Pilot's Log

Decided to make some actual posts here from time to time, as Facebook is balky about allowing LiveJournal to port my entries there over here.

For somebody who supposedly gave up Christianity for moral grounds I observe Lent a lot. This year the thing being forgone until Easter is recreational buying. So no new model kits, no vending-machine action figures from Japan, no new DVDs, no music CDs, no games or game supplies. Still in a quandry about books. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

FP

Tennessee passed a law a couple years ago to extortcollect use taxes from Amazon.com due to sales to Tennessee residents. I got my statement for 2011 the other day, and thus was pointed to the state website to settle the matter.

https://apps.tn.gov/usetax

How much do I owe? 8¢. And I have to pay using something I don't have now...A CREDIT CARD! (All my Amazon purchases came from gift card revenue.)

This benefits the banks more than it does the state, or even the people the law is supposed to help (small Tennessee shopkeepers). Sheesh.

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No idea. I haven't been particularly good or particularly naughty this year. Not enough to keep score on anyway.

"People who fixate their minds on the evils of others blind their minds to the virtues of others--and from the evils of their own minds."

Not at all Christmaslike, but I have to get the thoughts in my head out there.

If Afganistan is playing out as a re-do of the Vietnam War, then...

2012 will play out like 1972.

Hear me out: Obama is now in the position Nixon was then. He inherited the war from his predecessor but arguably is doing a better job of waging it. Only the public doesn't see the victory, only the stalemates and futilities.

Meanwhile, the opposition party (we know who that is) is salivating at the possibility of defeating him, especially now that they're gaining seats in Congress. Ultimately they choose a candidate who they think has wide appeal, but when that November Tuesday rolls around, only the hard core of the party votes for that candidate, and the incumbent wins a vast majority...but a powerless one thanks to the hold the opposition has in Congress.

Now, I'm sure most everybody now would think it extremely unlikely that Obama would be capable of something on the level of Watergate just to hedge his risk in the 2012 elections. That may be true. But what about the people working in his White House and beyond? (How many people really thought--before the fact--that Nixon's Administration would stoop to domestic espionage against the opposition party? Somehow I think that number is lower than everybody who tells history seems to let on.)

Don't ask me whose side I'm on about this. I voted against Obama (for a third-party candidate) in 2008 because I knew there was no way in Hades he or any other man of African heritage would carry Tennessee. (I am not a racist; there are many racists here so I'm calling it as I see it!) But I have no love for the Republicans nor the Tea Party, and know they would hate me just as much.

When Obama was elected I was hoping he'd set the moral tone up a little higher and undo some of the evil that has happened in America these last few decades. But now I'm dreading the possibliity that there's evil even in his character, and again we have a choice coming with no right side.

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Unemployment is evil. So there is no way I can make it any more evil than it is. Other than somehow involving bacon.

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of November 26, 2009

The surest way to beat the system, my dear, is to elude it and erect your own system. The strategy most likely to leave your competitors babbling in the mirror, sweetheart, is to go completely over their heads. That doesn't mean, darling, that you should be a remote and grandiose narcissist who listens to no one but yourself. Smile sweetly as you describe why your way is the best way, you gorgeous genius. Enlist worthy collaborators through the irresistible force of your guileless charisma.

Well, it's better than my Book of Tepid quote for today: Just because something is a necessary evil, doesn't oblige me to stay silent on its evilness.

Passing This Along On Behalf Of My Brother-In-Law.