Silicon Valley Redneck

Hey, look! I got something in common with Mittens!

Seems some anonymous tipster told Harry Reid that Mitt Romney didn't pay any income taxes for 10 years, and now it's all over the news.

Well, heck, I can beat that!  I didn't start paying income taxes until I was, like, 15 or something.  But, then, I don't come from a rich family, so I didn't have a lot of income to report when I was a little kid.

Limits

Having CAT-5 under the desk is acceptable.

Having CAT-P under the desk is not.

Ferschlugginer feline.

Signs and portents!

On my way home from the office, I stopped by the Micro Center in Santa Clara.

It's closed.

Note on the door says they couldn't negotiate an extension to their lease on economically viable terms, or something to that effect.

So... landlord wanted more rent?  Or, Micro Center wanted the rent lowered because, what with the recession and all, business had fallen off?

If the former, good luck finding a replacement tenant.

Actually, this could be one little piece of a debt-driven circling-the-drain effect.

That shopping center is only a few years old.  Could be, the owner is still massively in debt for the land and construction, and lowering rents in recessionary times simply isn't an option.

And so retail businesses leave, and buildings stand empty, and rent isn't paid, and... maybe, once the dust settles, the bank ends up owning a derelict shopping center?

All speculation on my part, of course, but it's one more plausible way for debt to make life difficult: when you're on the treadmill, you just can't adjust to the times.

Near-miss movie title

Precator

A pilgrim wearing a cloak of invisibility hunts down the Pope to seek forgiveness...

(Hey, that could work!  Like, maybe if Tannhäuser borrowed the Tarnhelm?  Should I try to get an NEA grant to write the opera?  "For most of the performance, the title character was invisible, but not, alas, inaudible.")

Getting things sideways

Seen in a comic-strip comment thread:

liberals throw money at problems, conservatives throw money at rich people

Um.  Conservatives tend to favor letting rich people (along with the rest of us) keep more of their own money.

Crony corporatists throw money at rich political supporters.  Solyndra, bailouts, and all that.

(And, yeah, there are plenty of "conservative" crony corporatists too.  But do you really think that all the money being thrown at green energy, mass transportation, and so on actually goes toward solving problems, as opposed to lining the pockets of the well-connected?)

Update: the morning fishwrap reports that there's a plan to build a fast rail line from SF to Vegas.  Well!  Seems like there'd actually be some demand for that, unlike Governor Moonbeam's train to nowhere.  So, the gambling syndicates that would profit from it are fronting the money, right?  Uh... no; the Obama administration is getting ready to "lend" the money to build this big project for the benefit of the rich and powerful casino owners.

Where do little Mondays come from?

Wake up with sinus headache.

Fumble for glasses.

Knock glasses onto floor.

Pick up glasses.

Check clock.  0301.

Mnfxt.  If I did go back to sleep, I'd end up sleeping in, and I need to get a bit of a running start on the week.  This week, in particular.

So, get up, dose up on pseudoephedrine, and sip on an energy drink while scanning the yet-drowsy Interwebs.  (Eep.  Half the can gone.  Time to switch to water, or I'll be twitchy all day and still not get any work done.)

Soon: shower, breakfast (better be high protein, low carbs today), and long-form morning walkies (or at least medium-form).

Then: Monday-morning errands, somewhat earlier than usual; session at office getting one current project out of my hair for the nonce; then settle in for a sustained session addressing fiddly toaster matters in what remains of the month.

Pattern matching

Being unable to distinguish right from wrong: insanity (legal definition).

Being able to distinguish right from wrong, and doing wrong anyway: evil.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results: insanity (one popular definition).

Doing the same thing over and over and getting different results: sensitivity to initial conditions.

...Random dribblings from a frazzled brain... started the day needing to pack a week's work into the next four days; spent most of the day napping on account of already being burned out; now need to pack a week's work into the next three days.  Will probably spend tomorrow napping, too.  And expect different results.

Golden business opportunity in the Golden State!

Surprise!  Various California government agencies have been squirreling away money and then pretending to be broke.

(When the system becomes hopelessly corrupt, cheating becomes compulsory.)

The squirreling-away of cash in departmental mattresses is a natural consequence of the bureaucratic approach to budgeting.

A department that exactly uses up its allotted funds at the end of the fiscal year gets a budget increase for the next year.  (In the case of government departments, it gets the previous year's budget, plus a set percentage, plus an increase.  If the new budget is only last year plus the percentage, that's a "drastic budget cut.")

A department that's well managed and comes in under budget for the year is clearly overfunded; not only does it not get to keep the excess as a buffer against contingencies, or to do Cool Stuff in following years, but it will actually have its budget reduced.

So, naturally, any department that finds itself with money in the bank as year's end approaches needs to make it go away.

Now that the secret-bank-account tactic has been exposed, it'll be time to go back to the time-honored practice of spending like crazy at the end of the year.

And so, the business opportunity.  Fourth quarter of the state's fiscal year, start flogging gold-plated bathroom fixtures to the government.  All that cash has to be spent on something, and it might as well go to tangible improvements to state facilities, right?

An unfortunate side-effect

The summer cat's carpet-befoulment having gotten ahead of my efforts at decontamination, I went looking for another flavor of cat-pee deodorizer, and came home with a pump-spray bottle of Wee Away X2.

Well....

The good: it does seem to be clobbering the cat-pee smell.

The not-so-good: for the first few hours after application, it has quite a strong odor of its own.  Makes my living room small like a cathouse.

Which, I guess, is better than smelling like a catbox.  And more temporary.

...What's latin for "what shall deodorize the deodorizer itself?"

Doonesbury logic

1. All these years we haven't checked voter IDs nor scrutinized registration lists, we haven't seen any voter fraud!
2. Therefore, there's never been any!!
3. Therefore, any attempt to detect or prevent voter fraud can only be RAAAACIST!!!

That does sum up this week's theme, right?