The Tax Man Cometh

Um, if you're not interested in tax policy, you just may want to move on to a different post. Go ahead, I won't mind. If you are interested in hearing my questions about Obama's tax plan, click "read more."



Ok, so for those of you still with me, here's the basic issue. Obama wants to increase taxes on the upper levels of the tax bracket. Fine.

However, I suspect that when Obama's tax plan goes into place, companies will merely increase the salary of management and executives so that their after-tax dollars are the same as before the tax revision took effect. In turn, this increase in salary would be paid for by increasing prices for consumers and/or cutting jobs. This would, in effect, set the tax burden firmly back on the shoulders of the middle and working classes. This is because the lower income earners would have to pay more or lose their jobs, thereby undermining the purpose of the tax plan - namely to shift a greater share of the burden to the upper levels of the tax bracket and alleviate financial strain on the lower brackets.

So here's my question: what safeguards are available to prevent that from happening? Surely there must be some combination of carrots and sticks available to prevent my hypothetical from happening. Otherwise, we're basically asking wealthy people to make a charitable donation - please pay more taxes out of your own pocket, and don't shift the cost to the lower classes. Please. Pretty please.

The only solution I can think of is indirectly tying the corporate tax system to the personal income tax system. Here's the idea: increase personal taxes on the upper tax bracket as planned. Simultaneously, increase corporate taxes, but offer a tax break for those companies that maintain upper bracket salaries at previous levels, adjusted for inflation. This tax break has to be big enough to make it fiscally viable enough to keep salaries as-is. By that I mean that the corporate tax break must be sufficiently large that foregoing the tax break and increasing upper bracket salaries would equate to an irresponsible waste of profits, which would hurt shareholder value.

Thus, by offering greater profits, we incentivize companies to freeze upper bracket salaries. In turn, this hopefully minimizes the transfer of the cost of increased taxes from upper brackets to lower brackets.

Doing the mathematic modeling on this is beyond my skill level. I don't know at what rate to set the upper bracket tax hike and the corresponding corporate tax increase/tax break. At the bottom line, the new rates must be sufficient to actually raise revenue. That is, the corporate tax breaks can't offset the revenue increase from upper level tax hikes. Similarly, some percentage of companies will probably raise salaries anyway, and that must be factored in. There also has to be a tightening of loopholes that would permit corporations and upper bracket earners to hide income in tax shelters.

There's also the problem of selling this idea. It is redistributionist, no two ways about that. I'm hoping that the idea of letting corporations increase profit margins would make it easier to swallow. However, letting corporations make more money is seldom popular with voters.

Finally, there's another consideration: state and local taxes. State and local governments are also suffering under budget strains, and need to increase revenue as well. If state and local governments hike sales tax, property tax, excise tax, and state income tax, then all the work done to keep money in the hands of middle class earners will be undone because they'd be paying more in state and local tax.

This is starting to make my head hurt, and I'm sure I've committed an egregious error somewhere in my modest proposal. If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment.

In closing, I don't know how Obama sleeps at night. In fact, I think he doesn't sleep. This morning CNN ran footage of him from 2006, and he looked great. Now, he's already grayer, his face more lined, and he hasn't even raised his right hand and taken office yet. I suppose it must be hard work when one takes seriously the job of carrying the weight of the world. The end.
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A Failure To Communicate

As you probably know, Paul Newman died recently. I mentioned in my last post that America's super soldiers give off a certain air, one that makes men want to be them and women want to be with them. But the coolest cucumber in the special forces doesn't hold a candle to Mr. Newman. Classy, clever, and adept in any role in any genre. Action, sports, drama, animation - he did it all. "Cool Hand Luke" is one of the best movies ever made, and Paul Newman managed to show up Tom Cruise in "Color of Money," a feat few actors have ever done.

I've seen "Cool Hand Luke" 20+ times. One of the most famous lines in the movie belongs to the Captain, played by Strother Martin doing his best squeaky, effete Truman Capote. In the scene, Luke, Newman's character, is brought back to the chain gang after another failed attempt at escape, and the jail Captain beats Luke with a blackjack. Standing over him, the Captain says, "What we've got here is failure to communicate." Cue cinematic gold.

What the Captain was getting at, of course, was that Luke simply wasn't receiving the message he was sending - namely do your time quietly and don't make waves. The message was clear and in no uncertain terms, and the failure in this case was Luke's unwillingness to receive the message.

Sometimes, however, the message is less clear. Sometimes the message is obtuse to the point of being meaningless. Like when I was in Iraq, and I was assigned to set up a check point and detain "any vehicle with two or more Arab males in it."


'Hmm,' I thought upon receiving this mission, 'that's going to be a lot of detainees.' You see, Iraq is practically overrun with Arab males. The place is crawling with them. They also have the annoying habit of traveling two or more to a vehicle. My mission, therefore, was basically to arrest everyone.

Now as it turned out, that should not have been my mission. The actual intelligence the mission was predicated on was that two non-Iraqi Arabs who were known IED (improvised explosive devise) manufacturers were suspected of moving through our area en route to Syria. There was only one road that ran through the desert from Haditha to the border, so they would probably be on that road. We were supposed to look for two military aged males traveling with bomb-making material and no Iraqi identification. But that didn't reach my level. "What we've got here is failure to communicate." Cue disastrous mission.

