I think the March entry on the FAFO calendar is going to be Miguel Díaz-Canel, president and first secretary of Cuba. I had to look up who that was, because I had no idea who the current head of the Cuban mob, er, government was. I thought it was still one of the Castro family, but I guess Trudeau in Canada is the last of the political Castros.
Apparently they are having trouble sorting out who is going to be the government, what it will do, and who will be the next Fearless, er, Supreme Leader.
Popcorn? We have kettle, plain, real butter, caramel, white cheddar, and plain with salt.
Iran’s “President” apologizing to their Iran-attacked neighboring countries but admitting there is no functioning chain of command so he can’t do anything about it, with more attacks launched later that same day, is the best “yeah, that’s my title, but it’s not real” thing I have seen.
Close second is the place where Great Britain used to be getting “incandescent” phone calls from their gulf-state “allies” regarding their proudly announced failure to help defend anything anywhere.
Excellent post. Several here I have not seen and will save.
But, can someone explain Wok San to me?
Also the one about a double positive making a negative, the japanese have an expression that translates to “yes, this is so” and means “no, and don’t ever bring this up again.”
The movie version of Moulin Rouge, which we were unfortunate enough to see in the theater, and an entire sequence based on m that song.
Of course, they also referenced The Sound of Music. It was a really bad movie, though the last half was bearable melodrama. We were with friends, which was the only reason we didn’t walk out.
Thank you, wasn’t a fan of The Police. OTOH, I really got the lumberjack bit. (Did that as a costume for a H’ween party. Confused the hell out of the Mexican grandmothers when I stopped at the donut shop after the party. (Mascara, eye shadow, lipstick, and Hudson’s Bay flannel jacket. I left the hatchet in the car.)
Might have chuckled a bit regarding that beloved building with IRS stenciled on it. (We might have filed Federal Taxes electronically last night. State mailed Monday.)
After the state “lost” my federal return and charged my Social Security as state income, I went to using a cover letter with the paper. Went electronic for both Fed and State last year, and the additional time the state wants to deal with paper sealed the deal. Saved me from having to worry about Q1 quarterlies; put the refund as part of the bill, sent in the balance for the rest. Done!
IRS says they put their refund in checking. Will pick up the statement next week. (We’re slowly shifting to on-line statements for institutions we trust, leaving a couple bound to paper as long as we can. Can’t really drop most of them, so it’s watch-like-a-hawk. Doesn’t help that most of the banks have changed hands once or thrice since we’ve moved here.)
We use Quicken for both Feds and State. Feds goes electronic, with both email and text alerts. State is printed out. Given how it is printed, guessing it is scanned in. Don’t know how they can screw up taxing the SS incorrectly if scanned in. Might be giving them too much credit, but they haven’t screwed up, yet. State kicker is nice for this year. Hubby had enough withheld with his pension, and IRA withdrawals that we get money back. Barely, from Feds. More than we’d like from State, but can’t lower the percentage withheld.
For those not residing in Oregon, our SS is not taxed (at all, I think. Or we’ve never tripped the threshold.) Of course this is true of Washington state too, given they don’t have an income tax; or any other state without an income tax.
Not sure how the state did it, but when I was on paper, I did the pdf forms and put fed and state in the envelope. “Somehow”, the federal portion got “lost”, but they figured out how much we had been paid via SS, and charged it as fully taxable.
A couple of letters plus a quietly furious phone call, and I sent* them the packet again, and they unscrewed everything. After that, the cover letter told the state minion what what supposed to be there, and no repeats.
With eFile on the Fed, the state has access to it right away. Did the fed one day, the state a day later (after the Fed gave notification it was accepted–it took me a while a few years back to get the taxable portion of SS programmed correctly, but they haven’t mucked with that section. Yet.) and it was golden.
(*) Registered mail, return receipt requested. Hated to pay extra for a state screwup, but… My own screwups are bad enough. Don’t have a Windows box, and Quicken/Turbotax was not known to run under the Vine (“Vine Is Not an Emulator”) windows “emulator”. Haven’t looked recently. Vine and I don’t get along that well, anyhow.
Amazing what them KNOWING there will be confirmation and records does. Return receipt is the minor, NICE part. Registered mail is the Great Atomic Dopeslap. It is traceable in the extreme. As in Registered mail comes off the truck in its own locked cage. It goes to the REGISTERED on-site cage. ONE (and ONLY ONE) person processes it further.
One night there was a claim of a lost registered item. We d[ar]n near took that office apart brick by brick. EVERYTHING else was lower priority.
