THE TAXMAN IS COMING TO GET YOU

By now you’ve probably heard that the IRS is in hot water for putting disproportionate scrutiny on Tea Party-related and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. 

As always, Jon Stewart saves me a lot of typing.

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Here’s what I’d add:

While I fully agree the IRS is in the wrong on this, I do think the elephant in the room is the fact that we are talking about a political movement whose core political philosophy is (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Fuck taxes” and “We built that.” If a rabidly anti-tax group applies for tax-exempt status, it’s probably not completely unreasonable for the IRS to want to vet that application a little more closely – especially considering a number of PACs did try to hide under 501(c)(4) status mainly so they could avoid the ruling under Citizens United that requires such groups to disclose who their donors are. 

That doesn’t make it right for the IRS to violate its own rules and lie to Congress about it.

But honestly, I’m less concerned about the IRS putting extra scrutiny on Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status than I am about other recent revelations such as, say, the DOJ secretly obtaining two months’ worth of telephone records of journalists working for the Associated Press (which the Daily Show piece mentions near the end).

Or the fact that Guantanamo Bay still exists and will continue to do so because Congress made it legally and logistically impossible to ship them anywhere else for trial. 

Or the fact that Congress is still trying to pass laws that make it easier than ever for the DOJ to force Google and Facebook to hand over all their data about you and prevent you from suing them afterwards (though arguably that's probably not going to make much of a difference since online privacy is effectively dead).

Or etc and so on and things of that nature generally.

Compared to that, the IRS shenanigans are bush-league stuff. Honestly, I’m more annoyed with them for handing the Tea Party crowd and Fox News contributors some quality ammo to blather on about their Obama/Big Govt conspiracy theories from now until Doomsday. 

Granted, they’d do that anyway. On the other hand, conservatives have been blathering about IRS witch hunts against them since at least the end of 2011. Now they get to run around laughing their ass off shouting “We TOOOOOOOOOLD you so!”

Nice one, IRS.

We’ll never hear the end of it,

This is dF

dEFROG ON 45 #57-59: WATCH THE TV SHOW, BUY THE THEME SONG

I don’t watch a lot of TV nowadays. 

But I’ve noticed that most TV shows today don’t seem to have good theme songs anymore.

It’s a matter of taste, to be sure. But it seems as though most TV theme songs today either utilize existing songs (see: the CSI franchise), or have no theme song to speak of (see: Supernatural, Lost) or it does have a theme song, but it’s at best unmemorable and at worst sucks (see: Gossip Girl, Two And A Half Men).

Compare that to the heyday of TV theme songs that were iconic in their own right: Hawaii Five-O, The Munsters, Good Times, Mission: Impossible, Batman, and just about anything by Mike Post.

Opinions vary. But for me, the sign of a great TV theme song is that it makes you want to go out and buy a copy so you don’t have to wait once a week to hear it. And back in the 70s, if there was enough demand (and if the licensing could be sorted out), quite a few TV theme songs were released on 45, and even made the charts.

As you might guess, I had a few of them myself.

Like these.

But of all the ones I bought copies of, this one was the best.
.

Interestingly, of all the TV shows they represented, none has really stood the test of time. To be sure, I liked them all at the time. But I was anywhere between 5th and 9th grade when they aired, so it’s not like my taste in TV shows back then should be taken too seriously.

Don’t touch that dial,

This is dF