Ghost, I copped it on Amazon mp3, I swear

I was going to write about the presidential election, but something much, much more important is happening. No one is copping Ghostface's new album.



In the video Ghost challenges his fans to bring the CD to shows to prove they bought it. He says if we do that, he'll "kick it with [us], get goosed out, whatever [we] want to do." My problem is that I copped it on Amazon mp3.

I actually copped it twice because the first time I accidentally copped the non-explicit version. At first I thought the mp3 was scratched, because it was skipping a lot. Once I bought the swear words to fill in the skipping parts it was all good.

Insanely good. Ghost is on a level all by himself. Anyone can rap about shooting people in the drug game. Ghost raps about how shooting people in the drug game is making him crazy. ("Don't put me in no mental clinics!")

Anyway, I'm going to have a hard time proving I paid for the album and getting my "personal meeting" with Ghost. Now I won't be able to tell him in person that "cop" also means "to steal," so maybe his message is getting mixed up and that he should tell his fans to procure the album instead. I bet that would really help.

Ron Paul is clearly the author of those racist newsletters

Remember when Ron Paul wouldn't give back donations from white supremacists? His explanation was almost plausible, and back then you could imagine that he needed the money:

"Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he's wasted his money," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said. "Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom."

However, earlier this year TNR reported that newsletters bearing Paul's name have regularly been filled with racist, homophobic tirades. We'll get to the weak denial shortly, but first here are some quotes that should keep any half-decent voter far, far away from Ron Paul if he's even remotely associated with them.

"[O]pinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions."

"[I]f you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood was titled, "Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo."

"I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming."

"Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems."

"I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

The newsletter reserves special animus for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here, quoted in full, is a passage from his newsletter of December 1990.

"Dr." King

So now even the establishment press admits that Martin Luther King plagiarized his PhD dissertation, his academic articles, his speeches, and his sermons.

He was also a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.

King, the FBI files show, was not only a world-class adulterer, he also seduced underage girls and boys. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy revealed before his death that king had made a pass at him many years before.

And we are supposed to honor this "Christian minister" and lying socialist satyr with a holiday that puts him on par with George Washington?

Here is the response from Paul's campaign, also reported in TNR:

"A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He [Paul's campaign spokesman] added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

Amazingly, the TNR accepts that there is some possibility that Ron Paul did not write or directly approve these articles, saying only that "many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author." The articles are not merely written in first person. They clearly convey that Paul is the author.

The newsletter containing the "'Dr.' King" passage concludes this way:

"My wife Carol, and our children and grandchildren, join me in wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year."

Also, in January 1991 "someone" has this to say about Dr. King:

"St. Martin was a world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours ('non-violence' didn't apply in all spheres, I guess). He was a flagrant plagiarist witha phony doctorate. He replaced forced segregation in a few states with forced integration in all all states. And he was a dedicated socialist. What a guy. He probably deserves two holidays.

Why, he often asked, 'is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?' (Forget a PhD. Give this man an IQ test.)"

Later, on the same page of the newsletter, a mysterious "someone" reveals himself to have a personal stake in the matter:

"In 1988 when I ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, I was berated for hours by LP members because I had refused vote, while in Congress, for a Martin Luther King national holiday."

Hey, who knows. Could have been anybody.

Just so we don't end on a bad note, I just wanted to reassure all you Ron Paul supporters that he's not one of those fickle "compassionate conservatives." From the Ron Paul Survival Report, January 1994:

"First, these [gay] men dont' really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered around new sexual partners. These conditions do not make one's older years the happiest. Second, because sex is the center of their lives, they want it to be as pleasurable as possible, which means unprotected sex. Third, they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick. Put it all together, and you've got another wave of AIDS infections, that you, dear taxpayer, will be asked to pay for."

Happy Monday

Today I saw this on a t-shirt:

Haiku's are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Delightful. Happy Monday, everyone.

