Also, I'm going to go on record as saying holy carp, I fucking hate budgets.

They really suck. You should just be able to enjoy new-mommyhood and not stress over every penny.

unless it's something you can do blindfolded

Embrace the irony.

{{{Plei}}}

Go, Teppy for defeating the mold.

Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.

A recent study determined that something like 40% of all Australian households get more back from the government than they pay in taxes. I have no strong opinions about that, though it seems like a fairly high number. I would've thought that government assistance would've been better targetted, like, if that number dropped (say) to 25%, then that 25% could be getting much better government assistance than they do right now. But then you get into problems with the marginal effective tax rate and poverty traps. Sigh. Tax is hard!

Mmm...I wonder how he'd feel about running his own post office or fire department. Or if he feels like making his own roads.

Well, of course he'd be expecting the private sector to do it. And the post office, there probably would be a private option (there are plenty of private competitors for the post office now, after all). But he might have a teensy bit of trouble coming up with a working business model for the fire department.

Grover Norquist preaches that shit. It's ridiculous. Infrastructure makes our lives better and everyone should pay for it according to their means.

Yep. More than that, infrastructure is, from a whole-economy perspective, a sensible investment. Reliable power/the ability to transport goods/fast and cheap communications are economically productive. Lots of different ways they can be provided for, of course, but I'd argue that they're definitely features the government should be taking an interest, and ultimate responsibility, in.

"Well, Trevor, it's been a long, long, LONG damn time. A democrat may have been in the White House, in fact."

Is there a causal link you're not sharing with us?

b) True or false: Giving illegal drugs to your co-workers isn't as bad as selling drugs to them.

Hee. Now I find myself wondering about this. What would they prefer? if you're going to be getting their people hooked on the hard stuff, do they want you exercising your entrepeneurial spirit, or do they prefer the JohnnyPoppyseed model?

EEEEEK, can you borrow a cat meara?

Man, what would a cat meara look like? You'd get whiplash from all the sudden changes of focus. So, exactly like the original then. Forget I said anything.

Then again, I'm weird about animals. In Wisconsin, I saw the freakiest ones every day. In Australia, where animals consider biology textbooks to be "what not to do" guidelines, I'm only seeing mosquitos and magpies. Not even one little spider.

This is true. (Magpies are much more fun to hear than see.) We have some wonderfully freaky fauna, but it doesn't actually show up that regularly. Though the day we sold our house, a kangaroo turned up to check out the SOLD sign. Naturally, we chased him all around the suburb in a car.

One thing I like about Canberra is the colourful birds are more common. And it has a great aviary, just opposite a reptile house!

Oh, crap, is there some invisible species of uber-venomous redback they just don't tell people about?

No, no, the funnelweb is enough for one city. Though this reminds me, have you been told about the dropbear?

Maybe......vegemite is people!

If so, then there are people who need to cut back drastically on the salt. And axle grease.

I for one would probably die from a stupid spider bite if I spent time in Australia, because I rebelliously gave up the habit of shoe-checking in Arizona the second time I had a scorpion join me in bed.

Actually, no one's died from a funnelweb bite in Australia in 25 years. Since they developed the antivenom, in fact. We still lose a few each year to snakebites, so don't feel you have nothing to aim for.

Oh, I HATE graded group work. I think group stuff is important, 'cause you can bounce ideas off each other, but someone always ends up getting screwed when you stick a grade in there.

AS was ranting about this the other day. I did some group work for my actuarial studies and loved it, but yeah, it had some of those dynamics. The (continued...)

( continues...) interesting bit was there were two of us that did most of the work in our group, and one was fussed about carrying others while the other one wasn't.

Oh, and then there were the debates, which were fantastic fun, and I got to show them the difference between someone who's debated before and someone who hasn't. (That difference, apparently, being wishing the lecturer's death and getting away with it.)

And I most deffinately never needed to build a Lincoln's Memorial out of sugar cubes.

This is remarkable. Was it called "The Sweetest President"?

Send them with torches. I think the sentient mold fears open flame.

But if it's brown mold, it will feed off heat, and must be killed with cold! I think the motto is, know thy mold. Um. Not like that.

The sentient mold refused to negotiate. In fact, it made insulting comments about my parentage, so it is now trapped under paper towels soaked in full-strength bleach.

Let the record show that Steph has established a bleachhead.

(1) You can call it "fresh rain" scent bleach, but that doesn't make it smell like anything other than a gigantic bucket of pool chemicals.

They should call it "Righteous rain to wash the scum off our streets". Oh! Happy birthday, erika!

{{{Plei}}} The budget does suck. It sucks being dragged slowly into debt again. It's like being nibbled to death by teeny, tiny ferrets.

I was reading this awful news story in the Columbus Dispatch today about how Ohio is now the lead state in mortgage forclosures and the story profiled all of these people who either, through unemployment or predatory lenders, ended up losing their houses. Whenever I get depressed about the budget, I try to keep thinking we're in a better spot than a lot of people.

Teppy & Bleach tag team 1, Sentient Mold NIL! I'm counting it as a win.

Bleach is bleach. Anything that keeps the regrouting/recaulking at bay is a win in my book.

My dad can kill a good mood faster than Karl Rove at Burning Man. And he had snarky things to say about my "Superfly music". ME: That's *Parliament*, Dad. And my friend the published author took time out of his life to give it to me because he heard I was having rough times.(and you know, cared, and stuff, is my subtext) I really think that whole Parliament aesthetic was sort of cool...maybe a little out-there for everyday wear, but they had a vision, right? He must be feeling a bit guilty because I got a comparatively large chunk of b-day bling. It would be cool, if my mood wasn't shit now. Except for a brief twelve-year-old interlude of laughing because "caulk" sounds like "cock" the way my dad says it. huh huh huh. That poor kid is gonna grow up soul-deprived. That ain't right Ooh, I know...I'll get him Jackson 5 for Christmas...my mother played it for us. It's sort of how I started on it and may be more popular around his house than "Me and Mrs. Jones". My brother bought me The RHCP Greatest Hits

That poor kid is gonna grow up soul-deprived. That ain't right.

Erika, can I save this for the next time one of my siblings spawns?

Of course, Billytea. To create smartass that an Aussie appreciates is quite an honor. You lot set a high standard to be envied.

Tropical Storm RITA is headed towards Florida.

Key West and environs is under a Hurricane warning.

Sigh.

Yeah, they've been evacuating all day. It doesn't look like a bad one, but the one behind it is pretty big.