to one half-senile retiree from H&R Block clocked in for 10 hours per week from a memory-care facility in Muscatine, Iowa, Herself dutifully catalogs what we’ve paid and what we owe (or are owed).
I really don’t mind paying taxes. That is, I wouldn’t mind, if everyone paid their fair share and the money didn’t get pissed away on stupid shit.
For instance, I’d like to see more money spent on food, housing, and health care for the needy and less chucked into gold-plated, diamond-studded, unreliably airborne shredders like the F-35, which Charles Pierce calls “The Flying Swiss Army Knife.”
But then I’d like to see a lot of things that will never happen. Hair on my head. A Moots Routt YBB in my garage. Adolf Twitler frog-marched to Rikers on Tuesday.
Yeah, right. As if. That last item stinks to high heaven of the manic desperation of a shunned kindergartner all alone in a corner of the playground. “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!”
I wonder what his SS detail would do if the John Laws came for him, bearing chrome bracelets.
“Can we maybe shoot him just a little bit? We’re sure he’ll try to resist arrest, if Fox sends a camera crew. Oh, come on, just a few dozen rounds, no vital organs. We need the practice. He won’t let us go to the range. We have to bus tables and mow fairways for the son of a bitch.”
Tags: Adolf Twitler, Moots, taxes
Mad Blog Media 
March 18, 2023 at 10:31 am |
Heh. Sometimes I too rail about the bottomless pit we shovel money into called the military-industrial complex. Then I remember where our pensions are coming from.
March 18, 2023 at 10:50 am |
I was fed and housed by an employee of the DoD for 18+ years, and Herself gets our bacon and beans shipped through Honeywell by Unca Sammy. But I still think it’s possible to have both guns and butter.
March 18, 2023 at 2:07 pm |
I’d even settle for guns and margarine.
March 19, 2023 at 8:06 am |
It’s not margarine anymore. It’s plant-based butter.
We only use free-range plant-based butter. No cages for our butter, no sirree.
March 18, 2023 at 2:32 pm |
My pension too is DoD related. But, I didn’t have anything to do with the F-35 procurement. If I did, I wouldn’t talk about it. What Ukraine could use right now is some A-10 Warthogs. They are really good at killing people and destroying stuff on the ground.
March 18, 2023 at 3:57 pm |
Funny you should mention the A-10. Here’s a 2020 Popular Mechanics piece that mentions how its mission was being restricted … and how the F-35 is not an ideal replacement.
March 18, 2023 at 9:37 pm |
I had the pleasure of being in a cockpit of a Warthog once. A delightful aircraft. You just want to be on the right side when it is used in anger. The poor soldiers in the desert that were ordered to combat against us back in the early 90’s discovered the hellion side of the Warthog.
March 19, 2023 at 1:25 am |
Forgive me. I re-read my post and can see that it may give the impression that I was the pilot of a Warthog. No, no, no. I was only an interested observer and have a respectful appreciation for things that can create havoc very quickly.
March 19, 2023 at 12:27 am |
The Warthog is why my MOS existed/could function back in the ’80s 26L, tactical microwave systems repair. Tactical wasn’t a description of what equipment we were working on, but Where We Worked On It, as in a few clicks behind the front lines, keeping said lines voice connected to the REMF pretending to run whatever war we found ourselves “prosecuting” like a crime.
March 19, 2023 at 1:25 pm |
I was a 31S20, field general COMSEC repairman, MOS in 1970. Our Warthog was a Huey Cobra. Also a improv gunship called a Huey Nighthawk with a large infrared and regular searchlight, 50 cal on one side, and a mini-gun on the other. Isn’t amazing what mechanical horrors we can dream up to kill each other. Got to pay those dividends and hire those lobbyists.
March 20, 2023 at 11:27 am
Never saw one where I was. First time I was aware of one was when they tried to show a movie on the firebase. They projected it on a plywood screen with us sitting on large culverts covered in sand bags. The movie was “The Green Berets” which generated a bunch of laughs. They showed and mentioned “Puff The Magic Dragon” gunships in the movie. The movie was interrupted by incoming rockets, and they decided that gathering a group of us by a lit up screen on FSB Buttons was not a good idea.
March 20, 2023 at 7:52 am |
Ever see a AC-47 “Spooky” at work? Jesus H. Christ. That beast waddn’t the old man’s Skytrain.
March 18, 2023 at 3:03 pm |
Speaking of boondoggles, let’s not forget those Little Crappy Ships.
March 18, 2023 at 4:10 pm |
Florida, man.
March 19, 2023 at 8:09 am |
Worst-kept secret in pentagon procurement and acquisitions is, if it’s going to cost more than $1M, you’d better make sure that all 50 states contribute at least one part.
March 19, 2023 at 10:05 am |
Anybody think a tool with long shelf life like the A-10 or C-47 could get made today? Naw, me neither.
March 19, 2023 at 1:14 pm |
A quality steel frame, think SOMA for one, bike with a complete 105 or XT group set would meet that requirement.
March 19, 2023 at 2:02 pm |
Its now 20 years old.
https://labikes.blogspot.com/2017/10/bike-review-2003-cannondale-caad5.html
March 19, 2023 at 2:25 pm |
Bicycles have astounding longevity. My favorite Steelman Eurocross is 25 years old. Reynolds 853, eight-speed Ultegra with bar-cons, Shimano 600 levers working Paul Components cantis, RaceFace cranks, Dura-Ace hubs, Mavic rims, etc.
The ti’ DBR Prevail TT is even older — 1994. Nine-speed Ultegra on that one, with STI and ev’thang.
I rode ’em both this past week. Took both Soma Sagas out too. You can’t stop me!
March 19, 2023 at 9:30 pm
Our 3 oldest bikes start with my Litespeed Obed, made in ‘96?? I was recruiting in Nashville, got it right before I PCS’d to Hawaii. So 95-96. Mix of XT and LX and everything works like butter.
And our oldest girl is currently riding maybe a ‘90 Marin, my wife’s bike from her early Denver days. Deore LX, works like a champ.
My wife also has a Centurial that goes back to ‘86. Mostly Suntour, I believe. Will have to check that out in the a.m.
March 20, 2023 at 7:43 am
Would the wife’s bike be a “Centurion?” That was the brand that got me back into cycling in the mid-Eighties. John Crandall at Old Town Bike Shop (which back then was still in Old Town) sold me a 60cm Centurion LeMans 10 (or 12, can’t remember). Crimson and silver and white, IIRC. I rode that thing all over Pueblo while I was trying to shed a couple-three chins and quit smoking.
March 20, 2023 at 9:50 am
I think the LeMans was a 12 speed. Centurion made those back in the later ’70’s and into the ’80’s. I think their top bike was the Semi-Pro. Then came the LeMans, and then the Elite all of which were using the new 6-speed cogs. I think on my budget I was looking at the Elite in a deep royal blue color. Due to academic expenses, I never did get one, but I stayed happy riding another Japanese made steel frame bike that I upgraded with a new cotterless alloy crank. Oooooo !
March 20, 2023 at 2:54 pm
Yup, ’twas a LeMans 12; I just looked it up in an old journal. Possibly a 1983 model bought in 1984. John Crandall has been known to hold on to inventory.