Re: The “tea parties” today:

There will be no tea-dumping in the Potomac River — that’s illegal — but organizers of today’s national tea party tax protest found out this morning that so is their plan to dump a million tea bags in Lafayette Square to demonstrate displeasure at government spending and tax policies.

Protesters, using a rented truck to haul the million tea bags, began unloading their cargo at the park this morning but were told by officials that they didn’t have proper permits and must move the tea. They complied with the order but are still considering what to do with the load…

The protesters got more bad news this morning when security officials also told them that they did not have proper permits for a rally in front of the Treasury building.

Samuel Adams would have dumped the tea, man. I suspect wherever he is, he’s doing a bit of snerking right about now.

Here in the US, at least; I don’t know how you crazy people in other countries do it.

The damage this year:

Federal: Got back a whopping refund due to overestimation of what we’d owe this year, and immediately ploughed it back into the IRS, because when you’re self-employed, you have quarterly estimates due on top of anything else you owe. Yes, being self-employed sucks sometimes. But at least it’s coming out of money the IRS already had, rather than from the bank account.

State and local: Owed negligible amounts, paid without complaint.

In all, fairly painless.

You?