Not really.
I am trying to wrap up the last taxes for my late father. The IRS says the return was goofed up, and thus about $1300 is owed. OK, I go over it with the accountant, and indeed, I goofed. Fine, I will pay. Go online and the IRS site keeps telling me I have Dad’s SSN wrong. I am literally holding his SSN card in my hand, typing it in slowly.
Fine. I will call and get some help. “We’re sorry, due to unexpectedly high call volumes, we cannot help with this type of transaction today. Please call the next business day.” Da fuq? The US is so flush they won’t bother to help anyone send in money when they call at 9AM on a Monday?! Fuggit.
Anyways, here are some links.
- Texas making bank off NYC?
- And you thought the US was the only place with Impeachment crazy legislators.
- I got nuthin’.
- Hail to the King, baby.
I am too crabby for music, so its on you. Comments are open.
I’m sure P&G will come up with a novel way to plug their products.
They’re just trying to pad their profit margins.
Q: What do you do when your Kotex catches fire?
A: Throw it on the ground and tampon it.
Hopefully they can stop the bleeding soon.
I’m afraid it’s going to be a monthly problem but the challenges will get old and disappear.
This is the time of the month we just keep our head down and avoid Aunt Flow at all costs.
It will be interesting to see who absorbs this expense.
Whoever is at fault will hopefully be discharged.
*narrows gaze*
UPDATE – called again, only had to wait an hour and twenty minutes to be told the system won’t take that info for a deceased person – maybe you could actually say that on the IRS website? Options, use one of the two approved vendors and pay a fee (not large, but still) or mail in a check or money order. WTF? I used the online vendor.
I was about to say use the online vendor.
Predictable music link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdcE8jdz70&list=RDgMdcE8jdz70&start_radio=1
I had considered that…
Regarding the Swiss monarch story, I would have linked this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcbtTY6H0KI&list=RDFcbtTY6H0KI&start_radio=1
Sounds like somebody’s on the rag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy-aYX5kMoM
Not in Switzerland.
Texas making bank off NYC?
This is going to help the Dems in the fall. Envy is a pretty easy sell, and with the economy not as YUGE as Trump promised, along with high gas prices, the sell will be even easier. They just need AOC and Bernie to keep spouting off about billionaires running from paying their fair share, and how we need a NATIONAL wealth tax, and that’s why we should vote Dem.
I fear it will actually work.
The king of Switzerland should recall his troops from the Vatican.
Jonas Lauwiner was widely dismissed as an eccentric when he crowned himself king of Switzerland in 2019 and used a loophole in Swiss law to acquire a 117,000-square-metre “land empire”.
There’s going to be an avalanche of Swiss declaring themselves king?
Sounds like he might have all of it by now.
Which is it? Maybe they can deport him to Morocco.
The question that the Swiss should ask: Does he really Matter or not? Eiger he does or doesn’t, and this needs to be sorted out in a clockwise manner or people will go KooKoo!
I’d rather not watch. I’m not going to ‘alp either.
They’re just imitating Emperor Norton*.
*Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico
Still here this week. Not sure about next week yet.
To the three Glibs that represented us at the funeral today . . . thank you very much.
To the regular contributors and the folks who contribute every now and then . . . that you for keeping this place alive. It is my safe place in this world.
Ditto.
Amen.
HE’s death hit (and is still hitting) me a lot more than I would have expected.
Count me in this boat, also. Between HE, and my first wife’s sister passing away a couple months ago, mortality has really been on my mind lately.
And count me in on saying thanks to all who showed up at the funeral. Either in person or in spirit.
Kinnath said what is on my mind. Thanks. Thanks to those who went to HE’s funeral and thanks to those keeping this place alive.
“To the three Glibs that represented us at the funeral today . . . thank you very much.”
Indeed. Thanks, people.
“Still here this week. Not sure about next week yet.”
Sorry to hear.
+1
It’s assholes, all the way down
Hawaiian hailed as hero for beating entitled tourist caught hurling rock at beloved seal Lani in viral video
——-
The entitled tourist, 37, allegedly approached the endangered seal — known by Hawaiians as Lani — and tossed a massive rock at her as she swam along the shoreline off Front Street in Lahaina on Tuesday, according to social media posts and the Hawaii Department of Natural Resources.