I don't know where the breakdown occurred. It could have come from the intelligence officer who received the report and left out the important details. It could have been, and I believe likely was, an intentional decision by the higher-ups to cast as wide a net as possible. However, being staff weenies that never left base, they didn't realize that hundreds if not thousands of people passed down that stretch of highway everyday, and that there was no way we could possibly arrest, handle, and interrogate so many people. Nor did they realize that if we tried to do it, it would turn into such a snarling clusterfuck that the guys we actually wanted would probably spot the checkpoint and get away. Alas, I was a lowly lieutenant, what did I know? Off to the checkpoint!

Having been out on that highway quite a bit, I knew the level of traffic to expect. So I brought all 40 guys in my platoon, every humvee and truck I could get, and as much barbed wire, MREs (pre-packaged field rations), and bottled water as we could carry. My plan, you see, was to do exactly what they told me: I would stop every vehicle. I'd have each one parked on the side of the road in one area, put all vehicle occupants in a separate barbed wire ring, and give each a bottle of water so they wouldn't die of heatstroke in the 125-degree sun. I'd wait until the staff weenies called off the mission once they realized I had several hundred detainees, then I'd free everyone that wasn't an insurgent and give them an MRE by way of apology. Couldn't fail, right? I am too big to fail.

So it was noon on a sunbaked stretch of highway. The thermometer topped out at 120, but it was probably hotter (the hottest I ever saw was 135, as measured at an aviation unit's flight control center). What we were doing was extraordinarily dangerous because checkpoints are sitting targets, and insurgents were getting good at driving car-bombs into them. [FN 1] Therefore, we were in full battle rattle: helmet, body armor, armed to the teeth. And we were more than a little tense, because there's nothing like the threat of imminent demise to jangle the nerves. To top it all off, we had 75 cars parked in lines along the highway, and just over 130 furious, innocent Iraqi men, women, and children milling around a barbed-wire holding area. Did I mention we didn't have a translator? We didn't. There weren't any to be had, so, like good Americans, we just shouted in English.

We had been at the site for two hours, and I was becoming exceedingly nervous. Not only was there the threat of car bombs, but there was also the specter of having to quell a riot. We were now outnumbered 3 to 1, and if the detainees decided to rush us and leave, we'd have to start physically restraining completely innocent people. That would likely lead to someone getting shot, and I'd be responsible for innocent loss of life.

I walked from my humvee, which was parked on a slight rise so I could get radio reception, down to my platoon sergeant, Smoke. [FN 2] He was standing near our make-shift ops center, overwatching the detainees with a small detail of guards. "Enough of this," I said. "Roger that, sir," he replied. "You've gotta us the fuck outta here." "Good," I said. "What are the current numbers so I can call them in?" "134 detainees, 77 vehicles," he told me. "Alright, I'll be back," I said, and went back to my humvee.

I radioed in a sitrep (situation report), and requested further guidance.

"Stay put," the battle captain on duty said.
"We've been here over two hours, can we relocate to improve security?" I asked.
"Negative, you are to remain in position."
"Can we release the current detainees?"
"Negative."
"How about the women and children?"
"Negative, you are to retain all detainees and remain in location."
"Could you send a tank detail to beef up security?"
"Negative, all available tank units are on border security."
"Roger, anything else?"
"Negative, send sitrep if anything changes."
"Roger, Red 1 out."

So we stayed. And stayed. And stayed. And stayed. It got dark. Where before I had 130 hot and furious Iraqis, I now had 227 irate and shivering Iraqis. You see, as the sun set, the temperature dropped dramatically, and the sweat on the detainees was now chilling them. My soldiers were about at their wits' ends too - 10 hours is a long time to stand around in battle readiness.

I called in yet another sitrep. A different voice came on the line.

"Red 1, this 6." The squadron commander? What was the colonel doing on the radio? "Are you still out there," he asked.
"Roger 6, this is Red 1. We're maintaining our position."
"What the hell are you doing? You were supposed to close that position this morning."
"Uh, 6, Red 1, I have negative knowledge of that. I've been sending sitreps and I requested that we close this position, over."
"Standby," he said.

Some time passed.

"Red 1, 6. Have you detained any potential insurgents?"

I had a farmer trying to get his produce to market. I had a truck full of very thirsty goats. I had numerous mothers and fathers with wailing children, and any number of other mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers that had been expected home hours ago. I had a one-armed man. I had two motorcycles. I had a guy who claimed to be a sheikh and had offered me several hundred U.S. dollars, in cash, to let him and everyone else go (this made me suspicious, but he was traveling with his wife, and his car was free of suspect material. Nothing to hold him on).

"6, Red 1, negative, no one I'd classify as an insurgent, over." My radio procedure got better when I talked to the SCO (squadron commander).
"Roger, Red 1, wrap it up, and come home. See me when you get back."
"6, Red 1, roger, over."
"6 out."

"Smoke, let's get out of here," I yelled from my humvee down to the detainee area. Smoke and the guards downloaded the pallet of MREs from the truck and broke open the boxes. We opened the string of barbed wire, and the soldiers made sure everyone filed out one by one and got their MREs. We smiled and kind of bowed in apology. The Iraqis were not pleased. If I had any idea what they were saying, I have no doubt I would have learned some very colorful Arabic curse-words that day. I'd have been a veritable George Carlin Ali, I'm sure.

We watched people find their cars in the darkness, and one by one the engines started. The headlights shined through the cloud of dust that skittering tires kicked up as trucks, taxis, vans, and sedans of all makes and condition bounced up onto the road and headed home. I watched the last car leave, a single finger fully extended from the driver's window. 'Well, at least he knows some English,' I thought. And we went back to base.