Where to look for Jenny and me

Not a lot of fresh powder this week, so tomorrow we're going snowshoeing. Should be a good time. Anyway, when you go hiking/snowshoeing/etc you're supposed to tell people where you went. So here, in the nerdiest possible form, is where I'm going.

It's a Google Earth file. The TWL waypoint is our planned destination. The route should be pretty obvious.

Hope you don't have to rescue us, and I'll post some pics when we get back.

Gunshot update: no gunshots since last post.

I just heard gunshots

I'm just sitting here in my damn room playing with Google Earth. What's up with Capitol Hill these days? I'll keep this space posted, or call 911, or something.

Slate argues for flat taxes, defies logic

This morning at Slate, I was greeted with the following headline: Huckabee's tax plan is brilliant. I'm not generally a fan of advocacy journalism, especially when it comes to politics, but this was especially surprising. (On a side note, I've noticed Slate trending rightward lately. I think Hitchens snuck in on the strength of his accent and since then he's been poisoning the coffee.) I thought Huckabee's plan was a national sales tax (a.k.a. "flat tax") a regressive concept that should have died with the Forbes campaign.

And it is. Huckabee's "FairTax" would replace federal income taxes with a 23% sales tax, with an exemption for those living under the poverty line. The poverty exemption makes this only slightly less regressive, considering that the poverty line for a single person in 2007 was $10,210. It's not rocket science to figure out that if you take the current graduated system and replace it with a single bracket (for those above the poverty line,) that's a tax increase for those at the bottom, and a tax cut for those at the top.

Oddly, Huckabee claims that this would actually mean lower taxes for everyone:

Expert analyses have shown that the FairTax lowers the lifetime tax burden of all of us: single or married; working or retired; rich, poor or middle class.

We're left to guess who the experts in question might be. Simply lowering everyone's taxes doesn't even pass the straight-face test.

But I digress, this is not about illogical Presidential candidates. It's about illogical Slate correspondents. Here is the central argument of Landsberg's article:

With an income tax, you pay up front. Earn a dollar in 2008, and you'll pay 20 cents tax in 2008. (Actually, you'll pay more, of course; I'm assuming a 20 percent tax rate for the sake of illustration.) With a sales tax, that 20 cents sits in your bank account earning interest until the day you spend your earnings.

In other words, wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to pay tax on all the money we make from interest and capitol gains? Of course it would--if you make most of your money by having money. Landsberg is especially devious here, because he implies that you get more money (by holding onto your money longer so you can invest it) while at the same time implying that this is not a tax cut:

A sales tax is the exact equivalent of an income tax with a provision for unlimited IRA contributions (and no withdrawal penalties.)

But it is a tax cut. The weasel phrase here is "equivalent of an income tax." The sales tax would be equivalent if the sales tax rate was the same as the marginal income tax rate. However the proposal is for a 23% rate when any money earned over $31,850 is already taxed at 25%, and so on up the scale. The more you make, the more you save with a sales tax.

That's not even the real deception. Huckabee is not proposing to replace the income tax with a sales tax. He's proposing to get rid of the capitol gains tax as well. When you figure that in, it's a huge benefit for those who invest their income, rather than spend it.

Some might argue that since a growing proportion of American households now own some form of stock, this would bring the middle class into the investing class. According to this report from the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorites, the top 10% of income earners hold 70% of taxable stock.

Landsberg finishes by saying that we can make this tax rate graduated (which is not what Huckabee proposes) simply by having the government monitor our every transaction.

There might be a way to design a graduated sales tax. Your credit-card providers have a pretty good idea how much you spend each year, and the government could in principle use that information to set your tax rate. Yes, there are a lot of details to be worked out, and yes, it's highly intrusive—but I'm not convinced it's any more intrusive than what we've got now.

Since you're unclear, Yes, it is more intrusive. Right now the government knows how much income you're getting from certain sources. With this plan the government would know where and when you spend that money. It's not even close.