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Jack Bruce - Scottish bass player, lead singer, harmonica.
Eric Clapton - considered the best guitarist of his time.
Ginger Baker - Cockney, considered legendary as the best drummer of his time.
Unsurprisingly, they coalesced. For two years. As Cream.
And they managed to influence rock history during that time.
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It's been several months since I mailed in my tax forms and was subsequently hit with a "failure to file" claim (note: send those things in by certified mail). Apparently, they lost the forms. So by their reckoning, I owed $10,250 plus penalties.
Welp, this whole thing has been a barrel of laughs. From the look of things, they lost the forms but somehow found the check, which was in the correct amount of $5,129. So I sent them the forms again. Over the ensuing months, they determined that I owed them a one-dollar penalty - but they owe me several thousand dollars, which they say that they will refund at some point next month.
They will deduct my one-dollar penalty from the refund. I thought about fighting that, too - after all, it's not my fault that they managed to lose the paperwork - but there comes a time when you just have to say "screw it".
At least it seems to be winding down.
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The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a southern Oregon couple must quiet their incessantly barking dogs by sending them to the vet to have their voices surgically squelched.
That seems a bit extreme; there's this process known as "training" with which the dog owners are evidently unfamiliar. The owners claim that they need half a dozen Mastiffs to protect the sheep on their 3.5-acre "farm", but heck, I used to get by with just one on identical acreage. On the other hand, I trained him to not bark all the time. His job was to guard the livestock, not to annoy the neighbors. Those owners are either lazy, stupid, or both.
Dog training's pretty easy; it's not exactly rocket science. If they can't figure it out, they should either hire someone who can, or re-home the dogs.
And what kind of idiots figure they need six dogs to guard 3.5 acres? No wonder the untrained dogs are bored. One dog can cover that kind of area just fine. I know people with 20 acres and two dogs; works for them.
Hmm. Makes me wonder if we could expand the law to include loud neighbors....
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In Oregon, that's a foreign concept. "Amy" Laing is now 25 years old and is suing Tri-Met for nearly $25 million because she lost a leg above the knee after walking in front of a train while wearing earbuds and a hoodie two years ago.
Give me a break.
I'm no fan of the former transit agency (now a development agency), but there's no way that her obliviousness is somehow their fault. The bells on the road crossing right next to where she was walking at the time are quite loud, there are flashing lights, and the horn - which was sounded - on the train is very loud as well. Hope that the tunes she was blasting through her earbuds were worth losing a leg over.
It's unfortunate that the Kitchen Kaboodle boutique employee walked into the path of an oncoming light rail car, and one can empathize with her loss - but taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for the results of her self-absorbed behavior.
When bad things happen, it's often not the fault of somebody else.
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SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah's alcohol control authority has leveled a fine against a Catholic church for violating a state liquor law.
Well, it's never a good idea to tick off the Mormons.
Looks like the church of John the Baptist is going to need to tighten things up a bit.
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California Highway Patrol - Oakland reports:
This morning a couple of our officers stopped a doe for toll evasion, on the Bay Bridge. She said she usually pays it, but today she was a buck short.
To be honest, I suspect most people get that same look on their faces when they notice that CHP is behind them....
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As if residents didn't have enough to worry about, guests keep arriving. Venomous guests. And alligators. And mold. Oh, and raw sewage in many cases. During the flood of 96 here, one couple of friends who lived near the Willamette River were treated to geysers of raw sewage spewing from toilets and drains. By the way, insurance won't cover that unless you've purchased a specific rider.
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Yesterday’s Klan is today’s Antifa. In other words, yet again for the umpteenth time in the history of the American Left, it has turned to violence. And just as the paramilitary and hooded Ku Klux Klan was used as, per Columbia University historian Eric Foner, “a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party” and, according to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease, the “terrorist arm of the Democratic Party,” so now the hooded- fascists of Antifa are being used as a paramilitary organization designed to further the Left’s political agenda by force.
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Sorry might not cut it for the Missouri lawmaker who called for President Trump’s assassination.
Missouri Senate leaders announced Tuesday that Democratic state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal has been stripped of her committee assignments, just two days after she tried to calm the controversy with a public apology.
The move reflects the erosion of support Chappelle-Nadal has seen ever since she posted on Facebook last week: "I hope Trump is assassinated!"
These Left-oriented politicians just don't seem to get it. You don't post stuff like that and expect to get away with it. I don't like Barry, but I've never called for him to be harmed, much less killed. People like Maria are just idiots.
Now there's an effort afoot to expel her from the state Senate, and the Secret Service is looking into her action. What the heck did she think was going to happen? Well, it's probably unrealistic to accuse her of thinking. She believed that she could just say "sorry" and everything would be fine?
That'd probably fly out here on the west coast, but not so much in the Midwest.
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This is what the guy's hand looked like for a decade:
A medical team at Jerusalem’s Hadassah University Medical Center, Ein Kerem, has cured a Gaza man of a skin condition so rare that treatment is not listed in medical textbooks. Gaza resident Mohammed Taluli, 42, had suffered with the condition for more than 10 years but was unable to find successful medical treatment.
The disease is extremely contagious, so special precautions had to be put into place to prevent further contamination. The medical team removed all tissue from the hand and grafted on skin from other body parts. He's extremely grateful that after a decade of suffering and hiding, he can begin once again to resume a normal life.
Of course, being in Gaza, that normal life probably involves shooting rockets into Israel....
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