It's not warm and I really hate politicians.

It's actually colder out there today than it was yesterday.

According to the weather guys, with the wind chill it's 8 below right now. I don't know about that, since I haven't been out of the house since Tuesday. I can tell you that it's windy, the sky is a brilliant blue, the snow has all blown off the roof and it looks like new snow fall, and I'm sitting here in my (clean, just got out of the shower about 10 minutes ago) pajamas at almost noon.

I want to stay in bed under my electric blanket.
Until June.

"It's butt cold out here."

Oregon's governor Kate Brown is one of those goddamn idiot politicians (why no, I don't like her! Wow, you figured that out with remarkably few clues!!) who, by her own admission, isn't interested in finding ways for the state to save money. Not a priority. Yep, she actually said that. Last week, I think.

When asked if the state would budget money for snow/ice removal, she had this to say, "I think folks are going to be very committed to making sure we have the resources we need to not just have an effective and safe transportation system that's resilient in an emergency situation."

What the fuck does that even mean?
Hey, I'm glad you asked that!
It means, "We need to raise taxes."

I'm not the first person to say this, and it's not even the first time I've said it. But when my family doesn't have enough money to make ends meet, we (drumroll, please) DO WITHOUT!!!

We don't go buy new furniture or expensive clothes or electronic things. We simply spend as little as possible and wait for things to get better. As a result, even though things are sometimes very difficult, we manage to operate in a more or less sensible fashion. And we DO think about cutting expenses. In fact, that's one of our priorities.

It makes me furious that ALL these people do is raise taxes.
A few years ago, they doubled our vehicle registration fees.
And then spent the rest of the legislative session rubbing up against each other and congratulating each other on passing the 'transportation package'.

That great big bunch of cash was going to 'fix all the roads!'.One of our "representatives" wrote a masterpiece of self-aggrandizing CRAP letter to all the newspapers and her constituents, telling us how proud she was to have helped pass that legislation. What a huge steaming pile of horse shit.

But alas. It "wasn't enough" money to actually fix any roads.
So now they're looking for ways to raise our taxes again.

None of the people who claim to represent me actually DO.
I'm so sick of these posturing fools.

They spend millions on traffic studies and the big electric train set (another boondoggle) and failed health plan websites and redecorating all the offices in their insular buildings. Everything's all matchy-matchy and opulent.
And I resent paying for it. I resent what they take from us and the very low rate of return. Once again, I lament the complete lack of integrity and the utter craziness of the whole system. All the paid lobbyists and the money that changes hands to ensure all of them continue to exist and be paid for doing nothing. They're not even good at hiding how inept they are.

It's at the local level. It's at the state level. And today isn't a good day to get me started on the fuckwads at the federal level.

Shit.

But a long time ago, up North, where it's cold, even colder than it is here, they had a simple solution.

When a member of the group had outlived his/her usefulness and could not contribute to the general well-being of the tribe, they simply put them out on the ice and let them die.

And while I don't necessarily advocate a solution that extreme (not that I've ruled it out...) we *do* have a lot of ice right now.
And coincidentally the biggest group of useless politicians we've ever had.
It wouldn't really cost anything.