The locks have cycle counters, that are logged. If you want prooof somethign arrived,and low risk of diversion, Registered is ahrd to beat. Also many USPS postal clerks will try hard to talk you out of that PITA proccess. “Certified has reterun receipt. Wont that do?”
Yes. 100% registered mail, to the state. Forms are stapled together (whether they want them to be or not). Also, we include 1040s, that we have state version of, even when the form explicitly *excludes certain ones. It’ll go Monday.
(*) We got asked for them a few years ago. Got told they were “missing”.
What program are you using to file electronically state? TurboTax wants $25/state return (Federal is included, up to 5x.) We (currently) and mom could use the free TurboTax, or other programs online for the Feds, but son cannot (taxable investment accounts).
I saw blood crow queen ice crown fire bone true academy magic glass shade kingdom world shadow song sun ember secret legend star raven thief open for Whitesnake in 1987.
The lounging cat with memes and coffee, and the smiling cat with the meme waffle. Oh, yeah, especially after this past week (end of a major admin thing, so everyone has to have all paperwork in, while half the people are also out of pocket for various reasons. )
The one with the Persian king took a second. His armor looked almost Roman until I adjusted my glasses.
“I was using ChatGPT for legal advice and it decided to completely hallucinate some preposterous nonsense about how growing wheat to use on my own farm somehow constitutes interstate commerce:”
The Feds argued that if the farmer had not eaten his own wheat (or fed it to his own cattle), he would have bought grain on the market. Thus, his local non-purchase affected interstate commerce, which Congress could regulate under the Commerce Clause, and … (Ruling based on the AAA part of the New Deal.)
Close. Agricultural Adjustment Act, capping how much farmers made, grew, or raised. The historian and rancher J. Evetts Haley Sr. had a bitter article about the AAA quotas and ranchers, and how eastern feds had no, zero, idea about carrying capacity, beef prices, and how the cycle of drought and rains, market ups and downs, worked in the west.
“People are starving because they can’t afford food. But if food was sold at prices they could afford, farmers would suffer. So, of course, the solution is for the government to step in.”
Which is at least understandable, if misguided. But the next step…
“We cap the amount of food any farmer may grow (and destroy any excess above their quota,) which will keep prices up so the farmers can almost stay in business… and crush any incentive for the farmers to become more productive. That might allow more people to afford food.” One can’t help but be reminded that eugenics was still part of the progressive orthodoxy at the time.
I also find it reprehensible that Wickard is still standing precedent. It’s my understanding that the executive (or at least the permanent bureaucracy) is very leery about letting the Supreme Court have a chance to reverse itself.
The Supreme Court a a body, much like any other bureaucracy, is not like to reduce its own power and/or control without there being rather extremes applied. Once it is successfully argued and accepted that they can do a thing, inevitably they very much will.
This was the entire reason behind the Founding Fathers setting a fence around the infant government they had created, limiting what it could grow into (in theory).
Also, I would argue that eugenics is effectively a pillar of progressive orthodoxy still today. Abortion, trans issues, and so on?
Well, technically we can… bomb LA, that is. But all that would do would be to spread dirty needles and human faeces all over Southern California. Best we avoid that, most like.
IRS building? Bah. Sad looking edifice it is, lacking in beautiful classic architecture. Wouldn’t be missed, that one. But the actual department should go. And as long as we’re eliminating wasteful departments that do not benefit the American people, I’ve got a little list…
Gen X is prepared, yes. And where we get going, others will follow. Problem is, we’d very much appreciate just being left alone. And not get taxed too much. That’s it. Just not be f*cked with and lower taxes and we’re pretty much good.
Sorry… the whole concept just blows my mind; but I also find it plausible, given how red some people turn during the first parts of spring. So I thought it might be helpful to mention.
When I turn red, I know it’s lack of sunscreen.
In Japan, it’s often pine and cedar being their problem, but I think there’s other stuff too.
Some people think he’s actually dead. No public appearances. Or on the lam. He’d earlier refused the honor on account of his hobbies of breathing and staying above ground.
According To Hoyt 
That last one! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Of course noone rational would put pi on a door. It’s an irrational number!
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But a Yogi certainly would, after all it’s transcendental!
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Made Dan chortle so it went in.
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Made other Dan do so, as well. I would totally do that. Because it’s flippin’ hilarious!
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Re “IDI announcement” — awesome! Ditto the Hegseth quote, I’m saving that one.
