Werkin, werkin, werkin

I've been working like crazy today; I've saved about $11,000 in people's liability by knowing that they were overlooking something. I've printed through a few reams of paper today, shredded about a ream, and mailed out a mailbox full. Yurg.

I'm catching up. I mean it. I'm really catching up here.

I've decided today that I'm done playing small. I have decided that it's time to start making some real money, and not indulging any stories about what limits me.

Talked to Susan; she was telling me that this is NOT the house to buy - under any circumstances. She was talking about the market response to the marketing effort here, but she was also talking about the house being too big for one person.

Um .. oh, really?

Actually, what would REALLY work for me would be to find another house of just this floorplan, and make it mine. If it were priced right ..

The fortunate thing is that I have a few realtor friends who can help me find just that.

Okay, that decision having been made, it's time to move along.

Tomorrow - the final deadly sin of Sloth. Very fun stuff.

Money-saving tips for last-minute U.S. tax filers:

Let's take a look at the standard Form 1040 and see where you should focus your tax-cutting efforts:

Taxpayer name: Here's a tax-saving opportunity few taxpayers take advantage of: Instead of simply writing your name, write your name plus the word "DECEASED." This can save you big money down the road.

Presidential Election Campaign Fund checkoff box: If you check this box, $3 of your taxes will be earmarked for a special fund to pay for presidential campaigns. Notice that the government does not permit you to earmark the money for poor people, or sick people, or national defense. No, the government permits you to earmark money only for the purpose of enabling politicians to produce TV commercials designed to appeal to voters who have the IQ of a Vienna sausage.

Exemptions: In calculating your dependants, you should bear two things in mind: 1. The more dependants you have, the less tax you owe. 2. Nowhere in the U.S. tax code does it explicitly state, in so many words, that these dependants cannot be imaginary, if you are catching my drift.

Of course, there's always the chance that, even if you cheat in a responsible manner, you'll be called in for a tax audit. This is not the "end of the world." Remember that, as a taxpayer, you have certain rights. For example, the auditor cannot use a cattle-prod setting greater than 5,000 volts.

If you're called in for an audit, the important thing is: Don't panic. Gather up all your financial records, consult with your lawyer and your accountant and then, on the appointed day, flee to Uzbekistan.

---From Dave Barry's Money Secrets (2006, Crown)

For everyone who thinks that Republicans are fiscal conservatives

(copied message)

These guys are good. Good at squandering, anyway. Government spending in March hit an all-time one-month high for the month of March.

In its monthly accounting of the government's books, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday that federal spending totaled $250 billion last month, up 13.7 percent from March 2005.
Government receipts also were up, rising 10.6 percent from a year ago, to $164.6 billion. That left a deficit for the month of $85.5 billion, a record imbalance for March.

Here's a fun factoid. March broke the previous single-month outlay which was set in . . . February. Let's go for broke and see how much we can spend in April! Records are made to be broken, after all.

There is a tiny bit of good news here.


Even though the deficit was a record for March, it was below the all-time monthly high of $119.2 billion, which was set in February.
That's what an incompetent administration and the Rubber-Stamp Republican Congress will get you.

(back to being me)

So, who are we choosing next time to keep these people at the helm? After all the new bankruptcy laws that keep consumers from having relief from indebtedness doesn't affect the Feds.

Oh, wait - we're blowing money faster than a Baptist in a titty bar because we had to invade Iraq. After all, they had those mobile bio-weapons trailers. We FOUND those, right?

Nope. We knew that they weren't weapons BEFORE we attacked. WAY before. So, if they lied about the weapons of mass destruction, and they knowingly lied about it before we attacked, and Saddam invited the inspectors into EVERY site they asked to see before we attacked, and Saddam destroyed and dismantled everything that the international inspectors asked them to - and Geo. W. has publicly, repeatedly admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 - no connection at all...

