No! We Are Not Talking About Gangsters
Although please take note of those initials. They do make an interesting acronym, don't they? I.R.S. Here in This Sceptred Isle the people who carry out tasks associated with taxes and the like are the more regally-named "His Majesty's Revenue & Customs" or HMRC, which is one benefit of being a constitutional monarchy <flips the bird at South Canada>. Art!
Yes, some bright spark had the idea of creating a record label with the moniker "I.R.S." and their stable included prime musical material - R.E.M., Wall Of Voodoo, Squeeze. I can't say that Lo
ANYWAY getting back on track, which is boring yet essential for railways, the acronym stands for "Internal Revenue Service", which as you may be aware is primarily responsible for - hang on, hang on -
Which sounds quite benign, doesn't it? I did put the question to teh Interwebz about "Why is the IRS so feared?" and the primary response was interesting.
"The general public knows very little about the actual processes of IRS collections, so the fear of the unknown also is part of the reason why the IRS seems so intimidating…. Because they are legally allowed to rob you and to call it something else. And hiding money from those thieves is treated as though it's wrong."
I can GUARANTEE that this response comes from someone who was found guilty of tax evasion - what they euphemistically call 'hiding money' - and who had to pay a whacking big fine and perhaps a prison sentence, too.
Also of note is the header for the IRS official website, which shows, if Art will do the honours -
Very bright and positive and life-affirming, isn't it? and an utter contrast to the record label marque, which seems to be how everyone realllllly view the IRS. One supposes that they have a dress code for agents in the field, you know, dark shoes, dark suit, white shirt, black tie kind of thing - Art!
Of course, there are exceptions .....
This is, of course - obviously! - merely a preamble to another Youtube Reddit tale of what I believe is Malicious Compliance, which is always good for a cruel snigger or two. The Diligent And Conscientious Agent, hereafter DACA, was part of a team organised to do a quick background check on a local outdoor market, which numbered about 300 separate stalls. The process was to enquire about the name of the stall-holder, if they were registered for tax types of any sort and if they required any assistance on tax matters. Art!
- and no stalling
Of course, when they started doing these tax checks, a certain number of stalls and holders made a hasty disappearance as they had to go polish their brass hand or somesuch. Expected wastage, one might say.
This is where DACA encounters Bottomhole Vendor, whom had a stall selling artworks. There were no customers, as not everyone is as keen to consume a watercolour with their eyes as a hot dog with the mouth. Still, BV yarks on at DACA about driving his customers away. The curse of a bottomhole is to always be a bottomhole, one presumes.
Being gobby with the entity that inspects your taxes seems to be quite near the List Of Stupid Activities top, but what do I know, I don't sell art for a living.
BV asserts that DACA cannot be doing what he's doing, and that he won't co-operate unless shown evidence of why he should. Art!
DACA presents his warrant, which does not impress BV in the least. DACA patiently notes down BV's business details and moves on.
BV is then subjected to a full, formal audit which reveals he's been failing to declare income and claiming deductions he wasn't entitled to.
$10,000 FINE!
There's no follow-up from this point but being hit with a fine that big would put a market trader out of business. I guess it pays to be Keanu Reeves not Bruce Willis with the IRS.
Snowballs
Not the kind you create from snow in winter, the kind made with advocaat and lemonade. Since creating a blog Intro that featured them, I feel the need to create and consume some, which has been a pain because neither the off-licence nor the Co-Op had any advocaat in stock.
Hopefully Morrison's will come through tonight on the weekly shop. Art!
Confidence is high.
Real Life Echoes Art
By now you must have heard of the macabre slaying and maiming of thousands of Hezbollah members thanks to pagers that became ragers.
Apparently they used pagers because the sinister forces of Mossad and Shin Beth are altogether too good at hacking mobile phones.
Hark! What is that distant growling? Why, 'tis none other than the Coincidence Hydra throwing a temper tantrum, because:
Conrad has only recently posted an Intro concerning -
Pagers.
BOOJUM!: Gimme Page (comsatangel2002.blogspot.com)
Nobody was slain or maim but a Bottomhole Boss got a spanking and tanking. Which is always good for a cruel snigger or two. Art!
"The War Illustrated Edition 194 November 1944"
Nothing else internecine on BOOJUM! so far thus I think we'll have another picture from this fortnightly publication. Art!
Interesting! Here we see the Teutons scraping the very bottom of the barrel in terms of manpower, mobilising all males aged between 16 and 60 for the defence of the Reich. That recruitment desperation rings true elsewhere today .....
A callow youth is trained in the fine art of firing a rifle at upper port, whilst a company of sweating military police dig an anti-tank ditch to upper starboard.
Below it we see the crowds listening - not very eagerly it seems - to Himmler's announcement of the "Deutscher Volksstürm", their equivalent to Perfidious Albion's Home Guard, which came into being in October of 1944.
The bottom picture shows Teuton Herr Scheppman, demonstrating how to use a rifle to another dubious hero. The TWI note says that Scheppman later suffered from a 'nervous breakdown', which one wonders might be a Teuton euphemism for 'Crossed Himmler and thus fell out of a window'.
Finally -
Back on my 'homework', I got more annotating done on Adam Tooze's "The Wages Of Destruction", and am now up to Page 15. Hey, nobody ever said I had to keep to a schedule for it! Besides, there are the Roman-numeralled pages in the Preface, to the number of XX, so there. Art!
The NSDAP have come to power - after a fashion, gaining a whole 12 seats (out of 490) in the Bundestag. Acorns and oaks, one supposes.
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