I was driving down the road today with the Mrs. in the car. We come to a stoplight and are in the left lane so I can turn left. A guy in the right lane apparently decides he wants to merge, despite having warning well in advance that if you want to turn left here you should have merged a while back. The fact that I am occupying the space that he wants to merge into doesn’t dissuade him from attempting. He came close to hitting me and I honked. Our rearview mirrors came within inches of each other. And then he honks at me. I honked the honk of the guy letting you know you’re about to hit him. He honked the honk of a pissy little cry baby. It’s not like I cut him off or anything, he just pulled over into us.

At this point, the guy (who’s driving a minivan with some friends of his in it) is window to window with the Mrs. The Mrs. is pregnant and rather, uhm, hormonal. Suddenly and without warning, she flips him off. A good long bird, it was. Right there within about two feet of his face. I laugh because I’m shocked. This is not something a non-pregnant Mrs. Uncle would do. She’s not like that. It is, however, exactly something I would do. But she almost had her SUV seriously scraped by some idiot. The combination of me laughing and her having just flipped him off really got him in a tizzy.

He then flips my wife off, mouths some words, and pulls in behind me. Once behind me, he continues flipping us off and honking his horn. I, being the smartass that I am (one capable of annoying the shit out of anyone I set out to), calmly turn around and blow the man a kiss. Men in these parts don’t like to be blown kisses by other men. He then does the typical stupid guy thing and makes a motion like he’s going to get out of his minivan and actually opens the door a bit. And I’m thinking Idiot! What are you going to do? Are you going to kick my ass? Pull me from my car? Whatever.

He didn’t get out of his car, which is about the only smart thing he did during this encounter.

Moral of the story: Some people in traffic lose control. It doesn’t help to annoy them but it does provide some entertainment.

Domestic terrorists? Yeah, I knew that already.

Via Drudge, even partisan hacks are slamming Bush’s spending now.

When you’re pissing off loudmouths who have historically worshipped every word from your mouth, you’ve done something. At this point though, only Bush can beat Bush.

Welcome Bitch Girls. Good stuff.

On NPR yesterday they were reading reader email. Most of the emails stated that they didn’t like NPR’s coverage of the Democratic Primaries because it was akin to covering a horse race. So-and-so is in the lead, such-and-such is gaining, blah-blah-blah. I agreed with the sentiment. They weren’t covering the issues.

So, this morning they’re covering the Primaries. The only issue that came up: Who can beat Bush? These are not the issues you’re looking for. Way to be responsive, guys.

So, I took this AOL Presidential Match Guide and here are my results:

Bush 100%
Lieberman 93%
Edwards 87%
Sharpton 84%
Kucinich and Dean 82%
Kerry and Clark 80%

Of course, this quiz is total crap. Don’t they read my blog? This quiz does reaffirm my belief that there really is no significant difference between any of them.

So, some folks were getting oil contracts with Saddam. Here’s a list.

Update: Via Elephant Rants, ABC has more.

CNS writes of taxpayer dollars being used to fund a politically motivated protest using children as pawns:

The Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Board of Education are sponsoring a “youth protest” outside a suburban gun shop, much to the dismay of some gun owners and Second Amendment supporters.

The Illinois State Rifle Association says the youth protest is nothing more than “state sponsored terrorism against the 2[nd] Amendment.”

The February 21st protest will take place at 10:00 a.m. in front of Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, Ill., the Illinois State Rifle Association noted in a press release.

“Chuck’s has been a favorite target of Chicago Mayor Daley’s anti-gun wrath over the years,” ISRA said. In fact, the city has filed a $433-million lawsuit against the family-owned store.

“It’s galling to know that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund this politically-motivated publicity stunt,” said ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson.

“We expect our police departments to be neutral third parties interested only in upholding the law. But it appears once again that the Chicago Police Department is being diverted from enforcing the law in favor of enforcing Daley’s political agenda.”

Pearson defends the owners of Chuck’s Gun Shop as “upstanding” business people. He accuses Mayor Daley of using the store as a “whipping boy” to deflect attention from his “woeful inability to control crime in Chicago.”

This is really abysmal.

Bush will veto any scaleback of the Patriot Act. If they want the bill to pass, just slap a big, fat spending bill (something for the arts would be nice) to it and I’d bet he would be drawn to sign the bill like a puppy is drawn to the smell of bacon.

