An Ides of April Speculation

[Neckbone]

I have a theory; really a speculation, since it's not based on any evidence.

The newspapers begin to spew tax articles every year around April 15. That's, of course, neither theory nor speculation, it's a fact. The articles tend to vary in tone and content about every ten years or so. It's almost as predictable as the swing of a pendulum.

This year's story (and the last six or seven years' stories) are all gung-ho, pro IRS, let's jail the tax cheats, close the burgeoning "tax gap", spend more money on IRS enforcement, etc. And of course, Congress must hold hearings to get to the root of the problem and close the tax gap, whatever it takes. Congressman, my poor, aged grandmother couldn't afford gas to get to her weekly mahjong game because of those anarchist tax cheating SOBs.

What a difference a decade makes. Remember the articles we read in the mid to late '90s. The Ides of April articles in the '90s were all about IRS Nazis receiving bonuses for auctioning grandma's homestead, the poor guy who bit on the business end of a .38 so mom and the kids could have the life insurance to pay off the IRS lien, and the poor sap who misplaced a decimal on his return and was hounded to the gates of hell by IRS pencil pushers. And predictably, Congress again held hearings to determine why the T-Rex it created mauled a couple of their campaign contributing constituents--shame on you, T-Rex.

So watch out IRS, it's almost time for the pendulum to swing back again. It's about time for the crackerjack investigative reporters to shelve the photos of golden-haired IRS agents bravely slaying demonic tax cheats, and dust off the photos of IRS agents holding an autographed copy of Mein Kampf while standing in front of a life-sized photo of Uncle Adolph.

It's all soooo predictable.

Sunrise sunset, sunrise sunset. It makes me sleepy.

"There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda"

File your extension and have a nice Ides of April, everyone.

Neckbone

[The Observer]

Except that the pendulum hasn't completed its swing yet. The tax gap still exists and the IRS is still complaining (if quietly) about the RRA '98 restrictions. There are way too many other political footballs out there for Congress, the administration and the media to focus on. Once the Iraq mess falls off the front page, the nuclear scare over North Korea and Iran becomes tolerable, and we can go a week without hearing about Anna Nicole, then and only then will the IRS suddenly find itself on the hot seat.

[Neckbone]

Except that the pendulum hasn't completed its swing yet. The tax gap still exists and the IRS is still complaining (if quietly) about the RRA '98 restrictions. There are way too many other political footballs out there for Congress, the administration and the media to focus on. Once the Iraq mess falls off the front page, the nuclear scare over North Korea and Iran becomes tolerable, and we can go a week without hearing about Anna Nicole, then and only then will the IRS suddenly find itself on the hot seat.

Agreed. But the pendulum will swing again. It's only a matter of time.

Neckbone

[LDE]

Sorry to undercut your attempt at wit, Neckbone, but the Ides of April would be the 12th, not the 15th. (March was one of the four months of the year where the Ides fell on the 15th; in the other eight months, it was on the 12th.)

[Truthstalker]

[Neckbone]

Sorry to undercut your attempt at wit, Neckbone, but the Ides of April would be the 12th, not the 15th. (March was one of the four months of the year where the Ides fell on the 15th; in the other eight months, it was on the 12th.)

I certainly NEVER, EVER knew that. Where do you come up with such esoterica? What are your total Jeopardy! winnings to date. This is NOT a dig at you, but as soon as I read your post, I remembered one of my favorite passages from Sherlock Holmes. It's from A Study in Scarlet, the very first Holmes story. The scene is shortly after Watson and Holmes have taken lodgings together at 221B Baker St.:

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."

"To forget it!"

"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

"But the Solar System!" I protested.

"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

Thanks for the nfo. You'll have to excuse me if I, in emulation of my hero, Sherlock Holmes, promptly forget it. I have enough detritus in my brain-attic, not to mention the junk in my middle-aged trunk.

Neckbone

[ElfNinosMom]

Neckbone: I'm embarrassed to ask this, since I'm a big dead rock star fan myself, but who's in your avatar?

[Neckbone]

Neckbone: I'm embarrassed to ask this, since I'm a big dead rock star fan myself, but who's in your avatar?

It's guitarist extrodinaire, Tommy Bolin: 1951 to 1976. Heroin OD. I go for the outstanding but obscure.

Neckbone

[The Observer]

To paraphrase Rick James, "Heroin, that's one hell of a drug....."

And yet, we can't get Michael Bolton to do one little speed-ball......

To quote Billy Joel: Only the good die young.

[Imalawman]

To paraphrase Rick James, "Heroin, that's one hell of a drug....."

I believe the quote was, "cocaine's one hell of a drug". (as spoken on the Dave Chapelle show)

[ElfNinosMom]

Neckbone: I'm embarrassed to ask this, since I'm a big dead rock star fan myself, but who's in your avatar?

It's guitarist extrodinaire, Tommy Bolin: 1951 to 1976. Heroin OD. I go for the outstanding but obscure.

Neckbone

Tommy Bolin! I thought he looked a little familiar, but I couldn't place him. Wow, props to you for coming up with that one.