In talking to the SCO during my debriefing back at base, I learned something. During our radio conversation, he told me to standby, and a pause followed. Apparently, during that pause he practically melted the battle captain's face with a string of profanity, the gist of which was we should never have been left out there. Particularly because the insurgents we were supposed to be looking for had been captured in Haditha before we even set up the checkpoint. Then he got back on the radio and told me to come in.

What we had there was a failure to communicate. Cue the loss of a few more Iraqi hearts and minds. The end.

[FN 1] A good friend of mine, in a moment of gallows humor, suggested modifying Irish Car Bombs (a shot of Bailey's and Jameson dropped into a class of Guinness) into Iraqi Car Bombs. His suggestion: drop a shot of sand and armpit sweat into a glass of warm goat milk. Mm mm mm.

[FN 2] In artillery units, platoon sergeants are called Smoke. That's just the way it is.
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Fox and Friends

Obama's election has apparently rendered the Bush administration the lamest of ducks. "Lame" might even connote too much activity - Bush is more like the duck enjoyed by Ralphie and family in "A Christmas Story." He's been roasted and served on a platter, patiently awaiting carving at the hands of historians, and yet he's still got that goofy, incongruous grin on his face.

Suffice it to say that it seems Bush retired, and I'm 98% sure he won't do anything between now and Inauguration Day. That does leave a wary 2% that fears preemption of CBS' broadcast of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," at which time Bush, clad in a Santa suit, jeerily announces that he's sent our zoom-bombers to drop their boom-boomers on all the Whos still asnooze in the town of Tehran. That spine-chilling scenario aside, I'm pretty sure that nothing of substance will get done before Obama takes over.

This surprises me. The Bush administration has been nothing if not industrious over the past 8 years. I'm not sure you would score everything the administration accomplished as an "achievement," but starting multiple wars, squandering both international good will and budget surpluses alike, deregulating the economy, rewriting the Constitution, and turning the Vice President into Emperor Palpatine - all of this takes time and effort. Especially because Bush did all that in the fewest proportion of working days of any president ever. He took more vacation days than any other president, including FDR, who served almost twice as long. Understandable though - that brush in Crawford doesn't clear itself.

I mention Bush's industriousness, and the current lack thereof, because of all the underhanded things Bush did, he didn't do the most obvious one. Sure, he redefined torture, then outsourced it when CIA agents expressed moral qualms about torture; he removed the transparency required for democratic government; and he sent soldiers to die for questionable causes. And it is that, the purported justifications for the war in Iraq, that brings me to the point of today's posting: the one devious thing that Bush did not do. He did not order the planting of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Why not?



Why draw the line there? W. thought it was ok to willfully misinterpret WMD intelligence, browbeat poor Colin Powell into selling it to the UN, bully Congress into supporting a war based on the misinterpreted intelligence, then send soldiers to die for it, right? So why not seal the deal, and plant some WMDs in Iraq? We have chemical weapons in our own arsenal. Would it have been so hard for a few clandestine operations to scatter a few chemical weapons around Iraqi arms depots? The short answer is no, it would not have been that hard. Here's why:

In the very early days of the Iraq war, the hunt was on. Every U.S. soldier was looking for 4 things: Saddam, Uday, Qusay, and WMDs. And we looked everywhere - every truck, every factory, every weapons depot, every hillside, and every nook and cranny in a country that is nothing but nooks and crannies.

At one point, probably in April or very early May 2003, my unit arrived at a large airfield west of Baghdad. It was an enormous facility - dozens of bomb-proof bunkers and jet hangers, plus luxury facilities like a swimming pool and gym. We were not the first ones there, though. We were the third. The Air Force had swung by and dropped their share of boom-boomers. Shortly thereafter, the super soldiers showed up. You may remember having met some of them in my previous post, "Duck!" These were the guys who rode horses and ATVs around in Afghanistan, wore sporty wrap-around Oakleys, favored moisture-wicking outdoor gear to actual uniforms, and went by "Fox" and "Duke" and, probably, "Snake Eyes." [FN 1] Men wanted to be them, and women wanted to be with them.

By the time we arrived on site, the super soldiers had been there for a few days. We pulled in, circled the vehicles in a defensive posture, and got the humvees ready to begin a sweep for WMDs. My commander, Stumpy [FN 2], had spread his map on the hood of his humvee and called First Sergeant, me, and the other officers over to divvy up the sectors. As we pored over the map, naming the sectors cool things like Red, White, and Blue, another humvee full of super soldiers came through our defensive perimeter (there's another story in there about one of my soldiers almost killing them because they didn't know the challenge and password, but Stumpy let them in essentially because they were white and spoke English. Ah, racial profiling. I digress).

The super soldiers came over to our little coffee clatch, which was gathered around Stumpy's humvee. Their leader strode over. He looked remarkably like a mustached Michael Phelps decked out as a Guns And Ammo centerfold. "Hi, y'all, I'm Fox," he said. "Which one a y'alls in charge?"

"I am," said Stumpy. Fox lowered his Oakleys, looked down - far down - at the 5'4" dumpling that was our fearless leader, laughed, and said, "Really?"

This made me laugh, along with First Sergeant, who I'm sure would have happily killed Stumpy were it not for all the paperwork that would ensue. Instead, he satisfied his bloodlust by taking Stumpy's boots when he slept and super-gluing them to the ceiling, where Stumpy couldn't reach them.

