There is(are?) still thirty minutes left to file your taxes as of my typing this. However here in Cleveland it may be more difficult to file your taxes than in previous years since the post office will not be staying open till midnight. At least not all of them. Only the main branch of the post office will be open till midnight tonight because of budget cutbacks stemming from the recession. Someone saw this coming and positioned an advertising blimp over the city for all the people lining the streets waiting to get into the post office. Unfortunately my camera sucks and this is all I got.
UPDATE:
There also may have been a basket ball game. But this is the level of reporting you get from a blog.
California state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, Democrat, introduced a bill in that state's legislature proposing the legalization and taxing of recreational use of marijuana. Ammiano's arguments immediately touched on all the major points that the pro-legalization crowd has been making in between bong hits for decades now. To me the most significant argument is the fiscal one.
Legalization of a nonviolent activity lowers the number of criminals, reduces police costs of pursuing recreational pot smokers, reduces numbers of criminals in prison, reduces prison costs, eliminates need for violence in pot buying transaction and so reduces violent crime, brings marijuana production into the light of day where it can be regulated which produces tax revenue and regulation, regulation of production and use and quality has health benefits, which further reduce costs to society, and creates jobs.
Sure its not a new argument and it is the one that most young potheads are likely to jump on first because it seems like it would be so appealing to the forever cash-strapped government. "Lets just let them tax pot and then they will rush to make it legal, man." The major proponents of such thinking being in a chemically induced type-B personalities, rarely get any traction in mainstream politics. In trying economic times such as these I would expect a well reasoned argument that points out, not only the increased tax revenue ($1 billion in California alone) but also the potential cost savings in other programs, would get a better reception.
However, these arguments have failed before and its not because they are poorly reasoned, despite my poking fun at potheads. There are the usual histrionics that are thrown about by the anti-drug lunatics about the impending collapse of society, and "Oh God, won't somebody please think of the children!?!!?!" Despite the truth that legalized recreational drugs do lead to negative health consequences, and beer and tobacco companies do target children with advertising, those are threats that have proven to be small and that we as a society have obviously chosen to live with. It is also popular to point out that history(the repeal of prohibition, Amsterdam) has shown us that when certain recreational drugs are legalized it eliminates the demand in the informal market for the goods, which directs the attention of professional criminals to other activities. Then the reduction of interaction between normal Joe Sixpack (Johnny Jointsmoker?) people and hardened criminals and the police reduces violent crime. All of this is still to leave out the potential beneficial impact on our foreign relations.
I suspect that the main reason this type of legislation fails time and time again is that it has to be voted on by politicians. Politicians who can count votes. It doesn't matter how many potheads and marijuana activists get together because their voice will still be marginalized in the minds of the elected officials. It's hard to be taken seriously when the thing you are advocating for is illegal and all you want it for is recreation. (Hence the medical marijuana movement) The other reason elected officials will never vote for legalization of recreational marijuana is that they don't want to have their name associated with the downfall of society if all the histrionics of the sour-faced Republican old lady's turns out to be true.
I am Libertarian, and there are two ways to look at the recreational marijuana issue from that perspective as long as you believe that marijuana smoking is no different than tobacco or alcohol use. There is the Ron Paul view that whatever you do with your body is none of my business as long as it doesn't affect me. Then there is the long term Ted Nugent view that says this does affect me because on the aggregate there will be societal health costs from the negative health impacts of drug use.
I suppose I fall into a third category that doesn't care. Sure there are health costs, but like I said above, there are social costs involved, but most social costs of marijuana are created by its illegality, the real social costs stemming from health and high driving when likened to tobacco and alcohol are clearly so minimal that our society has decided (and I agree) that the benefits of legalization outweigh the costs.
So why don't I smoke? There are various reasons but mostly its a political statement. In my experience pot smokers can tend to get over enthusiastic about their recreational drug of choice and become zealous advocates of its use, and distrust those that do not. Sure, this could easily be because it makes one paranoid, but just being in the room makes you just as arrested when the cops show up. My true friends respect me even if they don't respect my decision and offers to partake are made out of common politeness arising from commensality. (After all, what can be a more ritualistic "breaking of bread" than a shared consumption of something that not only involves shared risk but that gives a spiritual sense of significance?) Still, my reflexive aversion to perceived peer pressure, my history of refusal that has lasted so long it has become part of my identity, combined with what I fear is addictive behavior continue to keep me away even though I think legalization of recreational use of marijuana would be a good thing for the country.