After other beachgoers learned of the visitor’s disgusting, caught-on-camera act, at least one enraged local went after the seal abuser and repeatedly punched him, according to video shared on social media.
The viral clip of the act of citizen justice shows a shirtless man approaching the Seattle man from behind and knocking him down in a flurry of blows.
The footage quickly scored thousands of likes and comments praising the local for helping dish out karma.
The beat-down also grabbed the attention of state Sen. Brenton Awa (R-23rd Dist.), who showed off a letter of recognition for the anonymous seal advocate during a state meeting.
Can we expel Hawaii from the union, along with California?
He’s from Seattle.
Hating seals is in his blood.
It’s the Starbucks Spirit.
I have no particular problem with people who throw rocks at animals getting the shit kicked out of them.
Problem is I’m sure Hawaii isn’t going to reward other forms of street justice that most of us here would be OK with as well.
We know where we are going it’s just figuring out when.
It’s a seal.
There are millions of them.
If anything people should be allowed to shoot any of them that get in a dock. Same with sea lions.
There are 1,600 of that particular species, per the article.
Regardless, trying to hit them with rocks as they’re swimming by makes you a dick.
Arrest the folks in Maui for being pinniped-ophiles.
[dugongs Shpip off stage]
How about a nice Hawaiian punch?
You only have to taste it once 🎶
Did she know Fang Fang?
Fortress Co-Founder Allegedly Extorted
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/fortress-co-founder-allegedly-extorted-by-sexual-partner-ee9d6666?st=G97g6B&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Dang!
On the rag?
We can’t have kids in the trades that’s just crazy!
Nice to see some real pushback and some private funds used as well.
The Simple Fix Small-Town Schools Are Using to Keep Teens Out of Dead-End Jobs
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/the-simple-fix-small-town-schools-are-using-to-keep-teens-out-of-dead-end-jobs-89383278?st=iQe5Gd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
They’re keeping people from getting worthless gender studies degrees and becoming baristas?
(Brown said her students often have no experience with ancient communication techniques like snail mail and phone calls.)
Then what the hell are they doing on their smartphones?
Doom scrolling, posting to Instagram/TikTok, and texting.
The yutes are as bad with computers as Boomers. The first reaction is to reboot then replace.
I swear to god, a good chunk of my co workers don’t know how to send an email.
*on chat*
them: “Hi…”
me: “what’s up? I’m heads-down, is this time-sensitive?”
them: “uh, no…”
me: “ok, shoot me an e-mail with the details and I’ll get back to you”
And I never hear from them again. Until the next time they ignore the DND and status and we go through that whole dance again.
Texting generation…
Yeah, all their besties and they are in constant communication with each other and they expect the same at work.
I had “no money for college, and no expectation of it either”. That is why loans and scholarships exist.
No idea what small town or rural has to do with it either. “Career guidance void”? Come on.
Certified Guidance Counselors!
GI Bill is an alternative but there is a contract first.
That seal is a symbol of resilience after the big burn. It personifies the true aloha spirit by sleeping on the beach all day instead of rebuilding the town.
Oh, touché.
A variation on our old rugby song.
https://youtu.be/ThpBgC0NeAU
And in news that everyone knew…
The U.A.E. Has Been Secretly Carrying Out Attacks on Iran
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-a-e-has-been-secretly-carrying-out-attacks-on-iran-f1745a0d?st=3A7a7W&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Seriously, Labour wasn’t left enough? That’s the reason they lost in local elections?
LONDON—Prime Minister Keir Starmer is moving his Labour Party to the left in an attempt to save his premiership, announcing Monday the nationalization of British Steel, one of the U.K.’s last steelmakers, and closer ties to Europe.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-s-starmer-turns-left-in-bid-to-stop-party-revolt-91d7bf2d?st=97hhhE&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Listening to man-on-the-street interviews and insider stuff, there are Labour-ites who think Starmer is a sell-out. Now, whether those people didn’t vote last week, who knows.
