Word!

Not very long ago, as you may or may not care to remember, the folks over at the New Oxford American Dictionary had proclaimed "hypermiling" to be the Word of the Year for 2008. Again, as you may or may not care to remember, hypermiling is the practice of trying to squeeze the maximum miles per gallon out of your vehicle by doing things such as driving without shoes (and, from my experience driving behind morons who I assume to be attempting this, driving 15-20 miles per hour below the speed limit. On the freeway. In the far left lane. And always, always in front of ME! That last one there is, apparently, a pre-requisite for anyone hypermiling. You must be in front of me AND I must be in a hurry. Yep, without those, you're just wasting your own time and none of mine.).

But I assumed that the Word of the Year was just that. THE word of the year. I didn't know that there was more than one Word of the Year. Doesn't having more than one Word of the Year automatically devalue the entire Word of the Year honor? I think it does. It really can't even be called Word of the Year, as that implies just one and there would appear to be more than one. One of the Words of the Year would be more appropriate. And you'd think that, since this is coming from a bunch of "word folks" that they would want the definition of what a Word of the Year actually is to match with it being just one word. But they don't seem to care. (And I've got news for them. Not a lot of other people care either. I do, but I hardly make up the majority. Thank God.)

The Merriam-Webster (which happens to be my favorite Webster. Right ahead of that little guy int he 80s sitcom) Dictionary has released their Word of the Year. It's not as bad as "hypermiling", but at least it is a word. The MWDWOTY is......(insert drum roll here)........(All right, knock it off. You can't even play the drums, can you? Gimme those sticks!)........bailout. Wait. That's it?

That's it. Bailout. Your 2008 Word of the Year courtesy of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. A little anti-climactic, eh? I felt the same way. But the folks over there at the ol' MW are pretty happy about it. (Their job is the dictionary. They get excited when it's 1:15 in the afternoon.) They say that they determine the word of the year "....based on users' anonymous hits to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Online Thesaurus." And then the word "that received the highest intensity of lookups over the shortest period of time" is the winner and subsequent Word of the Year. Congratulations to you, "bailout".

According to a one John Morse who is the president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc., "This year's presidential campaign produced voluminous hits for words like 'vet,' 'bipartisan,' 'misogyny,' and the word used to describe both candidates on the Republican ticket, 'maverick.' " ('Voluminous' strangely absent on list of words garnering many searches.)

OK, wait a minute. Was 'misogyny' used frequently this year? I don't recall misogyny, a hatred for women, in the press all that often. And I am scouring the press daily (usually only to be disappointed at finding stories about long lost cats that have returned home, idiots in Florida assaulting other idiots with food products and many other products of craptastic journalism. It's crapalism.). I would recall if I saw a surge in 'misogyny' being used. Great. Now, not only is Merriam-Webster making up the whole Word of the Year thing to begin with (there isn't an official word of the year. What if I announced my own word of the year?! Would it hold any less weight than that of Merriam-Webster? Why, yes! It would. A considerable amount less! But it shouldn't! Because really, without an official Word of the Year, they're all the same.)

So, yeah, they also had a list of the 9 other 'also rans' for the MWDWOTY. Do you care any more than I do? I doubt it. But what about the Word of the Year in other countries? Now there is some intrigue for ya!

• Taiwan - Luan. Luan means chaos. In Taiwan, the WOTY is chosen by the people via a telephone voting system. (I'm picturing something similar to that of American Idol, because if it's good enough for Paula Abdul, it's good enough for Taiwan.)


• The Netherlands - Swaffelen. Ready for this? First of all, the Dutch are blaming this one on the English language, saying that it's "on loan". Uh-huh. Sure it is. Must be pretty bad if you're blaming English for it. (Actually, they can blame the voters, as the WOTY is left up to a vote by the people. I'm sure that whoever was in charge of this thing is seriously reconsidering that aspect of it.) "Swaffelen" is not for everyone. In fact, it's only for men, as they're the only ones who can do it. (Do you see where this is going? Straight to hell, that is correct.) The definition of "swaffelen" is "to swing one's penis, making it bump against something, in order to stimulate either oneself or someone else." Um....what? I can't believe that there is an "or" in that definition. "No, personally, I don't feel the need to be stimulated by swinging my penis around. But I could stimulate YOU with it! Come over here and I'll begin a-swaffelen for ya!" Really, all this does is beg the question, "My God, how long are penises in the Netherlands?"
  
