More fun with finding a Nanny

As I mentioned last week, I am currently in the process of trying to find a nanny. Well, now I'm more in the process of trying to figure out all of the legal hoops I have to jump through to set up having an employee. It is not something I've ever done before, so I am starting from scratch.

At first, I was a bit annoyed at all of the various forms and things you have to keep track of and take care of. It seemed awfully burdensome to have to do all of this crap just so I can write a check to someone else every two weeks. I can understand better why some small employers get all flustered and upset at government and want to vote Republican (as if that would make any difference). But really, this stuff protects all workers, including me - and that I appreciate very much, since I am also someone else's employee, as is my wife.

So while it is terribly annoying and will cost us quite a bit of extra money, I know why we need it - too many employers are bastards and even with these protections, far too many workers get screwed over. Still, it is hard for us to afford. It costs hundreds of dollars upfront to get software and services set up for doing payroll. That will pay off in the end because it will automate things. I shudder to think of trying to calculate that stuff by hand each paycheck. And this does impact the nanny too, in that, we will have less money to pay her.

There are additional taxes of about 11-12 % on top of what we'll pay to the nanny in salary (and of course, she'll have money taken out on her end as well). This is to pay for SS and Medicare deductions and State and Federal Unemployment Insurance. Thankfully, we don't have to buy Workers Compensation Insurance. I have no idea how much that would cost (but I assume it isn't cheap) - it is only required if you have more than three employees, and we'll only have one.

Some things have been pretty easy. Getting a Federal Employee ID was easy. You can get that online and it is basically instant. You can then use that for setting up everything else. Michigan requires filing a new business form for tax purposes. 518, I think it is. I filled that out and will send it in Monday. You have to fill out I-9 forms (to prove the employee is allowed to work) and W-4 and MI-W4 for withholding. I remember filling these out for every job I ever had, so I guess I should not be surprised.

I went out and got binders to put all of the various supplements on Federal and State employment taxes. I got another binder to put all of the information for the nanny, including, eventually, copies of each pay stub. I'm going to have to file quarterly taxes for her, state and federal, in addition to an annual return. All in all, there is a whole lot of work on my end for this. I've already spent many hours looking this stuff up and getting stuff ready. I hope it will be relatively automated and easy once things are set up, but no matter what, I will be spending extra time on this on an ongoing basis.

I suppose on the upside, if I ever do form my own small business (like if I hang a shingle) I'll already have some experience relevant to that. Still, I'd think a real business would hire someone to handle HR matters who was an expert at it and so I really wouldn't need to know about that stuff anyway. Of course, hanging a shingle, I'd be a rather small business and the less overhead the better. Not that I'm planning on doing this any time soon, if ever. I like my job. But it is an interesting thought.

My big worry now is that I'm going to miss something important. I'm pretty sure I have all of the basics covered. I'm a little worried about getting the particulars right for the taxes, but I am fairly confident the tax software will handle it - that's what it is for, and it keeps updated as the law or rates change over time.

I never would have thought I'd be doing something like this when I decided to take the plunge and reproduce. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Hello, Senator Franken

It is about frickin' time that Franken got seated in the Senate. The courtroom crap was bullshit - it really was nothing more than a delaying action by Republicans.

But that hasn't stopped the true kool-aid drinkers from declaring (with the help of the Wall Street Journal) that Franken "stole" the election. Uh, no. They conveniently ignore the fact that the majority of judges who considered the election were GOP, and on top of that, the judicial determinations were unanimous. It wasn't like Bush v Gore, where there was a rather blatent attempt to stop the counting and where the verdict was split along party lines on the court. Not that that necessarily means anything legally, but it certainly could be evidence of politics over law. No such thing happened in Minnesota. Instead, we see the national GOP increasingly detached from reality. I was worried about 2010 - I am less worried now as I watch the GOP continue to self-destruct.

The only question is, will they self-destruct faster and more efficiently than the Democrats, who usually are pretty good at caving in and getting nothing done.

In any case, well done, Senator Franken. This makes me wish I had talked to him when I had the opportunity. I was sitting in Minnesota's main airport for a layover and happened to spy Al Franken sitting there with me, waiting for a different flight. He sat right across from me for about an hour. He was quietly reading a paper most of the time. He didn't talk to anyone. This was before he officially was in the Senate race, but it was obvious he would be in it. I wanted to say hello and that I'd vote for him if I had lived in MN, but I never did. I figured he did not want to be bothered, and in any case, I'm generally introverted, so I don't seek out conversation with strangers at airports, generally.

Fox's 24 - My review of Season 7

I just finished watching this season's 24 on Fox. All things considered, I enjoyed this season. I haven't gotten to see all previous seasons. I saw 1 and 2, and I saw a few other seasons in there somewhere, though I'm not sure which they were. Some of them were really good. I'd rate this last one as good, too.