On the UN running out of money, I think the standard reply fits there “don’t threaten me with a good time”.
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Promises, promises….
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UN: “We’re out of money.”
Me: “Say it again.”
UN: “But you just heard me say it.”
Me: “Yes, but it gets funnier the more you say it.”
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THIS THIS THIS THIS.
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IKR?
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I think the March entry on the FAFO calendar is going to be Miguel Díaz-Canel, president and first secretary of Cuba. I had to look up who that was, because I had no idea who the current head of the Cuban mob, er, government was. I thought it was still one of the Castro family, but I guess Trudeau in Canada is the last of the political Castros.
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I hope Cuba wins the “51st State” lottery (as it should) so we don’t lose all those great Cuban Republicans in Florida, Texas, etc.
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Castro (v. Castrar, to castrate): 1st person, present tense.
I castrate, as in “Señor Fidel, what are you planning for Cuba?”
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NO. Castro is a fortified village in the mountains. it’s a Portuguese surname too.
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I have no doubt that that is the proper origin of the surname, but I still think the accidental homonym is more accurate in his case.
<ducks carp>
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Castro (v. Castrar, to castrate): 1st person, present tense.
I castrate, as in “Señor Fidel, what are you planning for Cuba?”
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Never shop on a full stomach, or your body won’t tell you what you really, really need.
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Going shopping while hungry is one of the great blunders like starting a land war in Asia.
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“Where the hell are the Mallomars?”.
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Socialism always works until you run out of other peoples money.
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Apparently they are having trouble sorting out who is going to be the government, what it will do, and who will be the next Fearless, er, Supreme Leader.
Popcorn? We have kettle, plain, real butter, caramel, white cheddar, and plain with salt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Iran’s “President” apologizing to their Iran-attacked neighboring countries but admitting there is no functioning chain of command so he can’t do anything about it, with more attacks launched later that same day, is the best “yeah, that’s my title, but it’s not real” thing I have seen.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Close second is the place where Great Britain used to be getting “incandescent” phone calls from their gulf-state “allies” regarding their proudly announced failure to help defend anything anywhere.
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Excellent post. Several here I have not seen and will save.
But, can someone explain Wok San to me?
Also the one about a double positive making a negative, the japanese have an expression that translates to “yes, this is so” and means “no, and don’t ever bring this up again.”
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Think of the song “Roxanne” by The Police.
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Should have been:
“You Don’t Have To Put On The Wed Light”.
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Ah, so I DID get it. I just thought that was dumb.
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Yes. But it made husband laugh, so….
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You never heard the song Roxanne, as in ‘Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light’?
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But if you imagined “Roxanne” as sung by Elmer Fudd, it all fits. If you didn’t want to imagine that, and are now stuck with it, sorry-not-sorry!
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The movie version of Moulin Rouge, which we were unfortunate enough to see in the theater, and an entire sequence based on m that song.
Of course, they also referenced The Sound of Music. It was a really bad movie, though the last half was bearable melodrama. We were with friends, which was the only reason we didn’t walk out.
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song. Wok San, (Roxanne) you Don’t Have to put on the red Light.
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Thank you, wasn’t a fan of The Police. OTOH, I really got the lumberjack bit. (Did that as a costume for a H’ween party. Confused the hell out of the Mexican grandmothers when I stopped at the donut shop after the party. (Mascara, eye shadow, lipstick, and Hudson’s Bay flannel jacket. I left the hatchet in the car.)
Didn’t eat scones until a few years later…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Might have chuckled a bit regarding that beloved building with IRS stenciled on it. (We might have filed Federal Taxes electronically last night. State mailed Monday.)
LikeLiked by 3 people
After the state “lost” my federal return and charged my Social Security as state income, I went to using a cover letter with the paper. Went electronic for both Fed and State last year, and the additional time the state wants to deal with paper sealed the deal. Saved me from having to worry about Q1 quarterlies; put the refund as part of the bill, sent in the balance for the rest. Done!
IRS says they put their refund in checking. Will pick up the statement next week. (We’re slowly shifting to on-line statements for institutions we trust, leaving a couple bound to paper as long as we can. Can’t really drop most of them, so it’s watch-like-a-hawk. Doesn’t help that most of the banks have changed hands once or thrice since we’ve moved here.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
We use Quicken for both Feds and State. Feds goes electronic, with both email and text alerts. State is printed out. Given how it is printed, guessing it is scanned in. Don’t know how they can screw up taxing the SS incorrectly if scanned in. Might be giving them too much credit, but they haven’t screwed up, yet. State kicker is nice for this year. Hubby had enough withheld with his pension, and IRA withdrawals that we get money back. Barely, from Feds. More than we’d like from State, but can’t lower the percentage withheld.