"Yes, really, I'm Captain Stumpy, I'm the commander," Stumpy fairly squeaked. "Ok," said Fox, still smiling bemusedly. I couldn't tell, what with the black Oakleys, but I thought he gave the rest of us a sympathetic look, one that said, "You have to obey this guy?" Anyway, Fox continued, "We thought we'd save y'all some trouble. We've already been through here, searched and cleared everything. No need for you to look for WMDs, place is clean."

"Well, we're going to search again," said Stumpy defiantly. "No, you don't understand," said Fox. "You won't search again. We cleared it, it's our AO [area of operations]. You sit tight here. Bear's orders."

Huffy at having been told what to do by someone obviously much cooler than he was, Stumpy snapped back with, "Yeah, who's Bear? He's not in my chain of command."

A hush fell.

"Son," Fox replied, a steely edge coming into his voice as the folksy "y'alls" fell away, "Bear's the boss here, and I don't give a flaming pile of shit about your chain of command. But, if it makes you feel better, I'm sure Bear will meet with your old man, and you'll be told to sit tight here. Like I said, just trying to save you some trouble. Understood?"

So let it be written, so let it be done. In less than 20 minutes after Fox and crew took off, the radio beeped, and we were informed that all units were to cease movement and remain in their current positions. Which we did.

But here's the point of all this. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Bear and Fox and the rest of them to have planted chemical and biological weapons at that sight. Fox could have rolled up to us in his humvee and taken us over to see Bear. Bear could have been seated on a big pile of chemical weapons, all stamped with Iraqi markings. He could have told us, "Here it is boys, Saddam's stockpile." We would have called our commander, he'd have called his, and in a matter of hours God and everybody would have descended on the site. In the meantime, Fox and Bear would have disappeared into the desert, and Mission would actually have been Accomplished.

Do I want my government to lie to me? No. But they lie anyway, so they should make it a good lie, one that at least convinces me of the rightness of their decisions. Imagine the difference - if we were told WMDs were found, everything else would have been so much easier to stomach. The insurgency, the mismanagement, the loss of life - all just a small price to pay for keeping those weapons away from America, and we'd all have been happy in our ignorant bliss.

Interesting, isn't it? That Bush is so incompetent that he could be criticized not only for doing so many bad things, but also for not doing enough bad things? Oh well. Incompetence is as incompetence does - the Bush administration isn't even good at being bad. Let's hope they don't try to fix it in the last few months. The end.

[FN 1] I would have been Snake Eyes if I was a super soldier. He was the best G.I. Joe ever. However,if someone else had already taken Snake Eyes, then I would have been Panthro.

[FN 2] Stumpy was a different commander than the Rock With Lips, who you met in "Iraq Story #1." Stumpy was an equal pain in the ass as Rock, however, and you'll hear more about them both, I'm sure.

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Yard Sales

Nowadays, yard sales evoke an image of desperate suburbanites selling off their kids' hand-me-downs in a last-ditch effort to avoid foreclosure. In fact, I recently read an article about California communities that were compelled to enforce little-known ordinances limiting homeowners to 2 yard sales a year. Apparently, there were so many yard sales going on that traffic was backing up and causing other neighborhood disturbances. Have these people not heard of e-bay, the world's biggest purveyor of useless crap?

Actually, that's not fair. There is good stuff on e-bay. Ms. Demosthenes, my beautiful and intelligent girlfriend, recently purchased a Bose iPod docking station from e-bay. Assuming it actually shows up, it was a great purchase, since she got it at almost half the retail price.

The spike in traditional yard sales aside, the term "yard sale" has a different connotation. Allow me to explain.



Before I was the unemployed pseudo-lawyer you all have come to know and love, I lived in Colorado. If one lives in Colorado, one becomes a skiing connoisseur, just as if one lives in New York, one becomes a pizza and bagel connoisseur. You can't help it. By dint of merely living in Colorado, you qualify for something called the Colorado pass, which, for a minimal fee, grants the bearer unlimited access to some of the finest skiing on Earth. I used to ski Vail 10 times a year, never mind Winter Park, Aspen, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone, A-Basin, Beaver Creek or Snowmass. 1000's of miles of trails, feet of powdery snow, a ski season that lasts from November til June, and all within a 2 hour drive! People say that money can't buy happiness. That's bullshit, because money buys a Colorado pass, and I defy you not to smile when you wear your Colorado pass.

So, back when I lived in Colorado, I took my friend Barry skiing. Barry was from Kansas. If you haven't been to Kansas, don't bother. I'll illustrate it for you here: __________. There. That's Kansas. Flat. Add several million cows and tractor trailers doing 88 mph, and you pretty much have it. Suffice it to say, there are no mountains in Kansas, meaning Barry wasn't much of a skier. Barry skied like a newborn caribou first trying to stand up. He was wobbly and slow, and you kind of wanted the wolves to put him out of his misery.

I, on the other hand, was a three-year skiing veteran - there wasn't terrain I couldn't handle, a black diamond I couldn't ski, or some fresh powder I couldn't shred. [FN 1] For the morning, I was happy to stay with Barry, but as the day progressed and he didn't, I really itched to let loose, build some speed, and hurl myself helter-skelter down some tough terrain. However, at that moment I was inching down a "green" beginner's hill with Barry. This trail was, at best, flat. If you brought your children to it for some sledding, they'd roll their eyes at you and sit in the car. But in the distance, I saw an adjoining trail: a blue-black leading to a black diamond. Oooo. I slid to a stop and turned to look at Barry turn wide S-turns down the "slope."