Before I get into what I liked, I just want to make perfectly clear. 24 is right-wing torture porn. The deranged right seems to think Jack Bauer is a real person and that his torture techniques really save lives. I want to ask those same people if they think "Alf" is a real "person." After all, Alf is also on TV.

This season, they did something interesting with that. They did an exploration of the whole notion of ends justifying the means. And they did it in a way that was dramatically consistent. Because Jack doesn't change his ways. Jack is Jack. It would be totally out of character for him NOT to be a right-wing torture porn poster boy. So the way they explore the notion is through other characters.

NOTE: Spoilers ahead.

The first character they explore this with is an FBI agent who in a way becomes Jack's protogee. She is a straight-arrow at the start, but as she watches Jack do what he does, she gradually starts to do some of the things he does. He has to really push her to do it at first, and she feels sick about it, but she does it, and apparently sees it get results. (Of course, this is contrary to the real-world experience of torture, which generally is useless at anything but getting the tortured person to tell you what you want to hear). But she never quite crosses the line that Jack has crossed. She feels badly about it and stops... until the end. More on that in a moment.

Jack's friend Tony is back from the dead in this. He seems to be on Jack's side the whole day, until it turns out at the end, he seems to be working for the big bad guys. He goes so far as to launch a biological warfare attack in a subway that would kill thousands, all to get in with the big honcho. But in the end, Jack finds out that he has no interest in anything except killing the Honcho for his having killed Tony's wife several seasons earlier. Tony is the ultimate ends-justify-the-means character. He fully believes that it was ok to sacrifice thousands to get to this guy. He is motivated by revenge, and yet really, he is just an even more extreme version of Jack - willing to break the law and kill people to get a "greater good" - taking out the man behind so many of the bad things on earlier seasons of 24.

At the end, Jack stops Tony from killing the Honcho. He is taken into custody and you see the Honcho "lawyer up." (Despite the fact that he was caught in the middle of a shootout with the FBI, meaning he'd rot in prison for the rest of his life, the show makes it seem like he'll get off somehow). The FBI agent has one last talk with Jack. He tells her he regrets nothing, but that also he has lost a lot. He asks her to consider that. I wish I had the exact conversation, but I can't recall it now.

Then Jack goes off to die. The FBI agent takes the Honcho and is going to question him. And when it seems like he is not going to cooperate, she pulls a gun on another agent (played by Jeanine Garofoalo - quite humorous that she is in this, btw, given her political views - which the character does stay true to, in that her agent refuses to violate the law) - anyway, Jack's understudy pulls a gun and then handcuffs the other agent and goes into the room - and that's the last you see of her in the show. It is clear she's gone over the line, the same as Jack. She's sacrficing her career, everything. She's gone to the dark side. Watching it, you get the sense that the cycle is just continuing - that Jack's immorality is spreading like a rot. That what spread to Tony has now infected her. At least that is the sense I got. Maybe that is just my take on it. I'm sure the right-wing zealots who worship Jack won't see it that way. They'll try and make some distinction between her and Jack and Tony. But really, I think the writers are cleverer than that. Tony really is just what Jack is heading toward becoming. Jack, in a way, senses this, and in the end, as he is about to die from the bioweapon, he asks for a Muslim Cleric who he ran into earlier in the day take what are essentially his last words. I'm sure the right-wing nuts went crazy about that - Jack going Muslim! Not that it was particularly muslim what he did, but there is certainly symbolism in it. Jack seems to be asking forgiveness for all the bad he has done.

So while I enjoyed the show as it was going - despite all the usual plot holes and ridiculousness, in the end, what I really enjoyed most was the comparison you see between the three different characters - Jack, the FBI woman, and Tony - and how they all were different versions of the same thing. It showed that once you crossed that line that Jack and Tony had crossed, it leads down a bad road - Jack makes some errors on that road that he finally sees are wrong - jumping to conclusions too quickly about an apparent muslim extremeist. Tony is clearly in the wrong. And then you see the basically decent (to begin with) FBI agent make more and more compromises with morality and the law until she finally crosses the line, where there is no going back, and she goes totally rogue. You know that can't end well for her.

What I get from that is that ultimately, that line into illegality can never be crossed - once you do, you are no different than Tony. You are part of the problem or will ultimately get there. Maybe that's just my wishful thinking, but I saw that in the show and I really liked that.

Apparently I am Spam

I just got a warning message that my blog has been flagged as a SPAM blog that will be deleted unless I verify it. What utter nonsense. While I can appreciate the need to police such things, it should be apparent to any actual human being that my blog is NOT a SPAM blog. That it was labeled as such without anyone actually verifying this first is terribly annoying.

