Happy Tax Day…

…for $1:

[A bureaucrat] says if the state's food stamp recipients receive just $1 for energy bill assistance, that qualifies them for extra federal assistance. That means someone [on welfare] could receive about $30 more per month in food stamps.

Sending out $1 checks cost the state $250,000. DSHS says that could bring the state and additional $43 million in federal funding.

Call it red tape or a hoop to jump through. Either way, the state says it makes sense.

But as I noted back in January 2008, what can you expect, given that government is human beings?

(Via To the People.)

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Lewis Black on tax rebates (contains naughty language):

That's me…

(Via FAILblog and Crossed Pond.)

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A tweet of mine from this morning:

The New York Times asks, "What's Plan B?" (http://snipr.com/7tpef) Isn't the better question, "What's Phase 2?" (http://snipr.com/7tpm3)?

Discuss.

Today's Kip Clip is dedicated to Obama's hypocrisy*:

Enjoy the holiday!

I had at one point contemplated writing a post along the lines of, "Why I Condone Voting for Barack Obama," but I'm no longer sure that I actually do condone it. Here were the bullet points:

• Supreme Court — McCain appointing even one Justice is simply too nightmarish to contemplate.*
• Budget Constraints make wild new spending difficult despite single-party rule. (Of course, budget constraints won't stop things like the downright evil Employee Free Choice Act, indexing the minimum wage to inflation, Obama's amorphous "donut hole" plan for Social Security and other low- or no-cost interventionism.)
• Single-party gridlock — Pelosi, Frank, Schumer, Rangel, etc., have their own agendas and might keep Obama, qua upstart, on a short leash. Unlikely, but conceivable.

(Note: I always "vote" in the sense that I always show up, sign in, enter the booth and close the curtain. Assuming, of course, that I'm not required to stand in line for two hours — let alone five hours. Sorry, but screw that — "civic duty" be damned.

As for pulling any levers — meh. And I only ever vote for president, senator, governor or mayor anyway — never for the pipsqueak moral defective positions. I also always summarily vote against all bond initiatives. And being in New York, a vote for president is less than worthless anyway.)

More thoughts from Perfect Substitute (but see also the comment there from the proprietor of the blog Libertarians For Barack Obama).

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*Apparently I need to clarify this point: Roberts replaced Rehnquist, not Stevens or Ginsburg. Regarding Kelo, the only constitutional issues that are at stake, today, are substantive due process and "civil liberties during the War on Terror." And on those fronts, libertarians cannot afford two more Roberts or Alitos. See my previous post.

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As a consolation prize and apology for no major blogpost about my (non-)vote, here's a Kip Clip.

Previously:
–A Stitch in Haste Withholds Presidential Endorsement (2004)
–Two-Party System: Where Lies True "Happiness"?
–Quo Vadis, Libertarians?
–Is "Gridlock" a Good Enough Reason to Vote for McCain?

I find it hilarious that some radical Christians, in the U.S. and throughout the world, are growing increasingly disturbed about the impact that Halloween is having on young, impressionable, pre-Christian minds.

Just like how Harry Potter is going to turn children into Satanists (or, worse, Wiccans).

The truth is that Halloween is a patently Christian celebration (although, like many Christian holidays, it happens to coincide with pagan harvest celebrations).

In fact, Halloween was once so important a part of Christian ritual that it even played an indirect role in American politics.

The only reason we have Halloween ("All Hallows Eve") is because of All Saints Day ("All Hallows Day"), a Roman Catholic holiday that falls on November 1st. Like Fat Tuesday (and Mardi Gras) before Lent, Halloween began as a preparatory celebration in anticipation of All Saints Day.

Today, All Saints Day is not a major religious holiday and not at all a secular event the way Christmas and Easter are. But such was not the case in the early days of the Republic. In fact, so important was All Saints Day that Congress intentionally designated Election Day to be "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November" rather than simply "the first Tuesday in November." They wanted to ensure that Election Day would never fall on All Saints Day, which would keep people from the polls. (They also feared that merchants would stay home on November 1st to perform their end-of-month bookkeeping.)

Fast-forward to the modern era. We now witness yet another classic example of fundamentalist Christian legerdemain: A Christian-inspired bit of harmless fun is suddenly neither Christian nor harmless. Just like how the United States is a "Christian nation," except when Jews are within earshot, in which case we magically transform into a "Judeo-Christian" nation (or whatever). Anti-gay discrimination is "only about marriage" — except when it isn't. And so on.

Now that's spooky.

More on the history of Halloween here and of All Saints Day here. More on the history of Election Day here.

Have fun.

For those who need an alternative, try Dogs Rule Day.

And if you're a heterosexual cat lover — well, too bad.