Yahoo News quotes Eastwood:

“I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live.”

I think that’s one of the things that annoys liberals and conservatives about libertarians. Libertarians want to be left alone. Liberals and conservatives are unwilling to leave anyone alone.

Monroe County courthouse is getting sued over a, you guessed it, ten commandments display.

Monroe County is digging in its heels and will fight a lawsuit challenging its posting of the Ten Commandments inside the county courthouse.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee filed a lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court in Knoxville asking a federal judge to order the removal of the religious display.

Monroe County Mayor J. Allan Watson said Thursday “we are going to oppose that,” and that the county “denies that it violates anyone’s constitutional rights.”

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Four year old girl tests positive for cocaine.

This screed details that gun controllers have their work cut out for them. It has the usual crap about the Assault Weapons Ban sunset is the end of the world:

The case for renewing the assault-weapons ban is even more compelling. There is no good reason to allow 19 automatic, military-style weapons banned since 1994 to be sold once again in the United States.

Emphasis added. Automatic weapons have been regulated since 1934. The Assault Weapons Ban does nothing with respect to automatic weapons. Idiot, get your damn facts straight.

But the NY governor has proposed to make gun permits even more expensive.

Seattle PI:

Just a few days later, the City Council decided to look at laws making it difficult for Auburn residents to own certain dogs. They’re calling it “Fritz’s Law.”

But advocates for pit bulls said the breed has developed a bad reputation because of a number of publicized attacks, its intersection with gang and drug culture and because of its history as a fighting dog. They say pit bulls are smart, outgoing dogs that are people-oriented.

Andersen and her partner, who live in Auburn, now have two American pit bull terriers of their own and are fostering a third until a good home can be found for it.

“This is the breed for us,” Andersen said.

“These dogs are highly intelligent. They will do whatever you want — they want to please humans.”

She said her dogs do well with children, and are working to become therapy dogs, such as those that visit hospitals and retirement homes.

“I can’t imagine that my dogs could ever be considered dangerous,” she said.

Breed-specific laws simply don’t work, says Anne Holte, who runs the rescue organization Pit Bull Project out of a pet supply store in Seward Park.

“Why do you open the front door and let the dog run out?” she asked, referring to the incident with Raja. “That’s irresponsibility.”

She said that when you see a badly behaving dog — of any breed — an irresponsible owner is almost certainly holding its leash.

“You need to be aware of your own dog’s personality,” Holte said.

Crockett, to whom Fritz was like family, agrees with Holte.

“I don’t blame the dog. I blame the owner,” he said.

I am happy to see the PI expose the other side of the BSL debate. I did find this rather telling:

The city of Buckley goes further. It bans “any dog of the breed American pit bull terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier, or American Staffordshire terrier or any mixed breed of dog which contains as an element of its breeding” one of those types of dogs. But only three dogs in recent memory have been the targets of that city’s dangerous-dog ordinance, said Deputy City Clerk Cheryl Proffitt. And those dogs have all been black Labradors.

It’s not the breed, it’s the owner.

KNS reporter Michael Silence covers some voting problems:

Due to a poll worker’s error, as many as 155 people may have wrongly voted in some school board races at the South Knoxville early-voting location, Knox County Administrator of Elections Greg Mackay said Tuesday.

But there’s more:

Knox County election commissioners decided Wednesday they would allow 10 voters to recast ballots in their precinct’s respective school board race to correct a poll worker’s mistake.

But whether the votes are ultimately counted will depend on how closely any of the races in question are decided.

Bubba runs down some interesting things about the 9-11 hijackers. Abysmal.

William Burton tells us this hysterical way to predict presidential election winners. Heh!

Bush seeks increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

A family finds a policeman’s assault rifle on the side of the road. An FBI agent has his gun, credentials, and vehicle stolen.

Update: Another one.

The Chicago Dog Trainer Tribune:

Arguing that a Wilmette man had a right to shoot an intruder in his home — regardless of a local ban on handguns — a state representative is proposing legislation that would override such bans when the guns are used in self-defense.

“It’s important to afford people of the state of Illinois to defend their person and their property, and this affirmative defense would allow them to do that,” said Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, who filed the legislation this week.