In essence, blogspot has now spammed me - an automated program has now run and wasted my time in this verification process. And make no mistake, doing this is SPAM, no better than any other automated junk that gets done across the internet.

I do hope this gets cleared up quickly. I suppose since I am doing this for free, I ought not to complain, but it is still annoying.

UPDATE - My Blog has now apparently been confirmed as "real" - I guess it is good it took them less than a day to do so.

Health Care Should NOT Be For Profit

As my blog description of me says, I am libertarian leaning. That means I have my doubts about centrally planned economies - I don't think they work. I value competition, where there truly is some. But some things simply can't be for profit - they can't really work that way. One of those things is health care and health insurance.

Health care simply can't be for profit. Health insurance, in particular, simply cannot be for profit. Because the way you make a profit, ultimatley, is by turning down health care for someone. Not just someone, but lots of people. And to me, that is immoral. No one deserves to have their health sacrificed simply because they don't have enough money.

If you have a burning building with a bunch of people inside, you don't just rescue the people from the building who have money. You rescue EVERYONE. That is the moral thing to do. What, you might say, of those people who stupidly went into the building when they knew it was on fire? Ask a fireman about that - they get rescued too. Because again, it is the moral thing to do.

It is not like people are going to want to deliberately sabotage their health just so they can get medical procedures. Generally speaking, many people, if not most, would rather not go see a doctor if they can avoid it. I sure as hell don't like to go to the doctor. I only go when I'm really sick and I don't think I'll get better on my own. Sure, there are hypocondriacs, but then, such people are probably cheap, because it doesn't cost much to have a doctor look at you and tell you nothing is wrong.

The benefit of insurance, and the reason it works, is that it is about sharing risk across a large population, such that individuals who suffer great losses don't go under, while at the same time, premiums are, on average, affordable. This stops working if insurance companies are allowed to cull from their coverage anyone who really would take a loss, leaving only people in the pool who never need benefits. The only reason to do this is to make a profit. If you don't have a profit incentive, then you might as well just get as many people on coverage as possible, because almost all of the money goes to the people insured instead of into some CEO's pocket.

The bigger the pool of people, the better. The best pool is one that has the entire population in it. Then everyone contributes and everyone benefits and is covered. Yes, this means even young, healthy people have to pay a premium (through their taxes), but then, that is something they will benefit from when they themselves are old and utilizing the premiums paid by the succeeding generations of young people.

Another reason health simply can't be for profit is because when it comes to actually choosing health care, people generally don't have a choice. If you find out you have cancer, you have no choice but to get expensive treatments. You also may not have any time to "shop around" - nor do you really have the expertise to do so. If you need a kidney removed, you only get one shot at having that done. Either they do it right or they won't, and you won't know in advance if you are getting your money's worth. You simply cannot make dispassionate market choices when your health is in immediate peril. And even if you could, it would be very hard to discern if you are truly getting the best treatment. It is not like you are ordering a steak.

So to sum up, there are three basic reasons health care simply can't be for profit.

1. Shared risk really only works where everyone is in the same risk pool and everyone benefits.

2. There are perverse incentives to play with the money in the risk pool when the goal is profit instead of simply making sure everyone is covered.

3. People really can't shop around for health care, even if they wanted to. They simply don't have the expertise and may be under great duress when the time comes to pick services.

Finally, most of the reasons cited to avoid a single-payer, public plan are bogus.

1. The notion that you won't have any choice is crap. As it is, for every private plan I've been on, I've not had much, if any, choice. So it is not like a private plan is any better. If everyone is on the public plan, there would be a vast improvement in choices as you would no longer be limited to whatever small circle of doctors is on your plan - because EVERY doctor would be on your plan.

2. The notion that you would have long wait times for service is also crap. You have to wait under private plans. Even for a simple office visit, you can wait hours past your regularly scheduled appointment time. And procedures can have you waiting weeks or months. My wife just had a suspicious result in one of her checkups. She is a bit of a hypcondriac, which makes that worse. But even though there was potentially a serious problem, she was forced to wait almost two weeks for the followup because no other appointments were available. And now she has to wait two more weeks for the results. So private health insurance sounds an awful lot like what is anecdotally complained about in nations with public health plans.

It does make sense for other types of insurance to be more on a profit model. Insurance that covers optional activities or is based upon your choices, that is ok. Like insurance that varies based on where you build your house. If you try to build in a flood plane, it makes sense that you would have to pay a lot of extra money for that. Or if you want to get a fast, dangerous car, then you pay a premium on the insurance for that care. Or if you want to get life insurance when you chose dangerous recreational activities, like sky-diving. There, the risks set the price, and you can avoid the price by avoiding the risk.

