Fixing the AMT

Remember back when I said that the alternative minimum tax sucks? Before I started saying crazy shit like if it were the only tax system, it might be okay, since it would be kinda like a flat tax?

Lucky for us, the Post reports that the Democrats were listening.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the presumptive chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, this week put fixing the AMT at the top of his agenda, calling it far more urgent than dealing with President Bush's request to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in 2010.

Here's some background:

The complex and expensive tax was designed to prevent the super-rich from using deductions, credits and other shelters to avoid paying the Internal Revenue Service. But because of rising incomes, the tax is expected to expand to more than 30 million taxpayers in 2010 from 3.8 million mostly well-off households in 2006.

***

In simple terms, the AMT is sort of a flat tax with two brackets, 26 and 28 percent, and fewer deductions. Credits for dependents, medical expenses, and state and local taxes are all disallowed. Instead, taxpayers get a single big deduction, called the AMT exemption, which is set this year at $62,550 for married couples and $42,500 for singles. Taxpayers must compute their taxes both ways and pay whichever is higher.

***

By 2010, "the AMT will become the de facto tax system for filers in the $200,000 to $500,000 income range, 94 percent of whom will face the tax," according to a report by the Tax Policy Center. About half of tax filers making $75,000 to $100,000 will have to pay the tax, including 89 percent of married couples in that income bracket who have at least two children.

In the past, Congress has patched the AMT one year at a time, primarily by increasing the exemption amount. Next year, to hold the number of affected taxpayers steady at about 4 million, the patch would cost about $50 billion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention how the Democrats have any sort of cohesive plan to fix this problem.

Movie recommendation

Stranger Than Fiction is the best movie I have seen in a long time. It is smart, funny, tragic, silly, and interesting.

Go see it.

Now.

Yet another crazy lunch story

Since I'm not exactly getting peppered with questions, I've decided to devote a couple minutes to writing about my most recent lunchtime controversy.

Yesterday, I had a quick appointment in between Farragut West and Foggy Bottom. I decided that I'd walk there and back, and grab lunch along the way back to my office, since the weather was divine -- probably for the last time until next Spring.

Plus, it seemed like an excellent day to walk down by the White House.

So, on the way back, I stopped to grab a sandwich at Cosi, as I am wont to do. I decided, fat and calories be damned, I was going to try the Turkey Bacon Cheddar Melt. I ordered, and specifically asked them to hold the honey mustard (I hate mustard) and to put the sandwich on the new Etruscan whole-wheat bread.

During the fifteen-minute walk back to my office with the sandwich, I was so excited about that sandwich. The Cosi next door to my office has been closed for so long that I had almost forgotten how good their bread tastes.

I got back to my office, grabbed a Diet Coke, and finally sat down at my desk to eat my sandwich. Of course, it was absolutely drenched in honey mustard.

I called the Cosi, and at first, they were uncooperative. They said that I could walk down there and get a replacement sandwich. I explained that the whole process would take at least a half-hour of my time, which was unacceptable. They offered to have a sandwich sent out to me, if I waited until after the lunch rush was over -- but they had no idea what time that would be. I reluctantly agreed, and was transferred to a manager.

Of course, the manager chose a different route. She unilaterally decided that it would not be possible to deliver a sandwich to me, no matter how long I was willing to wait. Instead, she said that my next four sandwiches at that location would be free. She took my name, e-mail address, and other information, and promised me that she would send me something to confirm ASAP.

I gave the sandwich to one of the newbies in the office, and then went downstairs to Au Bon Pain to get a Thai Chicken Salad. As always, it was perfectly okay, but it just wasn't what I wanted.

It's about 30 hours later, and I still haven't received any e-mail from Cosi. The bastards.

Ask Dara Anything! Round 3

It's a quiet holiday Friday around here. So, to amuse myself, I thought I'd sponsor another round of "Ask Dara Anything!"

It's exactly what it sounds like. The rules are simple: Just post your question in the comments section, and I'll answer it.

Awesome awesomeness

If you haven't seen it yet, check out The Daily Show's cartoon about Midterm Elections. It's full of awesome-y goodness.

History of Dara, part 6

I was looking through some papers yesterday, and stumbled across a two chapter attempt at writing my autobiography. It was written right around the time I graduated from college. In retrospect, I clearly had no business writing an autobiography at that point in my life, but I had a couple tales to tell. Plus, my last semester was a summer semester, and my roommate left after the first six-week session, so I had a lot of time to kill. I'm going to save the chapter on my telemarketing jobs for a later date, but here's the chapter about my trip to Paris. Enjoy.