  
• Japan - Hen. No, not the chicken. "Hen" means "change" in English. As in, "Please change the pronunciation of "change" in Japan so it does not sound like a chicken." The runners up for Japan's WOTY were "kin", which means "gold" and "raku", which seems to mean "relief or peace".


• Germany - Gammelfleischparty. Apparently that literally means "spoiled meat party", but in Germany it is "an unflattering term for a gathering of people over 30." Lovely! Just lovely! Oh, and what the hell?! It would seem that earlier in the year the word "gammelfleisch" (pretty, isn't it?) was in the news quite a bit when it was "...discovered that meat packers had been regularly supplying some kebab restaurants with past-due products." Ahhhh. I thought so! I thought that the kebab restaurants of Germany would be involved with this one somehow! (I'll give the Germans credit for having the most amusing WOTYs. In second place was the word "Bildschirmbraeune" which means "screen tan" as it refers to "...the complexion of someone who spends too much time at a computer." And in third place was "unterhopft," which means "underhopped," or "in need of a beer." Well, then! I am frequently "unterhopft!" I'm "unterhopft" right now!
  
  
• Germany (Yes. Again! Seems the word above was the German Youth WOTY. This is the German-German WOTY.) - "Finanzkrise." A financial crisis. No where near as fun as a spoiled meat party. Second place went to "verzockt" which means "squandered" and rounding out their top ten in tenth place was (and I am not kidding) "Yes, we can!" Of course, loosely translated, that means "We will elect Barack Obama as President of the US and then be completely surprised when our lives are still the same!" VERY loosely translated.
  
  
• Austria - "Lebensmensch." Although the word traditionally describes a close, important friendship, it has been given a more intimate meaning over there in Austria, that of a public acknowledgement of a homosexual relationship. Go Austria! (The term for that in the US was going to be Proposition 8, but...well...that didn't go so well.)

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1 Year + 160 Conferences = YOUR MONEY

Oh, hey, good news! (Please note how that opening line is just dripping with sarcasm.) Remember those AIG executives who took the money that we, the taxpayers, so generously "loaned" them and went off to England on some partridge hunt (Who does that? Seriously? At the very least, if they were going to piss my money away, couldn't they at least have done something that seems a little more manly? Couldn't they have played rugby or something and acted like real men instead of the pansy asses that they are?) According to the hoity-toity folks on the right coast at the New York Times "The attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, said on Thursday that A.I.G. would also cancel 160 conferences and other events that would have cost more than $8 million and would provide information on compensation, bonuses and other payments to determine whether the payments were proper." Oh. My. God.

Are you kidding me?!?! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they were cancelled, they should have been cancelled. I am appalled at the amount of money, the number of conferences and the fact that this company had ZERO capital just a month ago! Clearly, these conferences are not working very well to improve the quality of the work that their employees do! But aside from that, one hundred and sixty effing conferences?!?! That is one conference every 2.28 days!! How, how, HOW is it possible to have 160 conferences in ONE YEAR!! AND still have people at the company actually working?!?! I'll do the math on this one and tell you that it comes out to approximately $50,000 per conference. So, $50,000 every 2.28 days for an entire year was going to be spent by AIG until they were informed that it might not bode so well with the angry villagers if they did that. Villagers are rarely happy to begin with, so it's not a good idea to do things that will, in fact, anger them.

Also reported was that "A.I.G. had agreed to suspend a $10 million severance payment to its chief financial officer, Stephen J. Bensinger, who is leaving the company." Ten million? For leaving the company? Is he going into the witness protection program? Why in the hell does he get ten million dollars when he is the chief financial officer of a FAILED financial company?!?! And why is it "suspend"? Why isn't it "Are you freaking kidding me? Get out of here!"

Now, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions (I'm not). Maybe these conferences aren't as outlandish as they sound (they are). Maybe we can find something reasonable about them (we can't). Hmmmm....well, "Among the events that A.I.G. has agreed to cancel are a $750,000 “best operator” event in Las Vegas" (Best operator? At an essentially bankrupt financial institution? Well, clearly there isn't one! If there was perhaps they would have been "operating" with their own money and not with mine!) "and a $500,000 risk management conference scheduled for the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco." (Risk management? Here's your first lesson: When you see the light from the torches coming over the hill...run!) "The company will also cancel a $350,000 sales conference in November at Sea Island, Ga., and a $190,000 meeting scheduled for Scottsdale, Ariz., in January."

