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Week of October 10, 2004:
POLITICS | The unspeakable truth about Bush's bulge
NEWS | Warning signs for the press
POLITICS | This doesn't happen to people who have lobbyists
PREVIOUS: September 5, 2004 | NEXT: October 17, 2004
POLITICS: BUSH'S BULGE
The unspeakable truth about Bush's bulge
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| Illustration by Jeremiah Murphy. (Click for a better view.) |
The reason the Bush campaign doesn't dare tell the truth about the president's rectangular bulge is because the facts are darker still than any of the speculation yet voiced on the Internet. As can clearly be seen from the illustration at right, the president has become the earthly host to a square-headed alien from deep space, a member of a species determined to destroy the human race through a combination of aerial bombing, regressive taxation, and inappropriate gynecological treatment of earthling women.
The alien life form inserts a mouthlike protuberance into its victim's spinal cord, enabling it to draw nourishment, control the victim's brain, and make rudimentary policy decisions when presented with position papers of one-half page or less. The known side effects of possession include slowness of speech, delusional behavior, and a tendency to pronounce the word "avuncular" as "avunclear." Doctors working secretly at Bethesda Naval Medical Center know of no way to extract the creature from the spinal column without killing the host, a step they have been reluctant to attempt before next January's inauguration. However, sources close to the despondent president say he has repeatedly attempted to end his own agony and the extraterrestrial threat to America by killing himself, using any means within his reach, including mountain bikes and pretzels.
Bush is believed to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to be possessed by aliens.
October 15, 2004 | 7:25 p.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041010.php#e48
NEWS: INDYMEDIA SERVER SEIZURE
Warning signs for the press
The stories are strangely murky on the actual details, but it looks like the FBI participated in shutting down some of the web servers of the Indymedia.org independent news service. This story in The Guardian was the first one I saw about the subject, and from a variety of reports on the Internet, it looks like the FBI instigated a British raid to seize the servers at the request of Swiss and Italian authorities. The Swiss and Italians were upset about some kind of photos of security officials taken during anti-globalization protests. At least, those are the bits of vague information that have come through.
This is disturbing on so many levels.
First, the obvious. Shutting down news organizations just isn't the American way. Indymedia — a shoestring, DIY news site that relies on contributions from activists around the world — has the same freedom of press as Fox News, and the FBI has no business censoring it, even at the bidding of friendly governments. Presumably, it did not, and could not, get a warrant to seize the equipment of a news organization — but the law is somewhat different in the UK, and maybe that provided some thin justification. But the FBI has a copy of the Constitution somewhere on its premises, and that Constitution is very clear on raiding the press. When the Swiss or the Italians or the attorney general or anybody comes asking for your help in shutting down a news site, you say no.
(Shutting down spammers would be a different story. Maybe they could devote a few more resources to that.)
Looking deeper, two connections lurk in the back of my mind. One is the violent history of anti-globalization protests — and by "violent history," of course, I mean primarily a history of violence on the part of authorities suppressing the protesters. We had Seattle in this country; Italy had Genoa, where one person was killed and many were beaten during a wave of mass imprisonment. If the Italians and other governments are suspending our freedoms in order to suppress public information, it's probably not too soon to sound an alarm.
The second worry in the back of my mind has to do with the Judith Miller case, in which a federal counsel is trying to have the New York Times's Judith Miller and Time's Matt Cooper thrown in jail for not turning over their phone records for purposes of a prosecutorial fishing expedition. The Times's editorial page this Sunday carried a lengthy editorial on the subject, which, at least to me as a journalist, strikes right at the heart.
To have two cases in the same couple weeks of the administration's heavy hand tightening its grip on news organizations it obviously despises — that should set a red light flashing in the back of the mind. It is too early to see a conspiracy at work here — after all, Indymedia flies beneath the radar of most Americans and Miller has been a bete noire of the left rather than the right over the past two years, so they hardly seem like the administration's most likely targets in a deliberate intimidation campaign. But both are cases that never should have gotten this far, and the fact that they have is a glaring sign. We can conclude, at a minimum, that given the chance to meddle with the press, the administration doesn't see any reason not to.
October 15, 2004 | 1:32 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041010.php#e53
POLITICS: TAXES
This doesn't happen to people who have lobbyists
My most special birthday present this year came from the government — a letter saying they have made a "correction" to my 2001 tax return. According to the helpful tax-correctors at the IRS, instead of a $5,000 refund, I now "owe" $11,800 plus interest and penalties. That's about a $20,000 correction. What this means is that my freelance income from that year is being taxed at the rarefied 140 percent marginal rate.
OH NO, THE IRS IS AFTER ME
Instead of sending me a $5,000 refund, the IRS helpfully makes a "correction" to my return and bills me $11,800 instead.
- More in this series -
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I'd be a lot more upset, except I know this is so ridiculous that it can be cleared up with a simple phone call to the IRS. Apologies will be offered and accepted. Self-effacing remarks will be made. Good-natured chuckles will be shared when we contemplate the crazy, crazy things that can happen when decimal points are dropped and coffee is spilled on keyboards and whatnot. That's how it works over there at Internal Revenue ... um ... right?
The only thing that does worry me is that I got the letter on the same day that the Senate approved the If You Had a Washington Lobbying Firm Working For You You'd Have a Tax Cut In Here Too Act of 2004*, granting $136 billion in tax cuts for corporations and tobacco farmers. ("And some individuals," according to one article. Cool. I wonder if they meant me.)
So I'm thinking, if I were a clever, think-outside-the-box type of Washington bureaucrat and I had to figure out a way to cover billions of dollars in tax breaks for Microsoft and Eli Lily, would I not "correct" people's tax returns at $20,000 a shot? Hell yes I would! Hurray! Deficit closed!
I'd like to test this theory by finding out whether millions of other people's taxes have been corrected, or it's just me. If it's happening to a lot of people, then obviously it's part of a strategy which, in fact, deserves a little bit better touch in the marketing department. Perhaps instead of "correcting" people's tax returns, they should be "improving" them. "Enhancing" them. "Upgrading" them. The thing is, if this isn't happening to other people, and it's just me, then that's a big burden for me to carry on behalf of an ungrateful nation. If I don't fight and win, I know what's going to happen. Next year I'm going to get a letter saying that I owe $136 billion.
More on this drama to come.
* Oops! I just discovered my mistake. The real name was the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. You can decide who is the greater practitioner of irony, me or the U.S. Congress.
Related links:
See how your senators voted on the corporate tax bill
October 13, 2004 | 12:23 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041010.php#e47
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