The summer after my first year of college, I went on a study abroad program in London. This program also included a four-day trip to Paris. I was so excited to be going to Paris that I did not accurately prepare for the trip. I forgot my French-to-English dictionary, I packed all the wrong clothes, and I left my umbrella in my flat. Coincidentally, all it did was rain while I was there.

The first thing I noticed as I stepped off the bus was that Paris smelled. "But hey!" I thought to myself, "This is Paris -- the city of love, the city of light! Who cares if it smells? This is a historical, important place."

I went into the hotel to check-in and unpack. After this, I had some time left before I had to be anywhere, so I decided to find a bookstore and buy another dictionary. I left the hotel, and wandered into a small boutique around the corner. I walked up to the salesman. "Excuse-moi," I said oh-so-politely. "Je nes parles pas Français bien. Parlez-vous Anglais?"

The salesman looked at me as if I were a total moron. "Of course I speak English," the man said rudely, in a perfect British accent.

"Thank you," I whispered, and I turned around and walked back to the hotel, where I sat in my room and cried for twenty minutes. My friends practically had to drag me out of my room that afternoon.

Eventually, I was able to leave my room and go see the sights. I eventually bought that dictionary, which came in quite useful.

I had packed clothing for warm weather, however, my entire trip was cloudy and cold. So I bought quite a number of t-shirts to wear with my one pair of jeans that I had with me. The problem was the rain. My only shoes that I had in Paris were an old ratty pair of sneakers with holes in the heels. My feet were wet for four days. I thought that I was bound to come down with pneumonia.

The entire time we were there, the rain just got worse. On the night we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower in order to get an aerial view of the city's lights, there was a thunderstorm. The winds were so strong on the top level that I kept getting blown into the railings. The storm got too violent, and we had to be sent down. Then my friends and I got to walk through the twisting streets of Paris, trying to find our way back to our hotel.

The next night, in order to celebrate the end of our trip, my friends and I decided to go out to a "nice" dinner. We found a restaurant that looked appealing and went inside. We were seated and proceeded to order. The group of us decided that it would be a good experience to try some French wine. We looked at the wine list, and as everything was unrecognizable, we randomly selected a name. When the bottle came to the table, we were shocked. It was a California Chardonnay. We couldn't stop laughing about it all night, or even the next day, as we started our journey back to London.

On other people's writing

It's a literature-type day on the blog. Mostly to make up for all the politics-type days of the past few weeks.

First, thanks to Boing Boing, check out these two sites posting reviews where people trash talk about classic works of literature.

• First: Defective Yeti. Examples of the brilliance found here are include some brilliant mind compared The Great Gatsby to Beverly Hills 90210, and his intellectual equal decreeing that 1984 is no longer relevant due to the fall of communism. (Had to get a little politics in there, heh heh.)
• Second: Charlie's Diary. Here, a chronologically challenged person took issue with Romeo and Juliet because it was similar to other stories.

Fun for the whole family.

And here, thanks to Minijonb, I give you a literary meme.

1. One book that changed your life: 1984 (George Orwell). I loved the book, loved the story, loved everything about it. It made me want to be a writer. More importantly, it made me start questioning my government, which, in theory, made me a better citizen, and by extension, a better person.
2. One book that you'd read more than once: Is this past tense or future tense? If past, then Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell), which I read like a hundred times. If future, then, the book I most need to read again is Generation X (Douglas Coupland).
3. One book you'd want on a deserted island: Ulysses (James Joyce) -- because if I have all that time, I might as well be productive and figure out a way to get through it.
4. One book that made you laugh: A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess). Mostly because of the strange slang dialect -- which I often found myself having to re-read out loud.
5. One book that made you cry: Waterland (Graham Swift). Read this book! Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
6. One book you wish you'd written: Hell, I just wish I wrote my own book already. But probably Waterland, since I'm not hip enough to have written Generation X or High Fidelity (Nick Hornsby).
7. One book you wish had never been written: This is hard, because I'm of the view that all books have their purpose. But, for the record, I didn't like Catch 22 (Joseph Heller) at all.
8. One book you're currently reading: Henderson the Rain King (Saul Bellow). It's the latest from my list, and I'm about halfway finished.
9. One book you've been meaning to read: Ulysses. See #3 above. But I've tried, honest. It's just so hard.
10. Tag five people: That would be rude. Besides, this blog is all about free will. But hopefully, five people will play along.