The fact that they basically had to be told by the attorney general that they needed to cancel their 160 conferences for the year rather than just realizing that it needed to be done does not bode well with me. (You folks have NO capital. You might, just might have to cut back on a couple of things. NO, not toilet paper! Things like those 160 conferences that don't do anyone a damn bit of good and you know it.) They couldn't just figure that out on their own that it made sense to cut out the $8 in unnecessary conferences. Sure, they're going to have that company up and on it's feet and running itself in no time flat! I can see it now. What could possibly go wrong?

And has anyone been fired? No, of course not, because the people who do the firing are the people who are doing all of the...other word that begins with an F. You know, that thing they're doing to the taxpayers. That's the one! Not so enjoyable when it's the AIG guys doin' it to ya, is it?

But here's the thing: See how easy it was for this to be brought up? It wasn't hard. No, because when people who are overseeing things actually do their friggin' job stuff gets done or, in this case, doesn't get done. The point is that I can't help but think and wonder if the Federal oversight committees that are supposed to be overseeing operations in the financial industry had done their job BEFORE the majority of the banks basically gave away all of their money with no hope of ever seeing it again, if this might have been able to be avoided to some degree. I think it might. So while those Congressmen and Congresswomen are over there, sitting behind their little microphone and peering over the top of their reading glasses at some executive from a failed bank who walked with millions of dollars in severance pay and/or bonuses, they're patting themselves on the back for "fully investigating" what went wrong. Let me save you folks some time! The bank guys? Yeah, they were stupid and greedy. You folks on the committees to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen? Yeah, you're just stupid.

But keep on acting like you're doing such a great job and everyone should be in awe of you if you're ever in their presence and even if you're not. Eventually, someone who isn't a politician might believe you.

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AIG - All Inclusive Greed

That snapping sound you just heard? Yeah, that was me finally twisting off. Ah, it's OK. I saw it coming. After the whole $700 billion economic fiasco over there in the House? And then I saw the reptilian Nancy Pelosi almost break her own arm from patting herself on the back and all of the other self important House members congratulating themselves for finally doing their job (albeit, doing it poorly and not without making sure there was something in it for them), I knew it was only a matter of time before I snapped. And here's why:

(But first, I was noticing that I haven't heard so much as a peep out of Hillary since this whole thing has been going on. You know, the whole economic system on the verge of collapse thing. Yeah, that. I couldn't figure out why Hillary hasn't shown up anywhere. I think now I know why. I think she must have given all of her clothes to Nancy Pelosi. She's looking like a Hillary clone these days. Though she does have a more dramatically forked tongue than Hillary. But I digress. Back to my twisting off.)

AIG, the massive insurance company that, on the afternoon that it was filing for bankruptcy, was offered/given $85 million by the Federal government to bail it out of the ridiculously deep and unnecessary hole it had dug itself has been putting that $85 million to use immediately. Yep, according to the semi-competent folks over there at ABC News, last week (and by "last week" I mean "less than a week after receiving $85 million dollars to save their sorry, greedy asses") "online executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today." Wait. WTF??!

According to the too little, too late Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), "Rooms at this resort can cost over $1,000 a night." That bit of information he provided this morning as his committee has continued to believe that now is a good time to begin investigating what in the hell the Wall Street companies and their CEOs have been doing over the past 10 to 15 years. An action that, if you're asking me, might have been more effective if they had been doing all of their investigating and, more importantly, all of their PAYING ATTENTION, the ENTIRE TIME! What in the hell do you Congressmen/women who are on these "oversight" committees DO if you're not "overseeing" things?! Inquiring minds want to know! Angry hands want to wring your necks!

You know, while I agree that trying to figure out what in the hell went on is important, in the end it's going to be pointless. Sure, we'll know who knew what (maybe) and who was responsible for what (maybe) and who made off with a Scrooge McDuck sized pile of cash (definitely), but so what? Then what? Then we know. Um, yay? It will have no effect on those who were primarily responsible for the whole ordeal, so what good is it? And where is the committee to investigate the committees? THAT is the one that I would be MORE interested in seeing go forward. All of these Congressmen/women who were supposed to be watching these things? Where were they? Why is it that now, NOW they are shocked, just SHOCKED that this is happening? How could they NOT know that this was going on? OK, but I digress. Where was I? Oh, right $1,000 a night rooms with MY MONEY!