Bradley said authorities are wrong in prosecuting Hale DeMar for violating Wilmette’s handgun ban and for failing to renew an Illinois Firearm Owner’s Identification card. The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, he said.

Good for him.

Francis Warin, who I originally blogged about here, is now on a hunger strike:

Friends insist Warin isn’t mentally ill or dangerous. They say he’s just passionate - and persistent.

Back in the 1970s, he had to practically beg to be indicted.

And the latest indictment took four years of taunting: threatening to bring a bomb to the FBI, boasting of illegal silencers he had made, and even taking out a newspaper ad to question why he hadn’t been indicted.

He’s fighting a good fight. He’s just fighting it very stupidly.

Me and the Mrs. saw a new Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial, where they refer to it as Kitchen Fresh Chicken. Note the subtlety with which I relay the initials KFC. I suggested to the Mrs. that the slogan for chicken should be:

Our chicken is as fresh as any dead animal can be.

Of course, I did also come up with Nestea is the best tea, surprised they haven’t used that.

Oh, and my slogan for Honda:

The $20,000 $10,000 car.

And for the Beef Council:

Beef, it’s not chicken.

Oh and one more for fresh chicken:

So fresh, you’ll swear you killed the little bastard yourself.

Seriously, this is funny. Mike nails it: do you really want to put him in charge of the national budget?

This afternoon, I’m putting down Alcoa Highway and pass a big SWAT team looking van with ATF, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco And Firearms symbols plastered all over it. Obviously, it was an ATF police type vehicle. Looked like they were headed somewhere in Blount County. I’ll be watching the news tonight.

Be right back, someone is knocking on my door . . .

Last night, me and the Mrs. conducted a practice run. We babysat our niece and nephews. Prior the picking them up, we purchased some Super Dough, which is like Play Doh except that if you leave it out, it hardens and can be sanded and painted. We were going to let them each make something and allow it to harden. Then, the next time they came over, we’d paint them.

The kids (age 3ish) quickly realized that if we allowed it to harden then there would be no Play Doh to play with in the future. Instead, they demanded that after they were done playing, we place it back in the container so we could all play with it at future date. They didn’t understand that we could go back to the store and buy some more.

We complied buy should have just bought the cheaper Play Doh instead.

I occupy some quotes over at UnknownNews. I am honored.

As of 1998, 32% of individual federal income taxes are needed in order to pay the interest on the national debt.

Kevin finally got around to writing something for the Shooters’ Carnival. Go read it.

Tennessee Ruck writes that he was a teenage Republican. When I was a teen, I was a Democrat, mostly to annoy the parents. In college, I was a Republican, mostly to annoy the smelly hippies I had classes with. Now, I am neither, mostly to annoy my readers.

Les has some good gun links, this will apparently become a weekly thing. Cool.

There is a bill in the House that seeks to establish national reciprocity for handgun carry permits. The gist is that if you have a carry permit in one state, you can carry in other states that have carry permit provisions.

So, in it’s first week, the Tennessee Lottery takes in $41,300,000 and pays out, by my calculation, $297,000 to big winners. I think once people realize that the big payouts are only 0.719%, interest and participation in the lottery will decrease. Of course, since I don’t have stats on the total dollar payout of small payouts, I could be wrong.

The Detroit News:

A confidential federal informant claims an FBI agent instructed him to break the law as part of the government’s terror investigations in Metro Detroit.

In a Jan. 21 letter, written at the airport as he left for an undisclosed foreign country, informant Marwan Farhat said he was asked by FBI Special Agent Robert Pertuso to steal mail from Arab Muslims whom the federal government had identified as terror suspects.

Heads should roll. So much for the Fourth Amendment.

Some residents demanded a pit bull ban following an attack but:

Broomfield isn’t likely to see the ban against pit bulls that some residents demanded following a dog attack earlier this month.

Instead, the City Council directed its staff Tuesday to investigate ways to strengthen current vicious dog laws.

“I do think the ordinance needs to be beefed up a little bit,” said Councilman Vince Buzek.

Possible amendments to the city code considered Tuesday included: sticking with Broomfield’s current laws; considering a ban of pit bulls; or enacting a broader law against any aggressive dog.

The City and County Attorney’s Office recommended the last option, which included stricter mandatory penalties against owners of aggressive dogs.

