Funk Babblings

I've always been a do-it-yourself kind of person. I figure, why pay somebody else to do something that I'm perfectly capable of doing myself? Part of it is that I like having control over what I'm doing, and being aware of the whole process. (I even make my own return-address labels, using my printer's own graphics language.) So I do my own taxes, rather than paying somebody to do it for me. Not only that, I don't even use tax software, partly for the same reasons I don't use an accountant, and partly because none of it runs on Linux.

I started my taxes a 8:30 last night. I took the results to the post office at 1am. Every year I realize sometime around the end of February that I (supposedly) have all the information I need to start on my taxes -- "maybe I could get it done early this year!" -- and every year I wait until almost the deadline to get it done. I've often been among those lining up at the post office in the last hours before midnight on April 15 (and one year I resorted to filing an extension), so this year I was actually early.

But getting to that point required descending through The Three Circles of Tax Hell.....

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Election day is almost here, and it can't come fast enough for me. Among other things, it means the end of my (physical) mailbox and answering machine being filled with Republican lies. "John Kerry will raise your taxes"? Nope, not unless you make at least $200,000 a year. (And if you do, were your taxes really that bad under Clinton? Cause that's what they'll go back to under Kerry.) "John Kerry supports a 50 cent gas tax hike"? Nope, a decade ago he mentioned that it might be necessary, that's all; he didn't even vote for it, though Dick Cheney did. Oh yeah, and that thing about Kerry voting 98 times to raise taxes? Cheney voted 148 times to raise taxes. Cheney must be really liberal. The good thing is that the Republicans seem to think our suburb is a lock for them, so they're encouraging us to vote; we're not likely to face polling-place challenges as we cast our votes for Kerry. I should probably update my driver's license with my current address just in case though.

Then there's that issue that the Republicans keep dismissing as ludicrous: the draft. Everyone else looks at Bush's plan to "stay on the offensive", and wonders where he'll get the manpower to keep invading more countries, considering we're already overextended -- keeping people longer than they signed up for ("stop-loss"), and calling back people whose terms of service were over. Turns out that the Selective Service System has already recommended a draft plan that includes drafting men and women with specialized skills (medical professionals, computer specialists, linguists) up to age 34 -- possibly up to age 44 for medical professionals. The counter-argument here is that the SSS's job is to plan for a draft, but that still doesn't answer the question of where Bush will get all the troops to stay on the offensive. (Those words out of Bush's mouth send chills down my spine.)