I saw him saying the voters are unhappy with the pace of change. While I think the voters don’t like the changes at all, I think he believes that they aren’t changing Britain fast enough.
Well, it might be safe to say that they are unhappy with the pace of change; it is going to fast in the wrong direction for too many people.
JFC… haven’t they been down that path before??
I honestly do not understand why so many people are craving a return to the wondrous utopia that was the 70s.
They are only making plans for Niger, they have his future in the British Steel.
@rhywun: just from my casual listening to British podcasts, programs, etc., there is a non-insignificant undercurrent in Britain that believes the country was on the right path until Maggie Thatcher screwed everything up. And, I’m not talking about news, I’m talking sports, drama, all kinds of cultural stuff.
So, just like Democrats thinking about Reagan, no?
My parents were Tory… and left England in 1966 for America.
My father tells me it was the normalization that people could just collect their dole, and do nothing else, was normal and right. That attitude was toxic along with all of the other socialist attitudes.
At that time there was no indication that it could be reversed but Thatcher gave the UK at least 20 years more time before it failed again.
The current cycle? disastrous, at least the 60’s CHAV’s were “English” and didn’t want to tear apart what was left of the nation.
Yes, the same phenomenon. The Dems are absolutely plotting some destruction when they get in power again, not just because it is their nature but this time out of spite.
I was waiting for a medical procedure today and I decided to call the insurer one more time to try to solve some bureaucratic BS. The previous couple times I just get the phone tree that is a copy of the same things I can do on the website. Finally I stumbled on a button buried somewhere in the menu and I got a person to solve the problem. Now I might not run out of meds after all.
#bigwin
Noice. As someone who also is at the mercy of his (very expensive) medications, I feel your pain on this.
I’m sure some of you guys know of Davie504. I guess he got sick of 60% Italian taxes and is ditching his homeland.
And that’s before the VAT.
Well, it’s the literally end of the road for me in trucking. I stalled out twice in traffic today and continued to struggle with the clutch. Trucking school is the wrong place to learn how to drive a manual. I had a real hard time with the different backing up maneuvers as well. Oh well. Not my first failure and probably won’t be my last. I’m trying to look at it the way our own Evan would. I guess at some point, I’ll go back to the tech school to try another trade. Onward and upward as Evan would say.
I’m re-reading “How to fail at almost everything and still win big” by Scott Adams. According to him, failures are valuable if you learned something. So keep that attitude.
Have you tried welding? I’ve wanted to learn that.
The words of wisdom I heard today: you’re not a failure; you’re just starting over.
Real failure only happens when you give up completely and don’t even try.
I did an 18-week welding course 5 years ago, but I didn’t become much of a welder. Back in the fall of 2025, I got a 1/3 of the way through another welding course before I had a mental breakdown and spent 17 days in a psych ward.
I don’t have lofty ambitions anymore. My basic goals are to stay alive, off the street, and out of jail. Anything better than that is a bonus.
A minute’s success pays the failure of years.
-Anonymous
Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before.
-Robert Browning
Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
-Neil Gaiman
Failure is an attitude, not an outcome.
-James Joyce
Welding is worth another shot. I was on the waiting list for 2 months before I switched to trucking. Next time, I’m just going to enroll in whatever class is starting next. I don’t need to love my job; I just want to make somewhat more than $15/hour.
You should do a post about that. I’m sure it’d be a riveting story.
Until you find your true calling, just continue to solder on.
Sorry, Derp. Hopefully you’ll find your niche.
“if a piece of land has no owner, anyone can claim it – for free.”
That’s cray.
2/3 of Idaho is calling me.
announcing Monday the nationalization of British Steel
It worked so well in the ’60s and ’70s.
Needs moar milk snatching.
Of course he is going to do that. Last act to screw everyone before he is tossed out. CWAA.
I hope we get some more great music out of it next time.
The government must also contend with growing demands on spending needs in years to come, from defense to an aging population, analysts said.
All those hard working dynamic immigrants will save the day.