On writing

When I started this little blog project nine months ago, I mostly intended it as a place for me to vent my frustrations and post things that I would otherwise send to people in annoying e-mails. I had no idea that it would remind me of how much I love to write.

The problem is, I have this thing called a job.

Anyway, for those who haven't been paying attention, November is National Novel Writing Month. And, while I haven't actually signed up for the challenge, it has inspired me to write more. I'm not sure where (or if) it's going -- I only have about 650 words so far.*

See, one of the downsides of this job thingie is that I generally work really long hours. So the only time I have to write is when I get home from work. But when I get home, I usually need to relax, find something to eat, check out what's on the telly, and unwind for a little bit first. Since I've started with my project, I've managed to find a tiny bit of time to write, late at night, just around midnight. As a result, I go to sleep late, wake up late, rush in to work late, and proceed on with my very lawyery day.

Still, 650 words is pretty good, right? Although, maybe it's better suited to Jason's alternative writing challenge. I'll reassess towards the end of the month.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon, I stumbled across this awesome site, Ruined Music, where people tell real life stories about how a song is ruined for them.

Yeah, you know where this is going. I stayed up late night last night to write one. It's about 400 words. I started writing it out by hand -- like I hadn't done since I was a kid -- during Lost, and e-mailed it in at about 1:30.

I'll keep y'all posted if they publish it.



*662 as of this morning! Hooray!

The fallout begins

Just days after saying that he thought Rumsfeld and should stay to the end of his term, President Bush announced today that Rumsfeld is stepping down.

Fresh from the Post:

The development occurred one day after midterm elections that cost Republicans control of the House, and possibly the Senate, as well. Surveys of voters at polling places said opposition to the war was a significant contributor to the Democratic victory.

Bush described Rumsfeld as a "superb leader" in a time of change, but said his defense chief recognizes the value of "fresh perspective." He said Rumsfeld is a "trusted adviser and friend," and that he's "deeply grateful" for his service to the country. Bush said he and Rumsfeld agreed that "the timing is right for new leadership" at the Pentagon.

Disappointment

Oh, Virginia.

You disappoint me. Just when it looked like you were getting over the redneck ass-backwards southern thing by electing two moderate Democratic governors back to back, and possibly even ousting George Allen, you have to go and overwhelmingly support an homophobic initiative that doesn't just prohibit gay marriage -- it prevents any type of civil union.

Boy, was Gene Weingarten right this morning when he noted that you declared yourself the "state of sanctimonious bigotry."

And to those Democrats and independents that supported the amendment but voted for Jim Webb: What are you thinking? You should be ashamed.

Seriously.

You know it's official when it's on CNN

In what can only be described as a death knell to family values, CNN reports that Britney and Kevin are divorcing.

TMZ.com reports that Spears filed legal papers Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing "irreconcilable differences." Spears is asking for legal and physical custody of their two children, 1-year-old Sean Preston and 2-month-old Jayden James.

The date of separation was listed as Monday.

While I question CNN's decision to quote TMZ as an official source, they published the actual papers, which must mean it's true.

How not to behave at your polling place

If you haven't voted yet, you still have time. Just don't do this:

A man who reportedly believed Republicans were conspiring to steal today's election entered an Allentown polling site, signed in and proceeded to smash the screen of one of the electronic voting machines with a metal cat paperweight, poll volunteers said.

Alas, it was to no avail:

Lehigh County Board of Elections Chief Clerk Stacy J. Sterner said votes recorded on the machine were saved. More than 130 people had voted at the site by the time of the incident."The good news is that even though the machine is broken, the votes are not lost on the memory card. They have them in custody at the voter registration office," Sterner said.

Slow news day

Since there's clearly no important local or national news today (*cough *cough), the über-hip and trendy (*cough *cough) Washington Post has an article about the dangers of the new (*cough *cough) trends: body piercing and tattoos.

I mean, who knew you could get an infection?

Um. Most people.

Disclaimer: I have five regular earrings, and a piercing in the cartilage of my left ear. I used to have two more earrings. And, once upon a time, I had a belly-button ring -- way back before I had to wear suits and hose to work, subjecting myself to infection. One of my siblings has other piercings, and both of my siblings have tattoos. (Note: It's not true that they can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery.)

People, it's not that big a deal. You did dumb stuff when you were a teenager/in your early twenties. Kids still do dumb stuff. It's not newsworthy. Move on.

Just for the record

I voted today -- surprise, surprise. (And not just because Justin told me to.)



The whole process took about an hour, but I feel pretty good about it. My opinion might change, however, if the proposed Marshall-Newman Amendment passes.

