2001-03-13 - 11:25pm

Who's Who Cheat Sheet
Who I Read UPDATED YESTERDAY -- one libertarian link was missing due to faulty HMTL, so check again.

On the internal soundtrack: "Depuis Toujours", Francis Cabrel's cover of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long"

A small anecdote from yesterday's skate that I forgot to mention:

While I was limping back from L'Enfant Plaza, I got stuck at a red light at the corner of E and 15th. After openly staring at the pair of military folks in their dress uniforms next to me for a while (mostly I was awestruck at their strict neatness and the shininess of their shoes), I started looking around a bit. It was a long light.

I saw a hand-written sign on the sidewalk that said, "Take your picture with the President". I looked around for the cardboard cutouts they were using, found a break in the the people milling about, and saw ... Bill Clinton.

I wondered if this was some kind of political statement. Bush isn't really our President! As it turns out, he did have Dubya and Laura cutouts there as well; there were people in the way so I didn't see them at first.

Clinton lovers, in some corners of the world, he's still president and you can still have your picture taken with him.

Poindexter mentioned the other night that it's nice for conservatives to have Clinton to hate as vehemently as the liberals hate Ronald Reagan. Evens things out a little.

I got two book recommendations from Tino. One is about a socialist utopia (Looking Backward), the other is about a libertarian utopia (Snow Crash). Should be interesting to contrast the two.

So, it's something of a resolution of mine to give at least one letter of feedback/commentary for the sites I frequent the most. I'm slowly making my way down the list. I tend to put this off because it's really difficult to do to my satisfaction. Sometimes it's hard to pin your finger on exactly what I like; other times it's hard to find the right words to say, "You're a great writer! I love your style! You have so many good ideas!"

But I have to say, it's SO worth doing it. If for no other reason than people really, really appreciate knowing how much you enjoy their site. I dropped a quick note to someone this morning who provides me with my daily Ewan McGregor fix and she was so pleased to get the mail. Let's face it, we're all attention 'ho's to an extent, putting this stuff up for public consumption.

(The Grammar Geek interrupts: What the hell is the proper plural for "ho"? It's a contraction in the first place. Is it just "hos"? That doesn't look right.)

Best of all, sometimes you get MORE commentary out of them! Over the last couple of weeks, I wrote fan letters to Kevin and Tino. I told them some of my favorite stuff on their sites, asked a few questions, and in reply I heard a whole bunch more interesting opinions and ideas from them. And they've been kind enough to read my own chaotic ramblings and questioning and give me more food for thought about those. It's an information junkie/fledgling philosopher's heaven.

Heh, and I just got an e-mail from Gnomie, who, despite being of the liberal persuasion, doesn't think I'm a complete raving lunatic with all the gun business. :) She wrote in reply to some comments I had praising her two most recent journal entries, and, you guessed it, she gave me MORE commentary related to those entries.

Yippee!

Speaking of guns, if anyone's interested in seeing a picture of me aiming Brent's (unloaded) Glock at the floor, with a rifle across my lap, let me know and I'll e-mail it to you. I don't *look* like a tough broad who packs heat, but there I am, so the picture amuses me.

Well, we finally got around to doing our tax returns. We're getting a refund that's about 5% of our gross income, so Poindexter is planning to go shopping. Since we had huge deductions because of the house, we also calculated how much federal income tax we actually paid. It was only about 14%, so Poindexter is beside himself with joy at having paid the least amount of taxes since he's been a working adult.

Me, I get upset because I think it's unfair to renters. I'd rather be renting a studio in the city.

Also, I'm too worried that I screwed up the numbers to leap about with joy, myself. I'm a nervous nelly where the law is concerned, particularly the IRS.

I should check out what kind of tax cut I can expect if Bush's thing goes through. We might get a couple thousand.

Y'know, I would like to point out two things that really irritate me about the whole tax thing (aside from the fact that I have to pay them, that is):

1. People say stuff like, "Well, I only save $200 under the Bush plan. That's not much. I could do without that."

First, if you can do without it, then give it to charity! Hell, give it directly to someone who needs it, like the next homeless person you see! It'll help them more than any government payment would because no one's taking out 75% of it for bureaucratic costs!

Second, a tax cut is not about how much YOU get. It's about having more disposable income in the country as a whole. Those rich people who are getting so much money back are most likely to either put that money back into their business (possibly creating more jobs), give it to charity, or spend it on products and services provided by middle-class folks. I went on a rant about where rich people's money goes in this entry. Money being used to produce is always a good thing.

2. The bad math some people are using has me apoplectic. Remember I look at statistics all day long, and I know how people manipulate them and mislead with them.

One of my favorite misuses of statistics was by some columnist in the Delray paper: She said that a single man who earns $100,000 saves $3000, or something like that, but a man who supports a wife and 2 children and earns $18,000 a year "gets no tax savings".

Poor guy, huh? He got screwed.

Think about this for a minute. $18,000, three dependents. The standard deduction for married filing jointly is $7350 this year. Then the dad and mom each get a $2800 exemption, plus $2800 exemption for each dependent. Let's do the math:

$7350 + ($2800*4) = $18,550

His exemptions are more than his income; he NEVER HAD TO PAY TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

Ahem. Sorry. I said I get apoplectic.

Another one that annoys me, but not quite so much as that one, is when people say that the richest 1% of the people get, say, 45% of the tax cut. Technically, yes, but they're being misleading. What they're leaving out is the fact that that those same 1% of the people PAID 45% or more of all the taxes in the first place! They're getting back a proportionate amount to what they paid! Maybe you don't LIKE the fact that these people have more money than we do, but that doesn't mean we're entitled to their portion of the tax cut.

Sigh.

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