I’ve been trying to get my Mom’s tax refund since she passed away last summer. File a Form 56 which will allow them to talk to me. Wait 4-6 weeks. File a Form 1310 to direct them on where to send the money. Wait another 4-6 weeks. Follow up. Get cut off half a dozen times. Can you call me back if we get cut off? No, we can’t do that. Do you have a direct number if we get cut off? No, we can’t give that out. Finally finish a conversation to find out they have to fill out paper checks by hand and it needs someone else to enter an approval code. Follow up in 4-6 weeks. It looks like the code wasn’t entered, but this time someone will enter the code. We promise. Follow up in 4-6 weeks. Good news the code was entered. Don’t know why you don’t have your check yet. Follow up in 4-6 weeks. Apparently there is a taxpayer advocate at the IRS in the event you are getting the runaround. That’s my next step.
We’ve been trying to get all the financial affairs coordinated/consolidated so the executor will have it a little easier. It’s not easy with every bank/insurance company having different rules. The questions/forms are in legalese and ask questions that aren’t clear to me.
The IRS, when a mistake is made, just sends a refund or a bill.
Whelp, Im dead in the water. The combustion gas turbine I was testing this morning stopped turbining, and the earliest they think we can try again is Thursday am. What is there to do in NE Jersey?
Im not going into the city- I’ve been left a chevy 2500 pickup with an 8′ bed. Id rather not try and find a place to park it in NYC.
Or park it and come back to find it missing (its the big DMax+Allison transmission).
Jersey City/Hoboken are big cities for all young folks who can’t afford Manhattan. There’s gotta be a ton of bars. I’ve heard Hoboken in particular the good times these days.
Hoboken is all hipsters and college kids. And that was 25 years ago when I briefly lived there.
Just watch out for Superheroes.
Hoboken?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HixmSdFHb90
Wow, I haven’t seen that one in ages.
Go skiing at American Dream?
There are worse suggestions.
You can go west to High Point Park if you want to do the nature route.
There are also places you can safely park and ride the truck. For example park in a pay lot in Harrison and take the PATH to NYC.
Looks like there are NJ Transit trains from your location into NYC if you’re feeling adventurous.
Yeah, from above. Just find a pay lot.
Take a drive down to Cape May and the Jersey shore.
My kinda fella
This guy got so annoyed with spam callers that he wrote a script that endlessly calls them back and plays Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” on repeat until they finally block his number.
Not sure how he makes it work with the rampant number spoofing that goes on, but good for him.
It’s likely spamming the people who’s numbers were spoofed. Wardialing more is not the way to fix it.
What is there to do in NE Jersey?
College lacrosse game?
Watch the both NY football teams play their home games there?
Third-try’s-the-charm 2026 iteration of the NY Cosmos play in Paterson of all places now. Caught a match on TV the other day.
Ah, that’s some nolstagia bait for me – my dad worked for the OG Cosmos, which is why I’ve met Pelé a few times, as well as The Honourable Kenneth Howard Randolph “Randy” Horton, JP, MP
I’m 69th again. I’m sure this means somethign.
Giggity
I figure the Bro is messing with me. Somehow. I mean, why else would I be sixty-nining so frequently?
96 is where its at these days buddy
I don’t have lofty ambitions anymore. My basic goals are to stay alive, off the street, and out of jail. Anything better than that is a bonus.
Are there still “temporary labor” agencies? I did a stint long ago. Different short term jobs, different people, low pay but better than hanging out in the Home Depot parking lot. Several places offered to hire me full time.
I’d say go be a landscaper, but espanol is probably mandatory.
I bet Derpy of all gente could manage.
Yep, there’s a couple of different temp companies still out there. Manpower staffing and Robert Half are two I know of off the top of my head.
I temped for years. It was awesome. The collection of skills I acquired was very broad, and I have since deepened them. It ALSO was a way for me to escape office politics and I wasn’t there long enough for people to get tired of me.
I’ve reached out to a few temp and staffing agencies, but I held back to finish trucking school. Might as well move ahead with it now.
I tried to learn Spanish last year and made a lot of progress. Not sure if that will ever be relevant on the job, but it gave me something to do.