According to "AIG documents obtained by Waxman's investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges." And this was a week after the bailout which was around September 16, 2008. So, they took their pricey little jaunt around September 23 and it lasted for a week, which would put the end of it right around September 30, 2008. Today is October 8, 2008. That's a week later. Now THAT is efficient! Why couldn't you have been THAT efficient BEFORE everything was in the tank?!? And now that you know, what are you going to do about it?!!?

Oh, but wait, before you answer that (because I already know it's nothing) let's take a look at this resort that we paid for, shall we? Behold! A resort that YOUR money paid for that YOU are NOT staying at!

The view from the Lounge Terrace

Here we have the main pool

This is your money having caviar at sunset.

A view of the main pool and the resort.

One of the rooms you won't be staying in.

Another room you won't be staying in.

Wow. I had no idea my money liked to be spent at such posh resorts....and not even spent on me! I am apparently very generous with my money. And so are you! Did you know that you had such high standards for where people that you don't even know stay when they need a hotel? I didn't think you did.

And here is where I become frustrated with the pathetic attempt of ABC News at passing themselves off as a news source. That's about all the story says about this ordeal. Then it completely drops the ball and morphs off into a couple of lines about the hearings. Oh, it does mention that Henry Waxman said "I find that very disturbing" when Robert Willumstad, a guy who was CEO of AIG for three freaking months, said "I honestly don't remember" when asked "about a former AIG auditor who claimed he had been blocked from reviewing the books of a London-based division that has since been blamed for a large share of the company's downfall." You find that "disturbing", do you? Is there some reason that you're not calling this guy on his BS if that's what you believe it is? Do you think he's going to go lock himself in a men's room stall at the break and weep because you found his statement "disturbing"? Well, if he does, I'm sure he'll find solace in that he can blow the snot bubble out of his throat onto one of the gazillions of hundred dollar bills that he's walking with.

Disturbing. What in the hell is wrong with people? Oh, and I'm not referring to Henry Waxman. I'm referring to the morons who keep voting time and time again to elect this man to office!! Seriously. This guy has been in Congress since1975. And I'm sure that he must have done a few things that are commendable enough to cause people to re-elect him. I do believe that. However, I cannot tell you how sick I am of seeing this guy's face at every damn hearing to investigate something at the Federal level. Perhaps, sir, if you did a little bit more investigating like the kind that allowed you to find out that the AIG guys were off getting manicures and pedicures with MY MONEY less than a week after I was forced to lend it to them, then you wouldn't need so many of your WTF hearings, now would you?

So there they are, holding their WTF hearings and screaming at the guys who once ran the company, while the guys who are currently running the company are at a resort that costs $1,000 a night. Good. That'll help. Veeerrry effective, I'm sure. I'm sure that $700 billion is going to go to good use as well. I mean, after hearing this, what could possibly go wrong?

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Got Pork?

OK, I do believe I've calmed my ass down enough to continue ranting about this TARP bill that is supposed to save us all from a financial implosion that was, by all accounts, was to have happened about a week ago if nothing was done. Well, here we are, a week later, with nothing having been done and that would include the financial implosion. Oh, sure, stocks are in the tank, credit is tight and everyone is panicking, but it's not so bad that those guys in the House can't take a couple of days off in observance of Rosh Hashanah, right? Sure. The "financial 9/11" can wait a day or two. Why not?

By the way, you know what a tarp is right? Yep, it's a big plastic sheet, the purpose of which is to use it to cover something up. Oh, the thing is still there, but you just can't see it because it's covered with the tarp. Methinks they could have chosen a different acronym for this thing.

OK, so the Senate passed the bill while the House was off Rosh Hashanah-ing. This is the bill that is supposed to set the guidelines for infusing about $700 billion dollars into the financial arena by buying up bad assets from banks that made loans that they had no business making in the first place. The bill was originally 2 pages. Then it was 137. It is now 451 pages long. Correct. 451 pages. And what those pages contain will do either one of two things. It will either a) shock you or b) really, really piss you off. Let's find out which one it is, shall we?

It's hard to say why the House couldn't pass the bill the first time around. No one was really giving any concrete reasoning for voting against it. One has to think, however, that the fact that the entire House is up for re-election in November has something to do with it. Anyway, this bill that the Senate cobbled together includes what they are calling "incentives" and "sweeteners". It includes what I'm calling "pork", "BS" and "bribery".