WHY ARE WE THERE? Can one of you who pulled the lever for Geo. W explain this to me in a way that doesn't involve rhetoric or Fox news bullet points? Just the facts, ma'am. I'm willing to listen, but you ain't talking. You're just slogging away, telling me that the Liberals are dangerous and bad for the economy.

When has it ever been this bad before? In the economy, in the national debt, in public confidence, in international reputation ..

next article

(April 13, 2006 -- 12:09 AM EDT // link)
Here's another question on those bio-weapons mobile trailers that never were.

When did the administration let Congress in on the fact that those mobile weapons labs weren't bio-weapons labs at all and that we'd just been conned by some emigres on the make?

We're focusing now on the president's flogging of this bogus story shortly after the Defense Intelligence Agency gave a definitive verdict on the falsity of the claim. But when did they tell Congress? And how late did other administration heavies continue to make this claim?

My recollection is that with most of these stories like the trailers and the tubes and the nuclear this and that, most of this stuff wasn't definitively knocked down for many, many months after the war. Like old soldiers these fables didn't die so much as they faded away. The certainty diminished. More doubts were raised. But for what always struck me as deeply cynical reasons, the White House never publicly pulled the plug on any of these tales because as long as they kept some level of uncertainty hanging in the air they didn't have to address the fact that the central argument for the war had turned out to be false.

Hell, you've still got Hitchens publicly holding out for the Niger canard. And that's just an example of the fact that you can always find folks deep enough in the tank to churn out tall tales for the true believers to eat up.

Anyway, when did the White House tell Congress that the mobile weapons story was bunk?

A reader pointed me toward this portion of the congressional record from July 17th, 2003 in which Senators Durbin and McConnell discuss then heated WMD debate. They both discuss the mobile bio-weapons trailers with the assumption that that was what they were. And this was the day after then CIA Director George Tenet gave five hours of closed door Senate testimony on the WMD debacle. That certainly suggests that Tenet didn't knock down the mobile lab fable in that lengthy session dedicated to the topic of pre-war WMD intelligence.

What does Durbin say?

And how late were administration figures pushing the mobile bio-labs story?

Here's what Vice President Cheney said to Juan Williams on January 24th 2004 ...

In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program. Now it's not clear at this stage whether or not he used any of that to produce or whether he was simply getting ready for the next war. That, in my mind, is a serious danger in the hands of a man like Saddam Hussein, and I would deem that conclusive evidence, if you will, that he did, in fact, have programs for weapons of mass destruction.
Cheney's persistence in lying to the public about al Qaida and WMD claims is almost the stuff of legend. So even though the baldness of this lie still sort of grabs me, I can't say it's exactly shocking.

But again, Congress. For how many months did the White House continue to tell the Congress that the mobile bio-weapons story was true even while they knew it was false? For months? Or was it more like a year?

Humpy humpy

What a day, what a day. Another day, another ream or two of paper. Only a few more days of this. Babs is priceless running around and picking up documents, checks and delivering product. I'm hoping that next week she can apply equal effort to the Fabulair calendar next week after we've knocked out all these corporate returns that are due .. oh, Friday.

I'm loving this BBC series "Hustle," that Guy has introduced me to. It's fabulous. The movies that I've been getting from Netflix lately have sucked major butt.

The pool is green again. It looks sort of like something from a horror movie now. Should I spend several hundred dollars having the pool cleaned up, or should I just try to find another place to have the pool party on Memorial Day?

Driving home from dinner tonight, XM83 was playing lots of FABULOUS old (dinosaur) disco music. YAY. It was making me very happy. Chuck has been making fun of me about my taste in music - boom chuckawuckawucka boom chuckawuckawucka boom chuckawuckawucka boom!

I think there are still .. twelve corporate returns to finish? Only a few personal returns yet.