He approached slowly and as he came close he put his skis into a perfect V-shaped snowplow to slow down. Then he crossed his skis, fell over, rolled once, and bounced into my legs. "Sorry," he said as he wiped the snow from his goggles. I helped Barry up, got him dusted off, and said, "Hey, I'm going to split off real quick." "Oh, uh, ok," said Barry, clearly thinking he'd probably just die Sonny Bono style on the next turn.

"It's fine," I said. "You just stay on this green trail, and take it slow to the bottom. I'll meet you by the lift, and we'll go grab lunch." "Ok," Barry said again, and I watched him wobbly-knee it down the trail.

Finally free from my anchor, I looked around. It was glorious - snow-capped peaks ringed heavily forested mountains veined with ski trails, which threaded their way into the distance. The sun hung in a clear blue sky. The mountain had 14 inches of fresh powder, and there was almost no one on it. If John Denver weren't dead, he'd have been plucking his guitar at my side. Time to ski!

I squared my shoulders to the slope and began poling to build speed. A few speed-skater-like kicks, and a few more strokes with the poles, and the wind was whistling past me. I aimed at the blue-black trail. As I got closer, I could see there was a slight upward lip leading from the green trail to the blue-black. 'Awesome,' I thought. I could jump off the lip like a ramp and really barrel down the blue-black trail.

I tucked down into a ball to reduce drag and build speed, as much speed as I could. I zoomed straight at the upward lip and got ready to jump when I hit it. The hiss of my skis across the snow blended with the whistle of the wind in my ears. I jumped as high as I could when I hit the lip.

This was a mistake.

As I jumped, I looked down to check my landing. Below me were nothing but moguls - bumpy mounds of snow that a skier must skillfully and quickly thread to avoid falling. At high speed like I had, it took Olympic-caliber athletics to avoid broken bones. I was not an Olymipic athlete.

Nevertheless, despite my lack of elite skiing prowess, in times of stress the human mind is capable of marvelous things. You'll often hear athletes or soldiers or performing artists talk of time stopping or slowing as events unfold before them. This happened to me at the moment I hung suspended over a field of demonic little moguls, each one a land mine threatening broken limbs and brain damage should I tumble over them. 'Ok,' I thought, 'you can do this. Take the impact with your legs, slow down, and you'll be fine.'

I braced for impact, ready to flex my legs and turn through the first mogul. I'd bounce through a mogul or two, then slow down and stop. I'd be fine.

Unfortunately, my mind was nimbler than my body. I hit the first mogul and skipped right off the top of it. There was no cushioning of impact, no turn, no nothing. My skis hit the second mogul, my teeth clacked shut, and my skis crossed. For those who don't know, crossing your skis is bad in the same way that having your car's brakes fail is bad - high speed impacts will ensue.

I felt my skis eject their bindings. I used Volant skis at the time, which are stainless steel and basically a pair of six foot blades. They flew up and hit me as I went face first into mogul number three.

Feet head feet head feet head feet head feet head I went down the mountain. When I came to rest, I was face down in a pile of snow. I was still wearing my goggles, but they were full of snow. I rolled over and reached a mittened hand to my face and pulled the goggles off. My hat was gone. I wiped snow from my goggles, and tried to identify my injuries. Hm, puncture wound in left arm. Skinned knees. Bleeding gash in right shin. Buzzing in ears that wasn't there before. I tried to stand, then threw up.

As I got to my feet and wiped my mouth, I heard this: "Hey man, you all right?" I waved at the snowboarder standing on top of the lip I had just leapt from. "Dude, man, that was awesome!" he exclaimed. "I've never seen anyone yard sale like that before."

Ah, there it was. "Yard sale": when a skier or snow boarder wipes out so completely and thoroughly that all his gear is scattered across the mountain as if laid out for a yard sale. And a yard sale it was. My skis, poles, hat, and backpack were all over the place. Actually, I couldn't initially locate one pole. I eventually found it in the trees alongside the trail. In my hazy shock-to-the-head but glad-to-be-alive state, it took me some time to gather and inventory my possessions.

By the time I made it to the bottom of the hill and found Barry by the ski lift, the puncture wound in my arm and the gash in my leg were really quite painful. I wasn't sure I had a full afternoon of skiing left in me. Plus I thought I should probably do something to prevent infection. "Hey Barry," I asked, "what do you say to getting lunch and then just heading to the bar?" Alcohol was good for infections, right?

Barry looked at me like a murderer that just got sentenced to community service. His eyes lit up, he smiled, and said, "Oh, heck yeah. I'd love to get off the mountain about now." "Perfect," I said. "There's a place on the highway with dollar tacos and two-dollar Coronas. Ok by you?" "Ok by me," Barry said.

And that explains some of the scars I have. Stay tuned to hear the tale of my bloody battle with a dirt bike, some pointy rocks, and cacti. The end.



[FN 1] I was not always such. The first time I tried to ski in fresh powder, I went 4 feet, crossed my skis, ejected from my bindings, and tumbled down the mountain. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to find my left ski, which was buried under the snow somewhere.

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Hi, Mom? I'm in federal custody.

