But still, it beats workin’.

In other news, we all know the Bush Tax Cuts are due to expire in January. The Obama Coterie is looking for ways to extend the tax cuts, but only for some of us. If you earn more than $250K a year, you’re pretty much hosed. His Obamaness wants to re-impose pre-Bush taxes on people in that group.

Yeah, here we go again with the “tax cuts for the wealthy” crap. Look, wealth generates wealth. Sure, the people that have the dough to invest get a return on their money, but what’s wrong with that? THIS IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY!!! The money they’re investing is creating jobs (a hellava lot faster than unemployment checks and “stimulus” money) and adding an extra tax burden to the people who are doing the investing (READ: Risking their wealth) means one and only one thing: They won’t be investing as much.

Plus, what do you think these people are doing with the returns on their investments? Unless they’re stuffing mattresses with it, it goes right back into the economy as… investments. Sure, they avoid a tax burden by doing this, but think about it for a minute. Would you rather have that dough flow straight back into the economy or would you prefer a chunk of it detour through the federal government to be spent in some of the most inefficient, idiotic ways possible?

I just hope when the midterm elections are done, we’ll have a congress that’s more interested in sticking to its Constitutional mandate than trying to change it.

Yeah, I know. Monkeys could fly out of my butt too.

In other news, I don’t understand some people on Facebook.

Why on earth would you seek out someone that:

• You’ve not in any way interacted with for more than 17 years,
  
• who hated your guts back then,
  
• because you made their job a living hell,
  
• with your Napoleon complex?
  

No, hell no, Chuckie. The only thing I want to hear about you is that you got hit by a bus, lived long enough to taste your own blood and then got eaten by bears.

Facebook is great for staying connected to your previous lives, but damn, this is sure one I don’t want to think about. No, no, Chuckie, go kill yourself.

But thanks, now I’m all pissed off. Here we go!

In local news, the Billings school district has asked voters to approve a couple of bond proposals totaling $12 million. Supposedly, this will bring in some kind of matching “stimulus” money from the feds. It’s unclear to me how this is supposed to be paid back, but it sounds an awfully lot like my taxes will go up.

As I understand it, bonds have got to be PAID BACK and other than giving taxpayers the bill, I don’t see who else is gonna get stuck with the sack.

Yes, I too have come to view this school district as something of a black hole into which we pour money that seems to disappear. I mean come on, they’re talking about $128 Billion in deferred maintenance costs. How the heck do you rack up that much? If a roof needs replaced, what happened to the money that’s budgeted FOR maintenance like this?

It’s not like things never break or wear out. With the possible exception of chopped, frozen spinach, everyone knows this. I wanna know what they’ve been spending the maintenance budget on if not maintenance.

So the ballot says what the dough is to be spent on. I got a sneaking hunch that there’s gonna be some smoke-and-mirrors accounting here and a good chunk of it will go to salary increases. Call it a “spider sense” kind of feeling

To put it bluntly, I don’t trust the school board. I’ve never quite forgiven them for not crushing the union when they went out on strike a few years back.

Yeah, I’m mostly anti-union, but I am mega-anti-teachers-union. I hold the NEA and other, sundry teachers unions responsible for the decline in our nation’s eduction. They have fought at every turn, the ONE thing that will ensure quality education in our public school systems, that being a performance-based system to determine pay and advancement. At present, you just have to not get fired in order to eventually move into the next highest pay bracket. You don’t have to add value, you just have to do enough to not get canned.

Some would argue that experience adds value and I would agree, if experience ALWAYS yields a better teacher. Going back to my high school days, the absolute worst teachers I had were the most experienced. Even though my youngest graduated just a couple years ago, I’ve had to go toe-to-toe with some of her and her sibling’s teachers over what I call overt sloth. The laziest, most incompetent teachers I had to deal with were also he most experienced.

No, until the teachers unions start getting real about performance, I”m not all that enthusiastic about wanting their pay increased. But it’ll be increased as long as Billings has a gutless, and (to the tune of $128 Million bucks) inept school board.

Enough of that. On to this week’s feature!

Thursday evening, I decreed that we shall go again to Ciao Mamba for dinner. I thought it a good idea to invite my eldest daughter and my granddaughter to accompany us, so I called and persuaded them to join us.

And it was a great idea. It’s fun, watching a 7 year-old pallet develop. At first, she wanting nothing to do with the Italian Nachos. They looked nothing like the nachos she’s used to, so she wasn’t about to try them. I got her to try one, dipped in the sauce and that was all it took . She plowed into them like a small, blond badger going through a prairie dog town. We finally had to cut her off because even the kid portion of spaghetti is formidable to say the least.

When presented with her bowl of spaghetti, we were immediately back to “this isn’t the way I’m used to” but again, a bit of bit of urging was all it took. She tore into it and i was beginning to wonder if she’d ever eaten before. By the time she came up for air, just a few strands of pasta were left in the bottom of her bowl. She then finished off the rest of the nachos.

My daughter had the Quattro Formaggio Ravioli (four-cheese) in a garlic marina sauce and proclaimed it to be excellent all the way around. Good enough to recommend that we get a go-order to take to her sister when she got off work. I was tempted to sneak a bite. It looked and smelled incredible.

The wife and I had Fettuccini alla Rustica, mine sans the chicken. It was as usual excellent. The aged parmesan cream sauce is awesome and works quiet well with shrimp.

This time, I pushed it back about halfway through, because I was looking forward to desert and my granddaughter’s reaction to it.

Zeppolis are balls of pizza dough, fried and dusted with powered sugar. They come with a variety of dipping sauces and are one of the things I can make myself sick eating. The wife and I have tried to get through an order by ourselves, but never have. Again, my granddaughter was skeptical, but was soon spearing, dipping and eating the morsels at a brisk and steady pace.

Our server was a new gal named Alia and she was marvelous in every aspect. It’s obvious that this joint is serious about the customer experience. From the time we walked in until we waddled out, we were treated like royalty. It’s great to have excellent cooks and excellent serving staff. Thanks for a most enjoyable supper and you can bet the ranch we’ll be regulars.

That’s it for this Monday. If you have to work today, I bummed out for you. Have a great day anyway. If you’re off today, be safe, have fun and you can, take it easy – you have to work tomorrow.

Speaking of which, tune in tomorrow for another Story Time where we finally get to the bottom of the Texas Toast Incident.