It's just a damned shame about this house - I'm liking it SO much, the layout, the room and everything - it's just terrific. Of course, it needs a bunch of work - Kurtis today was telling me that it needs about $20,000 to totally queen it out. Today, I found this article on MSN that described "green" remodelling materials and techniques. I'd totally pimp this place out and see about getting it as far off the grid as possible. With a new roof, a ton of insulation (both made out of 100% recycled consumer product) double glazed windows (especially upstairs) and a new tankless water heater, I could get its energy consumption down by about half. Then, by installing a wind turbine, I could get its energy consumption down to near zero. Rainwater harvesting would bring the environmental footprint down to near zero.

All this room and luxury and nearly free to operate.

However, the two late night crackhead visits and the crackhead girlfriend letting herself in here have left me twitchy - anytime the house creaks or pops or a car is outside, I jump.

I half expect to see someone peering in the windows whenever I look out.

Not the best feeling. Strangely, though, I'm not nervous, worried or anxious about it.

Interesting also that my long held crap about money is rattling around like mad, but it's not really affecting my faith or anxiety level. It's like I'm observing these issues, not living in them. Weird. Never had this experience before.

Hopefully, that's a good thing.

Okay, time for sleep. Maybe I'm going to turn the alarm off for tomorrow morning and sleep in.

Michael the married guy was by two days ago. Can't shake him out of my head. I like him a lot.

Tuesday that follows Monday

A week left before tax returns have to be mailed off. I'm only about six feet underground with everything, but not so badly that I can't power out of it in the morning.

The pool is green again. I think I've found a cook top that would be very cheap, but .. I'm also not thinking that spending a dime here is the best plan.

Guy was coming over tonight, so I was finally motivated to move the wireless router to a place that would give a stronger signal. Or something. If I were going to stay here, I'd figure some better solution -

So, today I received the SECOND missive from someone who hates immigrants, people of color and anyone who isn't white and middle class, asserting that Teddy Roosevelt had been ugly about the concept of immigrants who don't attempt to integrate themselves into our society.

Right at that VERY moment, someone posted a passage from Leviticus on dailykos.com - it was beautiful. I just cut and pasted the passage into a reply email - let's look at the whole thing here...

Feds to Deny Health Care to Undocumented Workers
by SusanG
Tue Apr 11, 2006 at 03:01:59 PM PDT
Terrific:


Born out of ongoing efforts in Washington to clamp down on illegal immigration, the new federal requirement compels anyone seeking Medicaid coverage to provide a birth certificate, a passport, or another form of identification in order to sign up for benefits or renew them.
...
The requirement was tucked into the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which President Bush signed into law earlier this year.
...
The intent is to prevent undocumented immigrants from posing as citizens and taking advantage of taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits that are afforded only to legal residents.

Three points:

1. From a purely selfish public health point of view, is it really a good idea to deny diagnosis and treatment to 12 million people ... ever? But particularly when there are concerns about a pandemic? This should make going to the supermarket a total crap shoot for the rest of us, yes?

2. Attention! All you Christianists who want to embed the Bible in the Constitution! Embed Leviticus 19:33-34 in there while you're at it:


" 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

3. Hey! GOP! Quit sneaking (or "tucking") appalling shit into legislation under the dead of night. It's a tip-off that you're ashamed of the crap you're trying to pull and that a majority of Americans - who at heart a generous people - would not approve. If you think you have terrific ideas that will lead to the public strewing flowers and candy in your path, come out in the open and say so. If you think we need convincing, make your case and convince us. But you're looking like midnight cowards with these actions, and rightly so.

I'm wondering how many of these Bush-crazed zealots think it's going to be a good idea when we drop nukes on Iran in a few weeks. They're going to probably tell me how evil the Iranians are, and how it is only the most appropriate disposition of force, considering how we're buried up to our ears in Iraq.

I wonder what they're going to say when the Iranian Navy sinks a few of our big assed ships. With those sneaky, Russian built missles that the Russians developed because they couldn't keep up with the American weaponry, especially the Navy. So, they created an anti-ship missile that's faster than anything we have to shoot it down, flies lower than we can detect, and has a warhead strong enough to break the back of a Nimitz aircraft carrier.