Here's the text:

Shall Article I (the Bill of Rights) of the Constitution of Virginia be amended to state:

“That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.

This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”?

Forget about George Allen, bond initiatives, or any of the other crap. Forget about being pro-choice, or pro-life, and what that means with regard to stem cell research. Even if you disagree with homosexuality in general, this amendment is offensive. Not only is it offensive because of the homophobic undertones, but it's offensive because the language is so overly-broad that some court somewhere could interpret it as making contractual agreements between unmarried persons that involve some right typically associated with marriage invalid.*

Oh, and let's not forget that it defies the principle of comity.

See, one of the things that works so well is that governments have this understanding by which they're supposed to recognize the validity of other government's laws, in a "You don't tell us what to do, we won't tell you what to do either." That's why if you get married on a whim in Vegas, you're still married when you get back home. So, with this amendment, Virginia is saying that they'll refuse to recognize unions that are perfectly legitimate in the place where they occurred.


*I think there's a good basis for an equal protection challenge on this basis. I mean, what exactly is the legitimate governmental purpose behind the law, and how exactly does the provision accomplish that purpose?

New additions

Some people blog about their pets; I blog about my shoes. Meet the new additions to the family:





Via Target and Kenneth Cole, respectively.

Pop Culture Litmus Test

I saw Interview's Pop Culture test today (thanks Gawker!).


I am astounded that I can only identify ten of them without resorting to Google or Wikipedia. Therefore, I've concluded that Interview is way out of my league.

Accordingly, I've decided that I ought to come up with my own Pop Culture reference test. Possible candidates from recent blog posts include:

• George Allen
• Stephen Baldwin
• Charles Barkley
• Bono
• Tim Burton
• Kirk Cameron
• Naomi Campbell
• Neko Case
• Eric Dane
• Patrick Dempsey
• Devo
• Ted Haggard
• Logan Echolls
• Tina Fey
• Mark Foley
• Kinky Friedman
• Lorelai Gilmore
• Jeffrey, Michael, Uli & Laura
• Alex P. Keaton
• Jimmy Kimmel
• Michael Kors
• Rush Limbaugh
• Richard Linklater
• Dave Navarro
• Chris O'Donnell
• O.K. Go
• Matthew Perry
• Ryan Phillipe
• Trent Reznor
• Santino Rice
• Alex Rodriguez
• Al Sharpton
• Slash & Axl
• Wesley Snipes
• Jeff Suppan
• Bill Watterson
• Jim Webb
• Gene Weingarten
• E.B. White
• Bradley Whitford
• Wegmans
• Michelle Williams

Scoring: If you can't identify the majority of these names, then clearly, this blog is not for you.

Thought for a Monday morning

This was in my mailbox this morning, and it sums it up perfectly.



Sigh.

Football and politics

Since this story is about local politics, it's been overlooked by the press here in DC, but I think it's one of the most interesting stories to come out of the election.

According to the article, the mother of New Orleans Saints' quarterback Drew Brees is a judge running for reelection -- and he is upset about her using his image in her commercials. Equally interesting is that they apparently had a falling out, over his not hiring her as his agent.

This has not, however, had any effect on the Saints' season.

Religious/Political Question of the Day

For all the evangelicals out there reading this -- help me get this right: Crystal meth and gay prostitutes are ok, but gay marriage is not?

And let's not get into the dispute about the difference between "sex" and "massage" in this circumstance -- it veers dangerously close to Bill Clinton territory.

A letter

Dear Curt Cloninger:

How are we supposed to take your theory that Guns N' Roses Sweet Child O' Mine represents "the voice of your generation" seriously when you can't even get the lyrics right?

You wrote:

Its lyrics tell of an escapist teen love. I imagine the song's subject, "Sweet Child," wearing ripped jeans and several Cyndi Lauper bracelets, our narrator picking her up in the back of the trailer park in his green Impala, and they cruise to Makeout Point.

As the lyrics go, Axl Rose sings, "I'm just sitting here staring at your hair, and it's reminding me of a warm, safe place where as a child I'd hide." I can see them embracing tenderly, and going to shoplift a six-pack of Schaefer. So far, so good.

No Mr. Cloninger, not good at all. See, the lyrics actually go "She's got eyes of the bluest skies/As if they thought of rain/I hate to look into those eyes/And see an ounce of pain/Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place/Where as a child I'd hide/And pray for the thunder/And the rain/To quietly pass me by."

And any girl seriously listening to that song would have been way over "Cyndi Lauper bracelets."

Write what you know, sir. And clearly, you don't know Guns N' Roses.