I will leave you with this video a friend posted to Facebook.
As commercials announce to Joe Punchclock that the Taxman commeth we are greeted with a plethora of news items detailing the failure of President Obama's cabinet nominees to pay their fair share. Many of the editorials are already decrying the "new politics of responsibility" being just like the old politics of . . . well what do you call it when the President says it's OK to torture people? Evil? Its understandable why commentators on the political right have attempted to focus on the immediate failures of the Obama administration in what appears to be a rapid return to politics as usual. I would be inclined to resist except Obama's picks for high level political positions seems less like looking to experience and more like rearranging the deck chairs on the S.S. Democratic party. Which, if I recall correctly, is exactly how the first G.W. Bush administration began.
It has been such a long time since a Cleveland article that the city must have thought it had to do better. Yesterday a 42 inch, 111 year old, water main ruptured in an industrial neighborhood of downtown Cleveland cutting off water to half the city. Schools and commercial buildings were closed due to unsanitary conditions and the risk of fire. This being Cleveland the Federal building promptly caught fire. Today there was a boil water alert because of the microbes and toxic industrial chemicals that contaminated the cities water supply as a result of the breach. This happened on a day where the low temperature was 23F in a City that gets as cold as -10F yearly. Tonight there is a massive ice storm bearing down on the Mistake by the Lake and attempts to flee the flaming wreckage of the city by air have been eliminated as the barely operational airports in the region cancel flights. Sure there is a lot about Cleveland to cause a resident to complain, but apparently Clevelanders even do a good job of exporting reasons for people in other regions of the country to take note of Cleveland when they leave the city. What a wondrous place.
It should be obvious that anyone that is against gay marriage holds such an opinion because they don't like the idea of gay sex. Although we joke in popular culture that sex and marriage have nothing to do with each other, you won't see any significant principled division between the people who object to homosexuality and those who wish to deprive homosexuals of their civil rights.
Today Connecticut's supreme court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated that state's constitution. Effectively becoming the third state to allow homosexual marriage.
Something that is often glossed over in discussions of gay marriage is the issue of civil unions. These are often touted as being the same as marriage but with a different name. Gay rights groups often do a good job of pointing out that "separate is not equal," but it gets a bit more technical than that. There is a certain deference that is given to the status of marriage in American law that would not transfer over to any artificial legislative construction. You can make a statute that gives persons in a civil union the same tax benefits(penalties), the same visitation rights, and same property ownership as marriage and these are the rights typically cited by people discussing the issue, but there are a number of other rights that most people don't know come from marriage. You can have joint ownership of property but what about inheritance? What about the "Marital Privilege" where your spouse can not be forced to testify against you in court? There are a number of others but the point is that the status of marriage is so ingrained in our culture that a legislature would have to rewrite its entire civil code to create a substantially similar civil status to marriage.
Which still leaves the question of motive. Why would you go to all the effort to create something exactly like marriage just for the gays if not to keep them separate? I have yet to have heard a coherent explanation of why conservatives believe that it somehow harms their marriage if homosexuals are allowed to marry. My wife and I may have had less sex, or poor communication on the week California first allowed gay marriage, but I guarantee you it was not the cause.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Cleveland is the second poorest city after only Detroit Michigan. The downfall of both cities is linked and ongoing but at least Cleveland doesn't have a mayor under indictment for perjury. Local news outlets are trying to cut the sting of the numbers by pointing out that the same report states the average household income in Cleveland grew over the same period. What they either don't realize or are deliberately not saying is that this means the gap between the rich and the poor is widening at the expense of middle income families.
This is the kind of thing one would expect to see in a major urban center that is still experiencing flight of the middle class out of the city into the suburbs. It is also an increased threat to the American Dream. In a city where poverty is increasing and which has been hard hit by the collapse of the housing market it seems increasingly unlikely that this is a place where a working family can get a leg up and advance their financial standing. Which would explain why people are leaving the area.