I've been saying we had too many of those damned things, anyway. I wonder if the Iranians need a scrapped aircraft carrier as an artificial reef? Perhaps we'll offer up one of the older carriers, so that we get the best ROI. Send the least capable and oldest ships into harm's way in this one.

After all, we're sinking the Oriskany off the coast of Pensacola. It's a proven technique to enhance undersea life.

I'm getting more and more excited about the Lucerne. I need to go to the credit union next week.

Tomorrow, at least, I have a nearly unrestricted day for work. Today, I had a doctor's appointment at 9, breakfast with Mary at 10, and the Chiropractor at noon. I got home at 2:30. Yurg. I did get a lot done this afternoon, but having had a full day to work would have been better.

Favorable reviews of the Lucerne -

I'm feeling validated .. here are two short articles about the car, first from CNN/Money magazine. The second is from just a few weeks ago in the Austin American Statesman.

This well-thought-out machine offers a bit of hope for troubled automaker General Motors' future.

FORTUNE Small Business Magazine
By Alex Taylor III, FSB contributor
April 7, 2006: 4:14 PM EDT

NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business Magazine) - It takes me only a few minutes to figure out whether I'm comfortable in a new car. Sure, familiarity helps, but so do good ergonomics, intuitive controls, fine materials, and accommodating seats.

The 2006 Buick Lucerne felt as comfortable as an old sweater from the moment I climbed into it, and my appreciation only grew after logging close to 300 miles on the odometer over the span of 36 hours. This is one well-thought-out machine.
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A GM winner: The Buick Lucerne
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BUICK LUCERNE '06

* CSX V-8: 275 horsepower

* 0-60 mph: 7.6 seconds

* Base sticker price: $35,256

Does liking a Buick make me an old fogey? I hope not -- both for my sake and for General Motors'. Buick has been taking a beating lately because of fears that it is dying along with its customers.

There's some truth to that. Buick buyers are among the grayest for any brand, with a median age of 65, and as they move to that great parking lot in the sky, their children and grandchildren are moving on to other nameplates. Short of cash, GM has accelerated Buick's decline by diverting scarce resources elsewhere, leaving the division with a hodgepodge of vehicles that are long in the tooth, badly cribbed from other models, or both.

With the 2005 LaCrosse, its first shot at reviving Buick, GM failed to add enough spice, but it has cooked up a winner with the Lucerne. The recipe is the same: Take an existing platform (in this case the Cadillac DTS) and give it a new look. The difference is the attitude.

The Lucerne has a rakish stance -- new for Buick -- and seems to be leaning slightly forward on its tires. Its metal skin is wrapped tightly around the frame, especially in the rear fenders, and it's devoid of ornamentation. The front end is forgettable -- the gaping Buick grille evokes no emotion of any kind, and the headlamps are nondescript -- but the rest of the car looks stylish and contemporary. Fake portholes, an amusing retro touch, identify it at once as a Buick.

Sliding behind the wheel, I immediately noticed that Buick has channeled Toyota's knack for making intuitive switches and controls. A special award goes to the audio system, which allows you to toggle effortlessly between AM, FM, and XM Satellite. It became quickly indispensible during my drive in a part of upstate New York that is starved of radio signals. One complaint: The headlamp/wiper stalk, which seemingly populates everything in the GM lineup, is a bit too familiar.

The Lucerne comes with a V-6 standard, but the V-8, Buick's first in a decade, is the way to go here. It's GM's proven Northstar engine, and it puts out 275 horsepower, enough to push the Lucerne to 60 miles an hour in 7.6 seconds. For a front-wheel-drive car, the Lucerne tracks through corners with a minimum of fuss and never feels unstable. This is a big sedan, yet it's responsive enough to be fun to drive. The base sticker price for the V-8 version: $35,256. The CXS test model I drove, with iridescent sharkskin paint, temperature-controlled seats, and other goodies, came to $38,480.