One minute, we're all freaking out that it's going to be $700 billion. The next minute, these Senators are adding things to it left and right, making the total cost even MORE. Hey, Senate! The reason we were freaking out over the $700 billion dollar price tag was not, I repeat, was NOT because we didn't think it was high enough! It was because that is a ridiculous amount of money! And how do YOU, the Senators, react to a $700 billion dollar price tag? YOU decide this is the perfect time to throw in your pet projects that you've wanted to get done for a long time so that they will HAVE to pass because, as you may have heard, the financial world is coming to an end. Good thing that doomsday was able to wait until you padded this bill full of your own personal agendas.

Now, I'll admit, there are a couple of things that they threw in the bill that I totally agree with. Some of them even have to do directly with the bill itself! But regardless as to whether or not the things that I agree with are a good idea or not, the point is that they have no business being attached to this bill. It's not about that! It's not about an opportunity for legislation that hasn't made it through to suddenly be shoved through by default! How am I and the rest of the public supposed to believe that you even understand the complexity of the financial mess when you're too busy crafting your own sections of the bill that have nothing, repeat, NOTHING to do with the economic crisis. How can you even justify that sort of behavior? Why are you not spending your time trying to figure out if the current plan for helping the distressed banks is going to work or not? Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing and not tending to your own personal projects?

I'll hit some of the finer additions of the now 451 page document that may or may not save our economic ass.

• The limit on the amount of deposits that would be FDIC insured was raised from $100,000 to $250,000. That is an excellent idea and should quell a lot of hyper anxiety. No problems with this AND it's directly related to the original purpose of the bill. Nice choice.
  
  
• They are providing an extension of protections for those millions of middle class families who find themselves getting screwed by the AMT (alternative minimum tax). While this is a good idea, they were supposed to have BEEN doing this for at LEAST the past two years, most likely longer. The fact that they're throwing it in now when it shouldn't even be an issue (because it should already be done) annoys me. Still shouldn't be there.
  
  
• They're including $3.3 billion for rural school aid over the next five years. Right. Because regular public schools, they don't need any aid. They're fine, right? It's the rural ones that need help. You jackasses. Nothing to do with the bill. Shouldn't even be in there.
  
  
• The bill provides $8 billion in tax relief for people in the Midwest, Louisiana and Texas who have been hit by natural disasters. No, you morons! Not the "natural" disasters! The "financial" disaster! We're talking about the financial disaster! And you go and throw this into the....ah, crap. Never mind. It doesn't belong in there.
  
  
• They also felt the need to extend being able to deduct state and local taxes in those states without income taxes (Florida, Texas, etc.). What does this have to do with the banking system? Oh, that's right. Nothing. Shouldn't be in there.
  
  
• They've added the extension of a tax break for homeowners who do not itemize their tax returns. How does someone own a home and not itemize their deductions? Hello? Mortgage interest? That's a HUGE deduction right there. How about instead of a tax break, you just tell them to itemize? How is that my problem? And what the hell is it doing in this bill?

Annoyed yet? Hung yourself? Knotting the rope at least? That wasn't even all of them! AND we're just getting to the good part! Welcome to Title V, otherwise known (by me) as Title WTF. You might want to don a helmet for this section, as you could easily find yourself beating your head upon the nearest solid surface.

• Provisions related to film and television productions. Allows up to $15 MILLION in deductions per film. It's supposed to (get this) "spur domestic production." Spur domestic production of the gazillion dollar film industry in this country!?!? Are you kidding me?!?! (This provision is actually two tax breaks and combined they are worth $478 million over the next ten years. To spur domestic production, mind you. Because if there's one thing we don't do enough of in this country, it's make movies.)
  
  
• My personal favorite: Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children. Wait. Wait. I said WAIT!!! WHAT?! Yep. According to NPR, it's there to "help Rose City Archery Inc. in Oregon. It will save the company 39 cents per arrow." Is it the Civil War again? Do we NEED arrows in bulk?
  
  
• Income averaging for amounts received in connection with the Exxon Valdez litigation. The Exxon Valdez? That was in...1989? 19 years later and they're doing what? Never mind. I don't think my head can take it without exploding.
  


• Sec. 505. Certain farming business machinery and equipment treated as 5-year property. Oh, but only "certain" farming business machinery. Well, good, at least they were using their head here, because if they didn't specify, well, then it would just be wrong.
  
