Fairy Tales and Hobgoblins

Tonight, after the meeting, the sky held 37 buzzards. I've been seeing them for over a month here and there, but tonight's grouping was the largest this season. Not all turkey vultures (what we call "buzzards" here in NE Ohio) migrate, so seeing them over Winter isn't a new thing. But when they appear in numbers, the travelers have returned. It was an extra bonus that the sky was overcast with plenty of swirling and bulbous clouds. Large black birds against a field of mottled grey.

Next Monday we start Census training. The more I learn about being a Crew Leader the less I feel like I know what the heck I'm going to be doing. I guess that's why we have the training. Also, a bonus in that out county was the only county in Ohio that didn't deliver Census Materials to Post Office Boxes. And we have a lot of people who use boxes instead of planting a mailbox. So our crews will have plenty of work.

Also, my guess is there are many people who didn't like the government asking all those pesky questions and spending their money. So we'll now spend a whole lot more being more invasive by having to knock on their door. Probably twice.

Well, I have to say watching Fox News through out the day has entrenched my believe that at the entrance doors to NewsCorp they have a cutout of a clown holding out his hand and a dialog bubble coming out his mouth that reads, "Your IQ must be below this level to enter here."

I guess "diplomatic immunity" is a brand new concept for them. Also the ever present quoting out of context and "Well, technically they're right, but they're still stupid about what it all means," comments in regard to "liberals" and HCR.

Oh, and let the breast beating begin on the lapse of President Bush's Tax Cuts. Say, remember how tax cuts would save our economy, and instead they lead to the worse decade of GNP growth since the Great Depression? Those tax cuts that did such damage to long term revenue projections that even with a Republican majority in the House, Senate, and President that they couldn't stomach making them permanent? Those tax cuts that lowered the high end tax brackets to the lowest they've ever been since the start of the 20th Century, and yet we now hear about how we have the highest taxes in the world (when in fact we have the fifth lowest - it all has to do with what you define as "taxes" - we have the highest if you only include the kinds of taxes that we collected in the US, we're much lower when you look at total tax burden)? Yeah, those. Some of them are about to expire. And the "ZOMG, taxes are going up, it's 2012 two years early," wackiness has begun.