Bugs/Annoyances: TurboTax Online

See if you can spot the contradictory information between these two screen shots?  The first one is what I saw when logging into TurboTax using Google Chrome 9.  The second is what I got when logging into the same site with Microsoft IE 9.  Forget the "Google Chrome 4" mess.  This is kind of funny to me anyway.

It's 2010, and I just Cannot Understand why…

… desktop PC's are still so friggin bulky and oafish.  Why can't they be smaller like a pack of playing cards?  They can.  They will.  Just not soon enough.

… electric cars have taken so long to … , oh wait, nevermind, they're still not on ANY lots within 100 miles of where I live.

… people still listen to politicians.  Why they still act surprised with they fail to deliver on their campaign promises.  Why they believe one party is going to help them more than the other.

… American homeowners still bother maintaining a lawn (instead of replacing it with rocks or something pretty and doesn't require labor, gas, oil, time and more time)

… 1040 tax forms are still stupidly over complicated

… metro WiFi still hasn't taken off across the U.S.

… anyone drinking beer worries about carbs or calories.  Wrong hobby!

… Americans love patting themselves on the back and saying "we're number 1!" when we're not and it's not helping us get back to "number 1" either.

… teenage boys think it looks cool to wear pants hanging off their ass with their boxers hanging outside.

… watching football is "manly" but watching the cheerleaders isn't.

… NASCAR is considered a "sport"

… anyone watches "reality" TV shows

Why I Feel Politics is For Kool-Aid Drinking Idiots

We try to draw physical boundaries (states, counties) around illogical regions (blue-tards vs red-tards).  Which has always added confusion to our landscape in America as far as how we expect people to vote.  Every state has varying degrees of left-vs-right depending on which geographic area you happen to be in.

But I don't buy into the notion that one side of the tired left-vs-right debate has inherently "better" followers than the other.  The red-tards are knuckle-dragging, tobacco-chewing neanderthals for the most part, but the blue-tards tend to be smug, obnoxiously close-minded and prima-donna-ish while espousing having a more "open mind" yet any counter-opinion is immediately and venomously attacked as being red.  If you’re not blue, then the blue-tards call you red.  If you’re not red, the red-tards call you blue.  There is no tolerance for purple or green, not from either side.  I see it is another cycle in the long rolling history of America's polarization, which follows economic cycles.  

When things are bad, the red-tards come out swinging with anti-immigration and conservative rhetoric, church this, school that, and the usual book-burning diatribe of isolationist idealism.  But the blue-tards come out with the kool-aid and insist everyone drink it and all will be fine.  Gay tolerance for everyone, no bounds on topics for books tv radio for anyone, regardless of age or (gulp!) religious leanings, no more torturing peoples that want to destroy us, pass all kids through school regardless of their ability to add numbers or read a sentence and so on.  One side is no free lunch, not even if you’re starving to death.  The other insists on free lunches for all, even those who have a full refrigerator.

I ask this question to everyone that jumps into political discussion after each election: what has really changed from this?  Tell me.  What specific improvements have you seen that directly impact your life?  Every time it’s the same response:  A lot of hemming and hawing.  Let me translate that answer for you: NOTHING.

Looking over the elections of the past 30 odd years that I’ve been involved or familiar with, I can summarize the impacts of each election:

• It impacts the lives of people in oppressed lands around the world
• It impacts the lives of people in disaster-stricken areas
• It impacts the world markets
• It impacts the banks and financial systems
• It impacts defense spending
• It does nothing for Americans

I’d like to see improvements to public education, health care, the environment, transportation, personal taxation, energy resources, national security, space exploration, undersea exploration, and the general well-being of mankind around the planet. 

But we will never see that. 

Why?  Because no two humans agree on what those improvements should be.  Some actually think those individual topics are fine as they are or should actually be eliminated.   Politicians simply play to the statistical base of their demographics.  They have to, or they don’t have a paycheck to count on.  They will eternally tell us what they think we want to hear.  Why wouldn’t they?  That’s why you will never hear a politician directly admit that we’re in the midst of a religious war around the globe.  That would be political suicide.

So ask yourself how the following issues have been improved as a DIRECT result of any given election:

• Conflict in the Middle East (as bad as ever)
• Public Education (as bad as ever, maybe worse)
• Public Health (worse than ever, even statistical mortality)
• Environment
• Taxation (ha!)
• Transportation (in isolated areas it has improved.  overall it’s worse)
• Terrorism (oooooh.  Not better, sorry)
• Economy (nope.  it heals itself.  everyone else just takes credit)
• Unemployment (same)
• Immigration (same)
• Gay marriage (hey, didn’t they promise this too?)
• Drug Enforcement and Drug Crimes (no difference at all, ever)

I have voted for blue as often as red.  Not because I’m keeping a quota, but because:

• There are usually only those two choices
• I vote by individual clarity of agenda (i.e. do they have a lucid plan?)

And when neither side has an idiot-liar, oops, I meant “candidate”, I feel is worth voting for?  I skip.  It hasn’t hurt anyone, so relax.

Wearing a badge does not make a person automatically viable, smart or worthy of my vote.  That's my biggest gripe.  I'm just fucking tired of people telling me I have to drink the kool aid.  I stopped drinking that crap years ago.  I don’t give a shit about NASCAR or gay marriage.  So the next time you feel like trying to aim your bullhorn in my direction, just please STFU.

Ways America Could Recoup Lost Revenue

Here’s a few ways our illustrious government could fill their budget gaps…

• Tax non-commercial vehicles by their weight (progressively) and gas mileage (inversely).  Added strain on our road maintenance and oil consumption should come with a price.
• Raise the fee for getting a non-commercial driver’s license (or just give them away free).  Seems the qualifications for obtaining them are almost non-existent as-is.
• Actually enforce existing laws, and collect fines, for failing to cut your lawn, non-commercial vehicles with bumpers higher than 24 inches above the ground, improper parking, and so on.
• Tax people extra if they require medical assistance for issues they caused, such as excessive drinking, smoking or eating.  Exclusions would exist for contributing medical conditions obviously, but they would require a physician’s explanation
• Tax anyone who votes for going to war without contributing one of their own children to fight that war.  If you believe in it, you should be willing to pay for it somehow.
• Add a Tax or fine on “parents” who’s children commit crimes repeatedly while under the guardianship of the “parent”.
• Add a Tax on people who’s house is visited multiple times (within a given year) by the police or animal control.  Extra service should cost extra.
• Tax parents who’s (non-medically challenged) children fail and repeat a grade in public schools.  Do-overs should cost extra.
• Tax people for each “pet” animal over 2 per kind and more 3 kinds.  If you have 2 dogs, 2 cats and 2 snakes, fine.  More than that: you should pay extra to cover when the animal control folks clean out your 100-cat shithole and remove the Boa from your torso.
• Raise the fine for littering to $10,000 and include cigarette butts as “litter”.
• Raise the fine for DUI to $10,000, or whatever you have in all of your bank accounts, whichever is greater, on the first offense.  If you really want to help drunk driving, do it right or just forget it.
• Fine people for driving around with stupid flags all over their vehicles.  As if anyone cares what team they like.  The flags are distracting and annoying.  The added risk to nearby drivers should come with a price-tag.  Want your flags?  Fine.  Pay up.  Same goes for spinner wheels, and flashing decorator lights.
• The fine for any business polluting the environment should be equal to one-half of their gross revenue for that year.

And for those people that manage to NOT violate any of these guidelines should get a tax BREAK as well.