  
• Sec. 506. Modification of penalty on understatement of taxpayer’s liability by tax return preparer. So, if you're a weaselly tax preparer and you go low with what the taxpayer has to pay, you now pay...let me guess...less?
  

Seriously, at this point, if I continue, my head will literally explode. Besides the fact that it's asinine, it's insulting. What a bunch of self serving, self righteous, opportunistic weasels. You see disaster for the country as opportunity for yourselves. That's nice. Thanks for having my best interest in mind when you're voting on this bill.

Hey, Senate! Do you even know HOW the bill helps the banking industry? Do you even know IF the bill helps the banking industry? Do you?! I bet you don't! No, I KNOW you don't! That's because you're too worried about your damn arrow tax and your 2 decade old oil spill and your tractor tax! I want to know who was behind the wooden arrow provision and I want them...mmmm....either hung or shot. I don't know which. But whichever one it is, I want it done publicly. You know, town square, villagers with pitchforks and torches, the whole bit. I'm sure that this is going to sound like the musing of some old geezer, but they have a lot of nerve. A lot of freaking nerve. (There. The 'freaking' part makes it sound less geezer-ish.)

Oh, here we go. Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith are the geniuses behind the wooden arrow provision of this bill. Hand me my pitchfork.

Now, listen, all eight of you who read this, you know me. You know I'm not a political individual, but this isn't about politics. This is about a bunch of people who, during a time of what THEY deemed to be a "national crisis" are running around trying to get things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand done to appease their own self serving egos. It's as if the Senate is really the Reptile House at the zoo. I'm pretty sure that they all have forked tongues (which they can smell with) and they warm themselves by stretching out on a rock in the sun. Snakes. All of them.

Again, I am totally advocating voting for every single challenger for every single seat in the House come November. How bad could it be to have a bunch of new people in there? Worse than this? I cannot imagine that is possible, given this showing by these maroons. See, the thing about starting from scratch is that no one, NO ONE will have any immediate personal agendas. They can all just deal with the issues at hand FIRST and we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, below are all of the additional tax relief that was included in the TARP bill and all of the other tax provisions and breaks that were included. If you are not seething with anger and the end of the list, then you read it wrong. Just remember, a week ago, this document was TWO pages and NONE of these things even existed. NOW, there are 451 pages, everything below is included and you, you my friend (who am I? John McCain?), you get to pay for them.

• Tax breaks for those impacted by natural disasters
  
• A mental health parity provision providing insurance for mental illness
  
• A Two-year extension of the research-and-development tax credit

TITLE III—EXTENSION OF BUSINESS TAX PROVISIONS

• Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
• Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
• Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
• Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.
• Sec. 312 Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico.
• Sec. 314. Indian employment credit.
• Sec. 315. Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations. (Casinos)
• Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance.
• Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motor sports racing track facility (This will save NASCAR track builders $109 million this year. Because it's very important to have tracks for a bunch of people turning left.)
• Sec. 318. Expensing of environmental remediation costs.
• Sec. 321. Enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions.
• Sec. 322. Tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia.
• Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds. (Sheep fur! SHEEP FUR! They're worried about SHEEP FUR! In other news, there is a wool research fund.)

Your tax dollars hard at work. All $700 billion plus of them.

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Pork, Anyone?

Time flies like an arrow (and fruit flies like a banana). That's why you might not remember what all of the news was about exactly one week ago. That's also why I'm here to explain the unexplainable. (Here's a hint on how it's going to go: It might start with "WTF" and it might end with "they're all idiots". But I'm not giving anything else up. That's all you're getting for right now.)

Last week at this time, we were being told by those in Washington that the country is on the brink of financial doom. We were being told that our financial infrastructure, our stock market, our banking industry, all were on the verge of collapsing. And from that collapse we could expect a world wide Depression that would make the Great Depression look like a day at Disneyland without lines. Pleasant, eh? They had us all digging holes in our backyards to serve as hiding places for our cash. They had us scanning the Internet for recipes on how to boil your belt and what goes best with shoe leather, as we were clearly going to be starving as well.