I just finished a conversation with my housemate, RB. In the parlance of our times, she's totally in the tank for Obama. Yesterday, she spent 12 hours en route to and from Obama's final campaign stop in Manassas, VA. Tonight she has a slate of 3 election parties to attend. Our conversation covered a lot of electiony topics, one of which was whether the Republicans would attempt to rig the outcome by challenging provisional ballots. She was generally opposed to provisional ballots, while I said they helped both sides. For example, I argued, wouldn't the Democrats want to challenge provisional ballots if a judge kept polls open to support a Republican candidate?

Maybe, she conceded. Nevertheless, she didn't trust the Republicans, and wouldn't lower her guard until McCain conceded. Then she went to bed, so as to be peppy during her full evening of Obamamania.

After she left, the question of federal judges and their politics sent my mind to wondering. However, the question of federal judicial politics is boring, so I ended up recalling my own experience working for a federal judge. Which brings me to the story I really want to tell you:

Politics play a very small role in a federal judge's job. Mostly, they handle apolitical cases, or are handcuffed into imposing statutorily required sentences that prevent "liberal" judges from "letting criminals off easy." However, nestled in a judge's humdrum day of initial appearances, warrant-granting, discovery hearings, and pre-trial conferences, there sometimes appears a real gem of a case. For example:



I once worked for Judge B, a federal district court judge. Every day after lunch, we'd go down to the courtroom for an afternoon of work - some civil, some criminal. The criminal cases were almost always drug-related and featured a young man wearing the latest in gangland haute couture or federal-issue orange. Except once.

One afternoon, as the other clerks and I entered the courtroom with the Judge, I looked at the defendant's table. There sat a young white male in his late teens or early 20's. He was decked out in preppie fall classics: wire-rim glasses, green sweater over white button down, jeans, and birkenstocks. Oh, and handcuffs and leg irons.

'Hm,' I thought to myself, 'this is out of the ordinary.' I looked questioningly at my fellow clerk, but he just shrugged. We took our usual seats next to the bench, and the courtroom clerk announced Judge B and opened the proceedings.

"Your Honor, first we have the initial appearance of Topher McWhitey," the courtroom clerk, Mark, announced.

"Very well," Judge B. said. She looked at the U.S. Attorney at the prosecutor's table. "Mr. U.S. Attorney?" she prompted.

The U.S. Attorney stood and cleared his throat. "Your Honor, Topher McWhitey is here on his initial appearance," he began. "Federal agents apprehended him in class at Boston University this morning, and he is being charged with 28 counts of international drug trafficking." My eyes widened, my co-clerk and I looked at each other, and we both sat up in our seats.

"Go on," said Judge B.

'Yes, do go on,' I thought, pen poised above my yellow legal pad.

"Your Honor, Topher McWhitey was arrested this morning after his co-conspirators were arrested while attempting to bring 2000 pounds of marijuana from Canada into Idaho. Upon their arrest, they identified Mr. McWhitey as the central figure in the drug trafficking scheme. I have prepared for the court a list of the 28 charges Mr. McWhitey faces, and have also provided the list to Mr. McWhitey's counsel."

Mark handed the list of charges to Judge B. She pursed her lips as she looked over it. "Mr. U.S. Attorney, what punishment does Mr. McWhitey face?" "Well," said U.S. Attorney, "he faces a mandatory minimum of 25 years, and statutory maximum of 40 years."

Geez! They yanked him out of class?! 25 years minimum?! A freaking ton of marijuana! And his buddies already rolled on him, so no plea bargain! This dude was way, way up Shit's Creek, and nary a paddle was in sight.

"Mr. McWhitey, please stand," said Judge B. He stood, as did his attorney. "I need some information for your packet, Mr. McWhitey. What is your address?"

He gave an address off Commonwealth Avenue. "You go to Boston University," said Judge B. "Is that your permanent address or your school address."

Topher looked green around the gills, althought it might have been his sweater. "That's my school address, ma'am," he said, looking at the table in front of him.

"Please address the court as 'Your Honor', not ma'am," said Judge B. "Sorry," mumbled Topher. "Now," said Judge B., "do you have roommates in Boston?"

"I live in a house with 5 other guys." said Topher. His lawyer nudged him. "Oh, uh, Your Honor," he said.

Hm, a house with 5 other dudes? I could only imagine things in that house that evening:
First Dude: "Hey guys, anyone seen Topher?"
Second Dude, playing XBox: "No, haven't seen him all day."
Third Dude, watching Second Dude play XBox: "You didn't hear? The fuzz dragged him out of Econ this morning. Heard it was the Feds."
First and Second Dudes: "Shit, man, no way."
Third Dude: "I know, right. Think Topher's a terrorist?"
First Dude: "Nah, it's probably drugs."
Uncomfortable pause in conversation while XBox bleeps and blorps.
Second dude drops XBox controller, exeunt rapidly.
Moments later follows the sound of marijuana being flushed down toilets.

"Ok, Mr. McWhitey," said Judge B. "And what is your home address?" Topher gave an address in Idaho. "Is that your parents' house?" asked Judge B. "It is," said Topher. "Have you been in contact with them?" asked Judge B. "I called my Mom this morning, after, well, this whole thing," said Topher. "She wasn't home, though, so I had to leave a message."

Awesome! Beep. "Hi Mom, this is Topher. I just wanted to let you know I got those socks you sent me. They're really great, thanks. Have I said I love you recently? Because it's really important you know how much I love you. And Dad too. And also Uncle Chuck. He's a lawyer, right? Could you call him for me? I kind of got a little bit arrested this morning. It's not like a big deal or anything, but I think you should really call Uncle Chuck. And, if you could, see if he knows anything about international drug trafficking charges. Ok? That'd be really great. Thanks. I love you guys."