Of course, why is it we dub these laws as aggressive dog laws when they should be called irresponsible owner laws?

The Democratic Party, it seems, recently made an effort to steer voters towards a candidate who is electable in the General. Apparently, most Dems didn’t get that memo because Kerry keeps coming in first. Sorry folks, Lurch isn’t your guy. You need that pretty boy Edwards or the General to win to be formidable in November.

That or this is evidence the Republicans have infiltrated the Dem primaries and are sabotaging them.

Of course, these are my preliminary speculations. A whole lot can change in 10 months.

Pardon me while I don my accounting geek hat:

There is a movement to mandate that companies expense all stock options when they are offered to the employee (though not necessarily redeemed). That is, record an expense on the income statement for the value of the options (which may not have been redeemed). Current treatment of stock options is done by showing diluted earnings per share, which is basically what earnings per share would be if everyone took advantage of offered stock options (and a few other things). The Senate has a bill mandating expensing these options. Politicos apparently feel this measure would lead to better information to the investor.

Some people (Greenspan) think that current accounting for stock options is used to distort earnings.

One thing that is often lost in this debate is that, essentially, a company is usually issuing treasury stock or unissued stock to employees. In other words, the companies are giving pieces of paper to the employees. Yes, these slips of paper have value but does the current method of recording this transaction reflect the financial position of the company?

I am increasingly of the opinion that accounting is made up. That is beside the point. What is going to happen is companies will soon show substantially higher expenses all because they give slips of paper to reward or compensate their employees. Functionally and operationally, nothing about the company will have changed but financial performance as measured under the proposed standards will suffer. And stock values may plummet.

Given that the market is on the rise, this is kind of silly. As best as I can tell, it is being done entirely for the appearance of cracking down on big evil corporations in light of the recent accounting scandals.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is also debating the issue.

Justfacts.com:

Medieval serfs paid an effective tax rate of 33.3% and were considered slaves.

I figure I spend 37.7% of my income on taxes.

First of all, Revenue Measures is typically government-speak for we spent too much and want the tax payers to pick up the tab. With that said, I have seen a few pundits and bloggers express a desire for revenue based taxation for corporations to raise revenues. Their logic is that corporations get a hefty amount of deductions (that coincidentally individuals don’t get) for things thereby reducing taxable income to non-existent levels. For example, a corporation can deduct health insurance costs for employees from income to arrive at taxable income. This same luxury is not afforded to folks who purchase their own insurance.

The problem with revenue based income taxes is that it if a company isn’t profitable to the extent that it’s revenue is taxed, that company cannot survive. Low margin companies (such as various manufacturing firms that make money by cranking out lots of small profit items) would cease to exist unless the revenue tax rate was considerably less than their margin.

I think the country needs some tax reform but don’t think this is the best route. What is? Beats me. Flat tax may be it. Or just mass simplification of the tax code.

Zogby poll asks about concealed carry laws (and other stuff):

Voters overwhelming favor these self-protection laws by a margin of 79% to 18%. Right-to-Carry drew better than 70% support in every demographic group, with even non-gun owners indicating their backing by 73% to 23%.

Voters were asked: “Do you agree or disagree that American firearm manufacturers who sell a legal product that is not defective should be allowed to be sued if a criminal uses their products in a crime?”

Voters in both Red and Blue states strongly oppose such lawsuits - 74% of the former and 72% of the latter. In fact, a majority in every demographic group opposed the lawsuits; the most strongly opposed, at 83%, were current members of the military and their families.

The survey also asked: “Which of the following two statements regarding gun control comes closer to your own opinion? Statement A: There needs to be new and tougher gun control legislation to help in the fight against gun crime; Statement B: There are enough laws on the books. What is needed is better enforcement of current laws regarding gun control.”

By a better than two-to-one margin - 66% to 31% - voters nationwide agreed with Statement B. Only self-identified liberals called for more laws, by a 53% to 44% margin. Moderates solidly favored better enforcement, 62% to 34%.

Voters were asked: “Do you agree the NRA is right to fight gun control on both the federal and state levels?” NRA`s support stood at 64%, with a party affiliation breakdown showing Democrats siding with NRA 54% to 42%, and Republicans 73% to 22%.