They made it clear that they had to act NOW in order to avoid the certain disaster that we would face by them doing nothing. The initial idea was to give the Treasury Secretary a blank check for $700 billion dollars (a figure that came out of simply needing "a big number") and allow him to dole it out as he saw fit to financial institutions that had run themselves into the ground through a series of fraudulent actions. That document that would have allowed that was 2 pages long and gave Henry Paulson all of the authority to do whatever he wanted and gave Congress no authority or say so on what he did. How do you think those power mongering weasels over there reacted to that? Correct. With shrieks and shrills that could be likened to that of fornicating banshees.

What happened next was the House got together (as much as they could, which is to say, barely at all) and redrafted the 2 page document to include things like having some oversight and not giving the entire $700 billion all at once and things like that. Now that sounds fairly reasonable. Controlling, but reasonable. That "reason" increased the length of the document from 2 pages to approximately 137. I am not kidding. 137 pages of stuff that is mostly definitions of other stuff that needs to be voted on so that the country isn't ruined and you and I don't end up wearing a barrel. (Because really, barrels have never helped anything. You don't need to be poor and destitute AND ugly.)

OK, fine, so we're saved, right? No. Wait. What? No? Right. No. See, they voted on it, and they voted no. Then do you know what they did? After they wrote 135 additional pages of crap, after they told us we were going to self implode, after they made it sound as if there was NO time left, and after they voted down what had been presented to the public as our only hope, do you know what they did then? Correct. They took two days off for Rosh Hashanah. Wait. Wait. WTF?

Correct. Rosh Hashanah. I was a bit confused too, as I didn't realize that there was such a high number of Jewish members of the House that it warranted a couple of days off right in the middle of Armageddon. Fortunately for me, I happen to know someone who is extremely bright and quick (and really hot) who did a quick calculation/estimate for me and came up with approximately 12 members of the House would be Jewish based on averages. Twelve. I see. And they took the freaking day off? Are they unaware of what the concept of "working on a holiday" is about? They might want to sit down when they learn this: Some people actually DO work on holidays! Yes! Can you believe it! AND those people that DO sometimes work on holidays? They do so when they are NOT in the middle of, as one House member put it, "a financial 9/11." But they took off for Rosh Hashanah. That is when I lost what little, if any, confidence I had in this whole ordeal and immediately went out shopping for a much bigger mattress which to store my life savings beneath.

So while the House was off Rosh Hashanah-ing, the Senate held a little powwow and took a vote on their revised version of the "Troubled Asset Relief Program" aka TARP. (They should have called it COAT - "Cover Our Asses Today.") Their revised version is not 2 pages long either. It's also not 137 pages long. No, this thing is now four hundred and fifty one pages long. 451!!! 22,500% more pages than the original 2. 451 pages. By the time I finish reading the damn thing, the economy will have collapsed AND fixed itself by then! Are you kidding me?!? What the hell is in those 451 pages?!? Actually, forget about that for a minute. How was Rosh Hashanah?

I don't know if I have the stomach for it all in one post. It might have to be divided into two. But let me just say this: Those 451 pages? They're not ALL about the giving financial assistance to the companies that loaned out money for mortgages to people who couldn't afford to pay them back. No, that's what it was supposed to be about. But since not enough of our fine, fine Representatives could come together and agree on passing the bill, they needed to come up with ways that might sway some to change their vote to yes. So they did that by throwing a bunch of other things into this bill as well that have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with this bill nor with the outcome of the economy. They just figured that if they pandered to some people's desires, projects, and wants that they might be persuaded to vote yes the next time around. Hmmmmm......see, for those of us NOT currently serving in the House, there's a name for that. It's called bribery. You selfish, self serving, rat bastard, weaselly snakes.

Yeah, I was right. This has to be two posts. I need to go yak somewhere. But I am hereby formally advocating to just clean House (literally) and start over. All of the members of the House are up for re-election in November. (Just one of many reasons that some had for voting "no" the first time around for this TARP thing. ) I am formally advocating the voting for every challenger to every incumbent seat in the House. I don't care who they are. All of those who are currently in office over there need to go. Yesterday. Throw them all out and start over. I don't care who the challenger is either. Communist? I'll vote for 'em. Homeless dude? Sure. Your dog? Yes. All of them. I will be voting for every single challenger to House seats out there. If ANY of these bozos are re-elected, you have to wonder WHO the people are who voted for them AGAIN. It's like when I hear that Congress has an 11% approval rating. I don't immediately think, "Wow, they suck." But that's because I already know that. I immediately think, "Who in the hell are you 11% that think that they are doing a good job?! Who are YOU?!?!"

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