"That's ok, Mr. McWhitey," said the Judge. "You'll be able to call home later. Now, you recognize you're facing some very serious charges, don't you?" "Yes, Your Honor" said Topher, looking up at the Judge, and then sighing as he looked up at the ceiling. Maybe he was hoping for a bolt of lightning to strike him dead before his first night in federal lockup. I know I would have been.

Judge B. looked at the sheet of charges. "Mr. McWhitey, I have no idea how you got your hands on so much marijuana. Nor do I have any idea what you planned to do with it once you got it into this country. However, I counsel you to cooperate with the U.S. Government and give them as much information as you can. If you do not cooperate, you could be in prison for the next quarter century, or longer."

By this point, I was riveted and bursting with questions: How'd you get into this, Topher? Paying gambling debts? Adventure? Medical bills? What? And who's your connection? Are you just a dopey kid that grew a bunch of weed in the woods and tried to sneak it over the border? Or does this go higher? Unfortunately, no answers were forthcoming.

Also unfortunate, for Topher anyway, was his list of options. Either he was the mastermind of this operation, which meant he was going to jail for 25-40. Or, he could flip on his boss to get a reduced sentence, but spend the rest of his life in witness protection. Either way, it wasn't likely the outcome he planned with his buddies back in Idaho.

Judge B. wrapped up some formalities, and the U.S. Marshalls collected up Topher. He did the leg-iron shuffle as he followed them out the door and back to the holding cell where he'd wait for a prisoner transport van. From there, if he was lucky, he'd get a con-air flight to Idaho that night. If he was unlucky, Judge B. said, he'd trade his J. Crew threads for a jumpsuit, spend the night in holding, and get a prison bus to Idaho.

Gah, a prison bus to Idaho? I suppose if there's anything worse than a regular bus to Idaho, it would have to be a prison bus to Idaho, but still. Poor Topher was F-U-K fucked.

And that's why I voted to decriminalize possession of 1 oz. or less of marijuana in Massachusetts. The end.

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Duck!

The front page of the New York Times recently reported that U.S. commandos killed civilians during a raid into Syria. The thrust of the story was not the civilian dead (lamentably, civilian casualties stopped being news in 2001 when airstrikes commenced in Afghanistan). Rather, the story focused on the cross-border nature of the raid, likening it to increased “commando” operations in Pakistan. Not to demean the venerable NY Times, but cross-border commando ops in Syria aren’t news either. The military has been doing cross-border raids since we’ve been in Iraq. In fact, we’ve been doing it in the exact same spot as the most recent incident, namely where the Euphrates crosses from Syria in to Iraq.

Cross-border ops are no secret. Newsweek reported such operations in 2003, when elements from my unit chased suspected insurgents into Syria. Since it’s on the front page of the Times, it’s also no secret that U.S. commandos are venturing into Syria, and that their mission is to fight the influx of insurgents from Iraq into Syria.

Thus, because major publications have already blown the lid off any secrecy these missions may have had, I have no problem telling you about the foibles and follies of US commandos in Iraq:



On the base I lived on in far, far western Iraq, there was a road. This road was not quite a mile long, but it was straight, flat and well paved. It connected the two halves of the base, which themselves were essentially two clusters of concrete buildings separated by empty desert. There were 3 entrances to this road – one entrance at each end, and one near the middle.

On our base lived secret soldiers – the kind that have beards, wear baseball hats instead of helmets, and call themselves “Bear” and “Jackal” and “Dave.” Sometimes Bear and Dave and their compatriots would get nighttime deliveries, brought in by small planes. Think Cessnas – prop-driven, two-person, civilian-type aircraft. I can’t say for sure what was on those flights, but since I have a picture of one of my soldiers holding a Burger King Whopper – and there were no Burger Kings in Anbar province – you can guess what was usually on the plane. [FN 1]

Usually, when one of these burger-bearing birds was inbound, a call would go out on the radio telling all units to stay off the previously-mentioned road, because that is where the plane was going to land. Additionally, some secret soldiers would park their humvees at the road entrances, just to make sure no one went on the road. It was a good system all around.

However, secret soldiers, being secretive, stopped informing us lowly, non-special forces when their Whopper Express was inbound. Instead, they’d just send humvees out to block the road. Blocking the road was all fine and good, provided that all the entrances are blocked. You remember that there were 3 entrances to the road, right?

One night, in anticipation of some delicious cheesy burgers, America’s elitiest fighting force sent humvees out to close the road without telling anyone. They closed one end. They closed the other. They looked up in the sky and waited to Have It Their Way. No doubt they listened intently for the far-off drone of a propeller, because the plane would approach and land without lights - the friendly neighborhood islamofascists had taken to shooting at anything that flew, requiring lightless landings for aircraft. However, in their eagerness for fast-food goodies, the commandos forgot to close off the center entrance, which, as it happens, was where my soldiers accessed the road.

At about the same time as the incoming plane swooped in for its final approach, Sgt Hooper and Spc Kinsey [FN 2] hopped into a humvee, turned it on, put on the blackout drive lights [FN 3], and drove up to the road-cum-landing-strip. Spc Kinsey, the driver, looked left, then right, and saw nothing. Reasonably, he did not look up, likely having concluded that left and right were the only possibilities for approaching traffic. He stepped on the gas and pulled out onto the road.