In its struggles for survival, GM has introduced several new models that were supposed to save the company but failed to live up to their billing. Almost no hype surrounded the industry launch of the Lucerne at the end of 2005 -- the car appears in dealerships this month -- but it delivers a near-perfect blend of brand, concept, and execution and offers a bit of hope for GM's future.

COMMENTARY: PETE SZILAGYI
Buick's best ever?
Probably. Updated Lucerne comfortable, roomy, classy – a premium car without premium price tag.

By Pete Szilagyi
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Saturday, March 25, 2006

ith General Motors' problems gone public, everybody's an expert on the company's miscues.

Here's my take: GM should have moved more creative capital to Buick in the 1990s and regularly updated its core lineup of sedans instead of trying to become an SUV company.

GENERAL MOTORS
(enlarge photo)

The Buick Lucerne is front-wheel drive, a benefit when driving in wet weather.

GENERAL MOTORS
(enlarge photo)

The Lucerne's roomy cabin is modestly but smartly furnished with unobtrusive dials, two 12-volt plugs and an MP3 player plug-in.

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When the Buick Lucerne was launched late in 2005, my cynical side thought it might be a warmed-over, "oops, they did it again," ditto of a 1980s design. Then I looked more carefully and drove one for a week.

The Lucerne seems to be a fine car, following Buick's traditional values of plush comfort, roominess and a dose of filigree. It's technologically up-to-date, and an engineering and stylistic success. Probably Buick's best ever.

Like the Chrysler 300 and Mercury Montego, the Lucerne is a modern version of the full-size American road car. As befits the class, Lucerne's cabin is like a living room, but one with smart, modern and efficient furnishings. Even large drivers should be comfortable in the wide seats, though lumbar support might be insufficient. The trunk is roomy enough to hold golf bags and ice chests.

The Lucerne is cousin to the Cadillac DTS, which basically gives Buick buyers premium DNA at more affordable prices, in this case $26,000 to $35,000. That makes the Lucerne lineup $8,000 to $10,000 less than DTS models, which are dressier but not necessarily better equipped than the Buicks.

The Lucerne has three trim levels — CX, CXL, CXS — starting with a 197-horsepower, 3.8-liter V-6. But the 275-horsepower V-8 is better matched to the Lucerne's weight. Gas mileage is just a couple of gallons fewer than the V-6's, though premium gas is recommended for the V-8 and not for the V-6.

My test model, a CXL with V-8 (total sticker price, $34,595) seemed to be a good balance of price vs. performance.

The Buick is front-wheel drive, an important plus for wet-weather traction but a negative for aggressive driving. It suits the Buick's personality well, with the torque V-8 pulling this sizable car along smartly for urban errands and highway cruising. One more gear in the automatic transmission would be helpful.

Although the CXL's electro-magnetic steering felt overly light, the body structure was stiffer and driving dynamics sharper than in previous Buicks. Insulation from road and wind noise was impressive.

Wisely, stylists weren't influenced by what's cool in Japan and Europe. They created what is clearly a Buick, right down to the faux portholes on the front fender. Moreover, they knew when to stop.

Inside, simplicity seemed to be the goal as well. Dials and buttons are unobtrusive. Two 12-volt plugs and an MP3 player plug-in are provided front and center. Yes!

The dashboard, console and door panels are relatively plain, with pleasingly tactile surfaces. It is the "less is more" school of design. It's hard to believe I almost wrote off this car.

In his 24 years of writing a column for the Austin American-Statesman, Pete Szilagyi has driven more than 1,200 new cars and trucks. You may reach him at petesz@macconnect.com.

According to Pete . . .

Target audience: Buick aims Lucerne at middle-agers falling out of love with their SUVs and ready for the traditional Detroit luxury car.

Highs: Styling, ergonomics, engine, roominess.

Lows: Needs a 5-speed automatic, better lumbar support.

Bottom line: The 21st century Buick.