All of these things combined cut down the tax base while increasing the demand on government services. This isn't just more people becoming a drain on the welfare state. It's vacant buildings becoming bastions of criminal behavior causing a drain on the under staffed police force. Those same vacant buildings are also a drain on the fire department due to arson, which increases response to emergencies and costs of investigation. Lastly, the city has to buy those buildings and demolish them creating costly legal work on top of paying out settlements to the banks that have foreclosed on these houses. The roads are in bad need of repair, and communities region wide have to replace their sewage systems because they violate clean water standards, spewing human waste into lake Erie. The steel industry is dead, but its rotting corpse is lying unburied across the rust belt of America.
Cleveland is such a terrible cesspool that the suburbs long ago seperated themselves from it politically and financially as much as possible. This amounts to dozens of tax districts in one county. Each of them jealously guarding their hoard like the poison spewing worms they are. They also tax you both in the city you work and in the city you live. So if you commute from a residential suburb to a commercial or industrial town for work then at tax time you get double teamed up the asshole by fat government dicks.
As you can probably tell this is rather personal for me since this double-dick ass fucking I am getting from these cities amounts to a bill for $100 a month. These are cities in the rust belt. The industry left decades ago. The sewers overflow when it rains. The roads have huge and frequent holes which make them worse than most gravel roads I have driven on. These cities don't plow the snow all winter. There are packs of wild dogs roaming the streets at night. Arson is on the rise. What is that money going for?
Why would we blow up our own satelite that we had put in orbit recently? Why would the military deny they were blowing up a spy satelite to protect its secrets? Why hasn't anyone mentioned Missile Defense until the exercise was over?
In deference to the prior post about not being conspiracy minded I want to say that I believe that the military has our best interest at heart with everything they do. Every soldier I have ever known has an intense sense of duty to American civilians, the American people, and to America itself.
Perhaps I am too cynical but these were all thoughts I had within 30 seconds of hearing the first news blurb on the malfunction of the satelite. I just think this kind of situation generates wild speculation from the people and requires acknowledgement of the most obvious assumptions and honest discussion from a legitimate representative of the military. That would at least begin building a trust among the more cynical American citizens like myself.
Now for a serious question; how many of our tax dollars were waisted in this fiasco?
The thing I want to point out here, that hasnt been mentioned except as denials that it is a consern, is that when the subprime mortgage market is allowed to push off its horrid investments on Fannie May and Freddie Mac this amounts to welfare. This is fucking corporate welfare. These are opportunistic people who took advantage of poor optimistic people who only wanted in on Bush's "ownership society." These subprime lenders were only conserned with making a buck and they all knew they were making a bad investment, which is why they hid these in larger investment packages and passed them off like hot fucking potatoes. Now that the investment has turned out to be a bad one they want to pass the burden of cleaning up the mess on to you and me, the fucking tax payers, and they want to leave the Joe and Jane Doe holding the bag. The poor people that got suckered into these predatory loans are still going to loose their home, while the fucking asshole real estate "flippers" got rich off of over inflated house values.
The big point again is that you and I are going to have to pay for the bad investments of some selfish dickheads. This whole thing strikes me as hypocritical bullshit. the people that wer making these investments are the kind of assholes that bitch and moan about the cost of social services and demand we privatize everything, but as soon as trouble looks their way and they go crying to the government for help. Every aspect of this makes me sick.
This whole thing is made worse because its tied up with the falling dollar, droping consumer confidance, falling manufacturing, inflation, falling wages, increasing unemployment, vastly increasing deficet.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is asking for the financial records of a number of the nations largest televangalitical organizations, because (GASP!) something might be amiss. Something seems askew. Something ain't quite right here. I cant quite put my finger on it but perhaps these fabulously wealthy organizations that enjoy tax-exempt status seem a bit odd when the "ministers" are making six(6) figure salaries and driving a Roles Royce. (quite the fine automobile)
Some of you might be wondering why they are scrambling to comply voluntarily. It seems to me that this sounds like a voluntary request at this point and if one were misappropriating money from a tax-exempt organization and inclined to commit further crime, one could alter ones records to appear less damning, and thusly seem to be in compliance in hopes of avoiding an investigation by the IRS who may be more inclined to use police authority and warrents to get the information they require. Not that any of these just crusaders for the glory of Christ would even misuse the money in the first place, let alone lie about it to a duely elected member of congress.
Basically middle management types in the state department and Pentagon feel they are too important to fly in the cheep seats and believe they are entitled to have us pay for them to fly business and first class internationaly.