Imagine Kinsey’s and Sgt Hooper’s surprise, then, when from the murky darkness in front them appeared two rubber tires, suspended in the air. They didn’t even have time to duck – the front landing gear bounced off the humvee hood, ripped through the center windshield, and tore off the canvas roof. Then, the plane landed safely! Even more unbelievable, Kinsey and Sgt Hooper’s heads were still attached. The landing gear had passed right in between them and converted the humvee to a drop-top, but had missed them completely. Other than scratches, bruises from the seatbelt, and the super-elevated heart-rate that one gets when the lizard part of one’s brain pumps out a quart of adrenaline, they were basically fine. It was basically a miracle that they were alive and that the plane had not flipped and crashed on impact.

Naturally, when a plane in flight collides with a humvee, it causes a commotion, as well as a number of investigations. The net result: no more night time flights bearing cheeseburgers for the super soldiers, and two soldiers had a pretty good story to call home with.

And that is how Spc. Kinsey and Sgt. Hooper became the only soldiers in Iraq to get run over by an airplane. The end.


FN 1: We don’t have universal health coverage, but gosh darn it, our special ops troops will have BK Broilers on demand.

FN 2: As you may have noticed, I do not use real names.

FN 3: Blackout drives are very low level lights on military vehicles that are barely visible to the naked eye, but shine like glorious Archangels if you wear night vision goggles.

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Andy P and the 21st Birthday Party

This story isn’t actually mine. My very good friend Pipes told it to me, and it details the closing hours of his brother Andy’s 21st Birthday. Here is pretty much how he told it, although the details have grown fuzzy with the passing of time:

“Ok, so I managed to get home to Minnesota for Andy’s 21st. He was never really much of a drinker, so we figured we’d just head out with some of his high school buddies and catch a few brew doggies. I had the Durango with me, so I was the driver. We all piled in, and hit a few bars.

Really nothing happened out at the bars, other than Andy was making drinks disappear. As fast as we lined ‘em up, he knocked ‘em down. And it was a wicked mix – Leinenkugel’s, PBR, Three Wise Men, Three Hicks and a Spic, Guinness I think. Bad news, especially ‘cause I don’t think Andy weighed one-fifty then. Anyway, I didn't drink, but Andy is pretty wrecked by the time we leave around midnight, and so were his buddies.



I get them all back to the car, and I get on the highway. Andy was in the front seat, and he’s just leaning back with his eyes closed. He kept shaking his head and moaning, “It’s hot, why is it so hot,” so I crack the window to give him a little air.

That doesn’t work at all, because as soon as the air hits him, he looks at me, doubles over, and goes “Stop, stop, I gotta puke, I gotta puke.”But I’m doing 70 in the fast lane, I can’t stop. I just roll down the window and try to push Andy’s face out of the car so he’ll at least puke outside.

That doesn’t work either, because Andy doesn’t really get his head out of the car. Instead, he just pukes this vile, black mess straight out the window. Dude, I’ve never seen anything like this – his puke stopped in mid-air, did this Matrix back-flip, and flew right back into Andy’s face.

By now, his buddies in the back are awake, and they both just go “Ohh, dude, that is fucking nasty.” Andy is plastered in this goop – it’s in his hair, all over his face, and down his shirt. Plus, Andy barely notices – he’s just sitting there trying to keep down the next batch. And it absolutely reeks.

I don’t have paper towels or anything, plus I’m still driving, so Andy just has to sit there until I pull over. I finally stop, and me and his friend get Andy out of the car. We get his shirt off, use it to mop him up, and then I just throw the shirt on the side of the road. The car still reeks, so I just get back on the road, get the two other guys back, and bring Andy home.

My mom was still up when we got back. I helped Andy out of the car, and no sooner get him in the front door than he spews again, right in front of my Mom. She screams, looks at me and says, “What did you do to him?” I’m like, “Me? Nothing, I’m stone sober.” She grabs Andy and points him up the stairs. “I’m getting your father,” she said. I’m like, Whatever, I’m 23, Dad can’t do much to me, and I grab some paper towels and cleanser to wash out my car.

It takes me forever to scrape all the goop out of my front seat, so by the time I come back in, my dad is up and waiting for me in the kitchen. His arms are crossed, he’s wearing a blue button-down oxford, and tighty whities, and he’s really mad. But I can’t not laugh at him.

“It’s not funny,” he said. “Andy might have alcohol poisoning. Why didn’t you take care of him?”

I can barely talk, but I’m like, “Dad, he puked everything up. He doesn’t have alcohol poisoning.”
“Well, he’s upstairs, and you’re waiting up with him to make sure he doesn’t die. Go upstairs and sit with your mother.” I have a 7 am flight, but I’m like, “Fine,” and head upstairs.

I get to Andy’s room, and he’s lying on his stomach, head hanging over a trashcan, and my mom is sitting in a chair next to him. As I go to sit, Andy heaves again, right into the trashcan. So, I guess he wasn’t quite empty yet. My Mom points at me and says, “This is your fault.” I was like, “My fault? He drank, not me.” Meanwhile, Andy is almost comatose, but he rolls onto his back and just kind of makes these big heavy sighs.

Then he starts to convulse again, and it looks like he’s about to upchuck right there on the bed. My mom says, “No, Andy, in the trashcan.” So he reaches over, grabs the trashcan, and holds it up over his head – and all the puke comes right down on his face.

At that point, even my mom couldn’t keep from laughing, and just said, “Oh, Andy.””

And that his how Andy puked on his own head twice in the same night. The end.

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