[Demosthenes]

Neckbone: I'm embarrassed to ask this, since I'm a big dead rock star fan myself, but who's in your avatar?

It's guitarist extrodinaire, Tommy Bolin: 1951 to 1976. Heroin OD. I go for the outstanding but obscure.

Neckbone

Tommy Bolin! I thought he looked a little familiar, but I couldn't place him. Wow, props to you for coming up with that one.

I thought the picture was a woman.

[Dr. Caligari]

It's guitarist extrodinaire, Tommy Bolin: 1951 to 1976. Heroin OD. I go for the outstanding but obscure.

Didn't he play on Billy Cobham's Spectrum album?

[Imalawman]

It's guitarist extrodinaire, Tommy Bolin: 1951 to 1976. Heroin OD. I go for the outstanding but obscure.

Didn't he play on Billy Cobham's Spectrum album?

Along with Jan Hammer and Sklar (can't remember his first name). That might have been his best work. Although I really enjoyed his James Gang stint and solo works.

[Neckbone]

It's guitarist extrodinaire, Tommy Bolin: 1951 to 1976. Heroin OD. I go for the outstanding but obscure.

Didn't he play on Billy Cobham's Spectrum album?

Yes he did. Quadrant 4 is one of the best balls-to-the-wall fusion tunes ever. The duel with Jan Hammer is classic.

Along with Jan Hammer and Sklar (can't remember his first name).

Leland. LA studio bassist. He's been on hundreds of records.

Neckbone

[ElfNinosMom]

Heroin has been hell on rock'n'roll, no doubt about it.

My favorite dead-by-heroin rock star is, of course, Layne Staley of Alice In Chains. Maybe I'll change my icon, just to see if anybody wonders who he is, LOL.

[ElfNinosMom]

Tee Barkdull, the latest nutcase presidential candidate, said he saw a picture of me and that I'm an ugly man. I have no idea what he was looking at, but maybe this new avatar will encourage that kind of idiocy. After all, it's funny, especially when he looks like this:



By the way, not to change the subject, but if anybody's interested in reading the ravings of a presidential candidate who makes Gene look completely sane in comparison, check this out:

http://www.lastfreevoice.com/2007/04/20 ... /#comments

Yeah, I baited him, then let him hang himself. He posted about 50 crazy comments in the space of just a couple of hours. It was too easy to get him to show his true colors, and for once there was a method to my madness. See, he had threatened physical violence against a 16-year-old kid who has a political blog, for no apparent reason. The kid came to me for help, so I set the jerk up so there'd be no doubt in the mind of the authorities that they're dealing with a lunatic, and not just somebody who got upset and said something regrettable.

What's strange and a little scary about it is that Tee claims to be ex-Special Forces. I told the kid to have his parents contact the FBI with both the original emails and that link, because there's no doubt in my mind that this guy is a threat to that poor kid.

Warning: Lots of profanity at that link, almost all from the loony presidential candidate.

[Lambkin]

After all, it's funny, especially when he looks like this:

Nice Fu Manchu 'stash. He could almost be John Wayne.

[grixit]

So someone called him on "...a more stronger union" and he insisted it was a correct quote?

[ElfNinosMom]

Yes, he swears that "a more stronger union" is a correct quote. We're definitely not dealing with a rocket scientist.

Just a short update on the "presidential candidate" ..... he came on today pretending to be multiple persons - one of his personas was supposedly a writer in Washington state, investigating the allegation of threats against a kid, but he couldn't spell worth a darn - and I busted him with the IP addresses, which were identical for all his personas.

Well, okay, I batted him around a little bit first, just because I could.

He went to all that trouble, just to harass and threaten a 16-year-old kid. It's sick. Very, very, very sick.

I still can't wrap my mind around a 51-year-old "man", formerly Special Forces, running for President of the United States and threatening a 16-year-old boy. It's just mind-boggling to me. The only thing I can figure is that he's a nut case.

In honor of Kurt Vonnegut, I present the truest statement ever made about the presidency: "There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president."

That man was a frickin' genius. I miss him, just knowing he's no longer here to enthrall the thinking world with his wit and wisdom. His death was a blow to me, and I even wrote a memoriam to him on Last Free Voice, which was well-received. Check it out if you're a fan.

But, I digress.

Anyway, the crazy prez candidate is starting to bore me now, once his multiple personalities came through as I predicted. Gene at least was an interesting nut, and compared to this guy, Gene's 96 IQ is genius-level. This guy is just a plain ol' everyday nutjob, not very smart at all, and I don't have much interest in that.

Still, I couldn't sit back and do nothing when I knew he was threatening a boy, and that's something the public has a right to know since he is running for president. After all, it could just as easily have been my son - or your son - this whackjob was threatening, after all.

With my luck, nutprez will drag this on forever, swearing I'm lying and his personas are not the same person, blah, blah, blah, until I finally get aggravated enough to go medieval on his arse. I wish he'd just go away, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen. He's obsessed now. Well, truth is he was obsessed with me even before I wrote that - he had been stalking me on the kid's blog for weeks with similar degrading comments - so I guess in reality nothing's changed.