(no subject)

Well, I know some lawyers who won't be voting Republican again any time soon:

The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes....

The administration plans to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency's 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, in less than 70 days....

The Bush administration has passed measures that reduce the number of Americans who are subject to the estate tax ... but has failed in its efforts to eliminate the tax entirely....

Sharyn Phillips, a veteran I.R.S. estate tax lawyer in Manhattan, called the cuts a "back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax." ...

...Estate tax lawyers are the most productive tax law enforcement personnel at the I.R.S., according to Mr. Brown. For each hour they work, they find an average of $2,200 of taxes that people owe the government....

Yes, but all means let's make certain the uber-wealthy keep more of their money, it's the American thing to do. Meanwhile:

That the economy is slowing is getting clearer. Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust notes that retail sales in the second quarter, adjusted for inflation, fell more than in any quarter since 1991.

via No More Mr. Nice Blog

The damned

A must-read from James Wolcott:

The war crimes of the United States compound by the minute, the hour, the day. I predict that George Bush, upon leaving office, will be the most despised president in American history. He will have his core support, the clotted, stunted brains that collect at sites like Lucianne.com and Powerline, but he will enjoy no Reaganesque orange sunset afterglow (or Nixonian self-rehabilitation), so deep, lasting, and tragic is the damage he's done, a damage abetted by a craven, corrupt political class and a press that even now, as the full dimensions of the disaster unfold before us, is unable to sound alarm, so accustomed as they've become to their role as sponges and clever snots. History will not forgive Bush or the United States, nor should it, for raising and destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people, and presiding over the dissolution of their nation into a failed state. Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com:

"Iraq is engaged in a full-fledged civil war. For those remaining defenders of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, who argue that the United States needs to stay put in order to prevent civil war, it’s too late. It’s here, in all of its brutality and ugliness.

"The violence is not only engulfing Baghdad—home to approximately one-fifth of Iraq’s population—but Basra, Iraq’s second city and its only port. In the north, there is violence in Kirkuk, in what has been, until now, the relatively unscathed heartland of the Shiite south, as well.

"What is unfolding in Iraq is a staggering tragedy. An entire nation is dying, right in front of us. And the worst part of it is: It may be too late to do anything to stop it."

[snip]

"The blame for this carnage must be laid squarely at the feet of George W. Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was ordered against the advice of the CIA, the State Department and most U.S. military officers, and in defiance of the United Nations, America’s allies, and the Arab world. The United States attacked and destroyed a nation that had never attacked the United States, which had no weapons of mass destruction and which had no connection to al-Qaida."

[snip]

But it is not enough to blame Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Lieberman, the neocons, the liberal hawks, and other useless idiots. By our actions in Iraq, and our complicity and collaboration with the Israeli assault on Lebanon, American citizens are culpable for letting 9/11 turn them/us into passive accomplices. "The complicity of the American public in these heinous crimes will damn America for all time in history," Paul Craig Roberts rages at Antiwar.

Squee

Harry and the Potters concert tonight, woo! And finally I get to see my beloved Draco and the Malfoys kickin' it old school for the dark side. But to be totally honest, a big part of my excitement is the fact that the library is sure to be air conditioned. Yes, this is what my life has come to.

This one was definitely for Slytherin, biotch

Just got back from the Draco and the Malfoys/Harry and the Potters concert and what a rockin' show it was. We were surprised to find out it would be outside, though thankfully it was in a nice shady spot which wasn't too bad at all. There was an opening act from Sunnyvale whose name I didn't quite catch, but she was quite good singing along with an acoustic guitar. She really had a knack for the lyrics and was quite fun. Of course the show really started to rock when the two Dracos hit the stage (year 15 and year 19 respectively), and as tamago commented, they were "the sex". I think Aelf and I were the only two people in the audience who knew all the words to their songs and we sang along lustily with "My Dad is Rich and Your Dad is Dead", "Voldemort is Awesome", "All I Want for Christmas", "Hippogriffs Deserve to Die" (which rocked way more live), "99 Death Eaters", and all the rest.

Then on came the Harrys with a special guest appearance by Bill Weasley on drums, and they kicked it off with "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock", which I got to sing along with them for one chorus on the mic, woo! They did all the classics, including "The Wrath of Hermione", "SPEW", "The Troll Song", "Stick it to Dolores", "The Weasel", "Save Ginny Weasley", and the new classic "Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas". Oh there was so much more, and Aelf and I sang and danced our way through the lot.

Grabbed the new cd and a Draco and the Malfoys t-shirt, though not the one I wanted (they didn't have my size). I'm hoping they're restocked by Lumos 'cause I really want the one with the Dark Mark around a guitar, sheer genius. I did like the HP one that Aelf picked up that said, "My guitar is a Horcrux", way too cute.

Ok, I really need to get to bed now...