Found Things

Last Resort

The Onion has the details:

At press time, top Republicans had already blasted the so-called “Ointmentcare” plan, arguing that the use of taxpayer funds to salve the careless and negligent violated the rights of those who had responsibly obtained their own private stashes of calamine lotion, Icy Hot, and Preparation H.

IRS Clowns

This can't be good:

Sometime last year computers at the U.S. Social Security Administration were hacked and the identities of millions of Americans were compromised. What, you didn’t hear about that? Nobody did.

The extent of damage is only just now coming to light in the form of millions of false 2011 income tax returns filed in the names of people currently receiving Social Security benefits. That includes a very large number of elderly and disabled people who are ill-equipped to recognize or fight the problem. It’s an impact pervasive enough that the IRS now has a form just to deal with it: Form 14039: Identity Theft Affidavit, December 2011....

...The story is going public now because tax season is upon us and there’s no way to keep it under wraps as people file their tax returns only to learn that a return under that name has already been filed with refunds paid electronically into a bank account now closed. The December date on that IRS Form 14039 shows the Treasury has been expecting this for awhile.

And here's a thing - have you heard those IRS commercials warning you to protect your online tax filing information? Are they just trying to set us up to think it's our fault if our identities get stolen?

Thank you IRS - these are the guys who declared in 2011 that I must not have sent in my 2008 form 1040. They got, and cashed, the check, but somehow lost the 1040. They're the guys who deleted my Employer Identification Number and couldn't restore it for over a year. And now they've given my information to identity thieves.

And some people want the government to run health care?

So Proud

Living in Maryland, you get used to your primary vote meaning almost nothing. This year was different. This year our primary votes meant almost something. Anyway, milestone, the lumberkid voted for the first time yesterday.

And, even more impressive, she voted even though her dad called from the polling place and told her that you have to get shots first. This is a longstanding torment for her. (her dad scaring her with tales of unnecessary shots) I think I told her you needed shots to go to Disneyland once.

Anyway, we voted, even though it looks like Romney has the nomination. We can live with Romney. I'm ABO, anyone but Obama. We need a president who knows that the Supreme Court's job is to rule on the constitutionality of laws.

Alternative Energy Snake Oil

How would you like 10 or 15 of these modular wind turbine strapped to the side of your house? It would look cool. Your friends would ask you about it, and you could get mega-smug about how you feel a connection with Gaia and blather on about how they probably aren't enlightened enough to appreciate the earth. Unless I was one of your friends.

Because I'd ask you how you turn the house to face into the wind. And I'd wonder if maybe the wind speed is slowed a little seeing as there's a BIG FREAKING HOUSE IN ITS WAY. Plus, isn't there more wind a little bit above your house?

I mean, people look at this stuff and think "Oh it's true, we really could be energy independent. We just aren't making the investment." Because it's pretty and a neat looking, people think it's actually useful.

It's not. Take the not-facing-into-the-wind-problem. These "bolt on" turbines don't turn into the wind, which is a feature the cowboys had. Windmills swivel for a purpose, they're up in the air for a purpose, they aren't bolted to a house for a purpose.


Better are the concepts that everyone can see are bunk. You can look at the above and intuitively know that you aren't going to go for a walk just to charge your cell phone. You want a teaspoon of energy. You don't need to move your entire body around the countryside to get it.

Not surprising we have Reno, NV, where $416,000 worth of turbines have netted the city $2,800 in energy savings.

Or this, Solyndra 2:

Solar Trust for America received $2.1 billion in conditional loan guarantees from the Department of Energy -- "the largest amount ever offered to a solar project," according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu -- for a project near Blythe, Calif., but declared bankruptcy within a year. It is unclear how much of the guarantee, if any, was actually awarded.

I will be so happy when adults are back in charge and the visionaries can waste their own money on silly eco-fluff like this.

He'll Argue it's the Other Way Round

Let's hope Hillary doesn't (or, does) see this. She's trying to unruffle Saudi (and others) feathers re missile defense, while at the same time begging for higher oil supply through the elections; all for the guy who used every dirty trick in the book to derail the Hillary Train. Three things though:

• By now the rest of the world is starting to notice that Obama's assurances don't mean much.
• Hillary isn't necessarily giving 110%. Maybe she wouldn't mind seeing her boss face reelection with $5 gasoline hanging over his head.
• Deborah Winger did the voice of E.T.

I know; what does Deborah Winger have to do with any of this? Right? Sorry, I had already put "three things" and by the time I by the time I got there I had forgotten the third thing.

Maybe I need more coffee.

Played Draw My Thing Yet?

Wake Up Call

OK I feel better about this story because the guy will be OK:

Bill Isles, 48, bought three tickets in the record $656 million lottery Thursday at a Wichita, Kansas grocery store.

On the way to his car, Isles said he commented to a friend: "I've got a better chance of getting struck by lightning" than winning the lottery.

Later at about 9:30 p.m., Isles was standing in the back yard of his Wichita duplex, when he saw a flash and heard a boom -- lightning.

"It threw me to the ground quivering," Isles said in a telephone interview on Saturday. "It kind of scrambled my brain and gave me an irregular heartbeat."

Isles, a volunteer weather spotter for the National Weather Service, had his portable ham radio with him because he was checking the skies for storm activity. He crawled on the ground to get the radio, which had been thrown from his hand.

Isles had been talking to other spotters on the radio and called in about the lightning strike. One of the spotters, a local television station intern, called 911. Isles was taken by ambulance to a hospital and kept overnight for observation.

And here's a bit of surprising news: I didn't win the mega-millions and will continue working. I suppose I'll have to apologize to my customers and see if the kid I gave my van to wants to sell it back.

Money Money Everywhere

Not so great a story because the occupants really were hurt:

A crash of a Brinks tractor-trailer in northeastern Ontario this morning seriously injured the two occupants, and scattered millions of dollars in Canadian coins on the highway and in the nearby bush.

The crash happened on Highway 11, south of Ramore, north of Kirkland Lake, when the tractor-trailer collided with a rock cut in Benoit Township around 4 a.m.

So a bad situation quickly got worse, in a chain reaction, another tractor trailer went over:

One of the tractor-trailer units was reportedly carrying candy, which was also strewn across the crash site.

So there's candy and coins all over the road. And I can't report that they're still counting the coins and think the total could exceed $14.00 US, because the driver really was hurt.

But expect me to watch this one and make jokes about Canadian candy as well as soon as these guys get better and leave the hospital.

Yo, Dawg

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