For those not residing in Oregon, our SS is not taxed (at all, I think. Or we’ve never tripped the threshold.) Of course this is true of Washington state too, given they don’t have an income tax; or any other state without an income tax.
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Not sure how the state did it, but when I was on paper, I did the pdf forms and put fed and state in the envelope. “Somehow”, the federal portion got “lost”, but they figured out how much we had been paid via SS, and charged it as fully taxable.
A couple of letters plus a quietly furious phone call, and I sent* them the packet again, and they unscrewed everything. After that, the cover letter told the state minion what what supposed to be there, and no repeats.
With eFile on the Fed, the state has access to it right away. Did the fed one day, the state a day later (after the Fed gave notification it was accepted–it took me a while a few years back to get the taxable portion of SS programmed correctly, but they haven’t mucked with that section. Yet.) and it was golden.
(*) Registered mail, return receipt requested. Hated to pay extra for a state screwup, but… My own screwups are bad enough. Don’t have a Windows box, and Quicken/Turbotax was not known to run under the Vine (“Vine Is Not an Emulator”) windows “emulator”. Haven’t looked recently. Vine and I don’t get along that well, anyhow.
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Amazing what them KNOWING there will be confirmation and records does. Return receipt is the minor, NICE part. Registered mail is the Great Atomic Dopeslap. It is traceable in the extreme. As in Registered mail comes off the truck in its own locked cage. It goes to the REGISTERED on-site cage. ONE (and ONLY ONE) person processes it further.
One night there was a claim of a lost registered item. We d[ar]n near took that office apart brick by brick. EVERYTHING else was lower priority.
LikeLike
The locks have cycle counters, that are logged. If you want prooof somethign arrived,and low risk of diversion, Registered is ahrd to beat. Also many USPS postal clerks will try hard to talk you out of that PITA proccess. “Certified has reterun receipt. Wont that do?”
That stuff was a PITA.
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Yes. 100% registered mail, to the state. Forms are stapled together (whether they want them to be or not). Also, we include 1040s, that we have state version of, even when the form explicitly *excludes certain ones. It’ll go Monday.
(*) We got asked for them a few years ago. Got told they were “missing”.
What program are you using to file electronically state? TurboTax wants $25/state return (Federal is included, up to 5x.) We (currently) and mom could use the free TurboTax, or other programs online for the Feds, but son cannot (taxable investment accounts).
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I saw blood crow queen ice crown fire bone true academy magic glass shade kingdom world shadow song sun ember secret legend star raven thief open for Whitesnake in 1987.
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Posted without (much) comment. His Orangeness watched this with great interest, though.
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I just like watching their tails wag!
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Oh dear. I’m now following these guys.
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LOL!!!!
Imagine a Kzinti Metal band! DesantKlaw! (Orbital drop special op troops)
Turn the trebel UP If the portal glass doesn’t crack, it aint loud enough.
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Ah, yes, Kzin Metal.
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The lounging cat with memes and coffee, and the smiling cat with the meme waffle. Oh, yeah, especially after this past week (end of a major admin thing, so everyone has to have all paperwork in, while half the people are also out of pocket for various reasons. )
The one with the Persian king took a second. His armor looked almost Roman until I adjusted my glasses.
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SFBS!
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https://x.com/ChrisExpTheNews/status/2030308609746145323
“I was using ChatGPT for legal advice and it decided to completely hallucinate some preposterous nonsense about how growing wheat to use on my own farm somehow constitutes interstate commerce:”
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Unfortunately, I believe that there are Court Cases (including Supreme Court cases) that support that garbage.
IE The Commerce Clause has been inflated to cover actions within a State.
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That was the literal case.
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If it assumes you would otherwise have bought wheat from another state… 🤔
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Wickard v. Filburn. A Depression-era case.
The Feds argued that if the farmer had not eaten his own wheat (or fed it to his own cattle), he would have bought grain on the market. Thus, his local non-purchase affected interstate commerce, which Congress could regulate under the Commerce Clause, and … (Ruling based on the AAA part of the New Deal.)
Yeah.
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AAA — Alcoholics Anonymous? :D
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Too many As.