Remember, Fetterman was a Republican back in his 20s
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) doubled down in a late-night talk show interview Friday, saying he won’t leave the Democratic Party despite tensions with peers and party leaders.
“I’m a committed Democrat,” Fetterman said during HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, on the heels of a Washington Post opinion piece this week in which the senator again reaffirmed he isn’t changing his party affiliation.
AOC states her goals are much loftier than POTUS.
She will be our God Empress won’t she? Disposing of righteousness and justice, severing the bonds of human existence into her bosom, smothering the ills of Man.
Like any good communist, she just wants to “change everything”. Who doesn’t want that??
Last time we “fundamentally transformed” America, it involved stoking the guttering flames of racial animosity.
So much better than the largely colorblind 90s.
Hitler and Mussolini were also very big on ‘fundamental transformation’.
Where is she going to get her sand trout?
I’m surprised they didn’t blame climate change in the article
The peach, apple, and other pickings may be slimmer this summer — and the prices heftier — as the result of what by any measure was a heat-freeze ambush of rare intensity in April that likely has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in crop losses.
“I’m not going to be a complete prophet of doom,” said Lisa Specca, owner of the popular Specca Farms in Burlington County, “but farmers are pretty upset right now.”
Farmers have been warning that the surviving local peaches and apples are going to cost more when they appear later in the summer.
It’s not just Specca’s.
We’ve got a damn frost and freeze warning tonight.
We have our vegetable garden ready for plants, but tonight will be a frost.
The upside to this is that hopefully mosquitos and other pesky critters might have come out, only to die in the late freeze. That makes for a very nice summer.
PA Supreme Court rules on cast vote records
In a rare unanimous decision last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the public should have access to super-granular election results data, making it easier for researchers to analyze electoral patterns and for those concerned about voter fraud to inspect the results.
But it’s unclear how many counties will be able to release the data due to unanswered technological questions and concern about keeping ballots secret in some jurisdictions.
The data, known as a cast vote record or CVR, is essentially a log of each ballot cast in an election and what candidates it voted for. It does not reveal the names of the voters who cast those ballots (election officials don’t even keep that data), but it does include the precinct where the vote was cast.
“Disclosure of CVRs allows the public to ‘check the math’ of [Lycoming County] Voter Services to ensure the number of reported votes match the number of recorded votes,” Justice Daniel McCaffery wrote for the majority. “Such disclosure promotes fair, honest, and transparent elections, which strikes to the heart of ‘trust but verify.’”
In October 2021, conservative activist Heather Honey, who is now the Trump administration’s deputy assistant secretary of homeland security for election integrity, requested Lycoming County’s cast vote record for the 2020 election. The county initially denied her request — a decision upheld by the state’s Office of Open Records. But a local court overturned that ruling, only to be overturned itself by the state’s Commonwealth Court, a decision that was then overturned by the state Supreme Court in late April.
EPL Relegation update, round 36:
It is easy now. Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United are fighting for the last survival spot. Spurs have a 2 pt lead (and an 11 goal differential lead, in case of a tie) with two matches to go.
Assuming no miracle changes in GD, Tottenham needs a win and a tie to guarantee survival. There are 81 possibilities left, and Spurs survive on 67 and get relegated on 14.
Millwall was eliminated from the promotion playoffs today. They would have been interesting to see in the EPL, so I am disappointed.
The guy who wrote Cool Hand Luke really did do time on chain gang in the south.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donn_Pearce
He lied about his age to get into the Army, got kicked out, joined the Merchant Marine, got arrested and jailed in France, escaped to Canada, then was a burglar and a safecracker until he got caught and imprisoned in Florida.
He’s definitely a candidate for the Florida Man Hall of Fame.
Thanks to all those at HK’s service.
On point: Gathering old FB posts and this is me in 2011. May be J Sub D. Not sure: “I feel very unusual. A person I knew only from his online comments in my virtual world has died. Having “known” him and his ideas for 5 years, it is quite unnerving to be feeling this way over a person I’ve never actually met. However, thoughts and suppositions are the most salient bits of a person. Is this meta-death? Such strange frontiers we live in.”
Seems very fitting.