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Close. Agricultural Adjustment Act, capping how much farmers made, grew, or raised. The historian and rancher J. Evetts Haley Sr. had a bitter article about the AAA quotas and ranchers, and how eastern feds had no, zero, idea about carrying capacity, beef prices, and how the cycle of drought and rains, market ups and downs, worked in the west.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A-hole Aggrandizement Act.
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“People are starving because they can’t afford food. But if food was sold at prices they could afford, farmers would suffer. So, of course, the solution is for the government to step in.”
Which is at least understandable, if misguided. But the next step…
“We cap the amount of food any farmer may grow (and destroy any excess above their quota,) which will keep prices up so the farmers can almost stay in business… and crush any incentive for the farmers to become more productive. That might allow more people to afford food.” One can’t help but be reminded that eugenics was still part of the progressive orthodoxy at the time.
I also find it reprehensible that Wickard is still standing precedent. It’s my understanding that the executive (or at least the permanent bureaucracy) is very leery about letting the Supreme Court have a chance to reverse itself.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The Supreme Court a a body, much like any other bureaucracy, is not like to reduce its own power and/or control without there being rather extremes applied. Once it is successfully argued and accepted that they can do a thing, inevitably they very much will.
This was the entire reason behind the Founding Fathers setting a fence around the infant government they had created, limiting what it could grow into (in theory).
Also, I would argue that eugenics is effectively a pillar of progressive orthodoxy still today. Abortion, trans issues, and so on?
LikeLike
Standing? It’s been expanded. Even those who oppose Wickard admit that the case was anomalous. Most of it actually did regulate interstate commerce.
Since then, the idjit court has let all sorts of things stand on the grounds that they might have some effect on interstate commerce.
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You know, when I was young, the Pedro Pascal one could have ended right after “dating a man”.
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Murder is wrong. But tempting….
Universal translator FTW.
The yarn snarls back!
IRS building. *SNRK*
We can’t bomb LA? Shucks….
Well, yes. There’s photographic evidence, if debatable, for Bigfoot.
Yes. We have been waiting. We’re ready. Can’t be worse than the job market!
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Well, technically we can… bomb LA, that is. But all that would do would be to spread dirty needles and human faeces all over Southern California. Best we avoid that, most like.
IRS building? Bah. Sad looking edifice it is, lacking in beautiful classic architecture. Wouldn’t be missed, that one. But the actual department should go. And as long as we’re eliminating wasteful departments that do not benefit the American people, I’ve got a little list…
Gen X is prepared, yes. And where we get going, others will follow. Problem is, we’d very much appreciate just being left alone. And not get taxed too much. That’s it. Just not be f*cked with and lower taxes and we’re pretty much good.
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Regarding the 3D printer one, careful.
You may wind up getting the ATF raiding your house if they hear that you’re a small arms dealer.
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Carpapult loaded! Grabs lanyard in teeth, backs waaaaay up. Carp away! Heaves. TWANG!
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ROFL. Sir. I was drinking tea. And the cat didn’t like being sprayed.
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I’ve found that my sinuses are thankful that I treat just about anything online as a spittake free-fire zone.
Because carbonated sodas (my caffeine source of choice) are not a valid nasal irrigant.
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I turned my head just in time, but sprayed the cat.
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Oh please. Obama doesn’t want to run a country that’s ALREADY a Muslim majority nation.
Which means we really should send them Ilhan Omar to be their Supreme Leader. (Drive them nuts with a female Muslim prelate.)
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2001? 21?
I immediately assumed “15” and “I am outta here.”
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Apparently there’s so much spring pollen in Japan, that it makes some people’s skin break out.
And hence, there are Japanese anti-pollen skin products.
Possibly some people here have the misfortune of pollen skin allergies, and might want to know that there are solutions for it.
https://soranews24.com/2026/03/08/spring-pollen-may-be-damaging-your-skin-so-whats-japans-best-moisturizing-anti-hay-fever-spray/
Sora News reviews Japanese anti-pollen skin sprays.
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Sorry… the whole concept just blows my mind; but I also find it plausible, given how red some people turn during the first parts of spring. So I thought it might be helpful to mention.
When I turn red, I know it’s lack of sunscreen.
In Japan, it’s often pine and cedar being their problem, but I think there’s other stuff too.
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Oooh, Iran picked a new
FearlessSupreme Leader. Where’s the betting pool on how many days before they have to pick another one? 😄LikeLike
Some people think he’s actually dead. No public appearances. Or on the lam. He’d earlier refused the honor on account of his hobbies of breathing and staying above ground.
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Three heads of Cerberus, like the three heads of Ghidrah?
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