The time has come for us to have a single payer health care system that covers everyone and pools everyone together. I wouldn't outlaw private plans - if someone wants to get something over and above that, and someone else is willing to supply it, that's fine by me. I think the private insurers are all up in arms because they know that once the monopoly of crappy private plans is broken they lose their obscene profits (and in many, if not most places, it IS a monopoly - even where there is more than one plan, you are still stuck with whatever your employer provides) .

I still think many things should just be left to the free market (and I mean TRULY free market (free, but regulated), not the government-sponsored monopolies that make up much of our "capitalist" system). But health care is not one of those things.

Legal Advocacy: The Importance of Credibility

It cannot be stressed enough just how important credibility is when you are a lawyer. I'm not talking about the credibility of witnesses, though that is obviously also an issue of great importance - either bolstering or attacking it, depending on the circumstances. I'm talking about the credibility of the lawyer - both with the judge and the jury (if relevant). I'd say it is most important with the judge or judges (like for an appellate panel).

If you read any (good) treatise on good legal advocacy, this is stressed heavily. But what does it mean?

A layperson may not realize that it is often one of the parties who actually writes a judge's order. You may go to a hearing to argue a motion or an oral argument in circuit court on appeal from an administrative matter and, at the close of the hearing, if you win, you will be asked to write the order that the judge will sign. Often those are basic "you win for the reasons stated in the record" kind of orders, but sometimes, it is a more complex issue. Thus, what you really want is to write your own order and submit it with your motion with the intention that the judge will sign it. And no judge is going to sign your order unless she or he finds you credible in your advocacy.

A total scorched earth approach, questioning and nitpicking every single small point does not lend itself to credibility. Then you look like you are simply arguing for the sake of arguing and opposing for the sake of opposing, and aren't willing to cede any ground, even that ground which you truly should. That makes you appear unreasonable. And if the other side doesn't do the same, then they seem reasonable in comparison. Which order do you think a judge is more likely to sign-the one written by the most or least reasonable party in the suit?

You gain credibility by conceding points where the law truly says the other party should win. You also gain credibility where you concede points that the other side should probably win, but only after a bit of a fight, because that fight wastes everyones time and energy. One thing judges do not like is to have their time wasted. You gain credibily by an unbiased presentation of the facts. Certainly where there is a factual dispute, you advocate for the position you think the evidence supports, but where there are independently verifiable facts, particularly where you are dealing with a written record, citing to it in a misleading way can only destroy your credibility once the judge reads the record and sees that it doesn't match your claims. Better for the judge to conclude that about the other party - then whenever an issue comes up, the judge will turn to YOU for the answer, because the other party simply won't be trusted to give an accurate answer (for instance, if at oral argument, the judge forgets about a particular detail in the record and wonders what happened - or even for something that is outside of the record, like what has happened since the record was taken).

If you gain a reputation for an unbiased representation of the facts, even where it may hurt your client. you gain a reputation for credibility that will serve you well.

I've thought about this in the context of online discussions, where certain ideological groups never cede a single inch or grant any validity to any of the points in contention. Sure, there are idiots who "troll" and don't really have any valid points to make, but it seems like people are shoved into that category all too quickly simply for not being a synchophant, and you get no-debate echo chambers instead of any rational discussion. I wonder if any of those bloggers would still act like that if they had real legal experience where they had to build credibility with a neutral arbiter like a judge instead of having dictatorial control over their own little fiefdom of the internet.

But back to the issue at hand. You need credibility to be an effective advocate. Credibility on the facts and on the law. You have to make sure you are accurate. You have to make sure you communicate it clearly to the judge. And you have to be reasonable. Clients may love it when you are unreasonable and take the scorched earth approach, but it will annoy the hell out of judges (well, unless you are a prosecutor - then the judge can be an extension of the prosecution. Ok, that isn't quite fair - there are lots of biases judges can have).

Credibility is something hard earned and easily and quickly lost. Mislead a judge once, leading to that judge to sign an order that is contrary to the law (or the facts) - and that judge is then reversed on appeal - that judge will remember you. And the next time, even if you are right, the judge certainly isn't going to take your word for it. And ultimately, it is your clients who will suffer.

NPR and Torture: Why I'm Never Contributing to NPR

My car radio is tuned to NPR. The station also does classical music during the day, but then, during the hours I drive, it is pure NPR programming. Over the past eight years, I've found myself, quite often, screaming at the radio in frustration as torture is discussed and it is labeled with the Orwellian "enhanced interrogation techniques" or "harsh interrogation techniques." I've yelled, "No, it is TORTURE, call Torture, TORTURE!" Sadly, the radio never responds to my tirades.

Now, I see the formal explanation of why this is. NPR's Ombudsman has written a blog entry about NPR's avoidance of the word "torture" to describe torture. It is, to say the least, tortured logic. What is most telling is the admission in there that to NOT use torture is do adopt the government's position - all of this said while they explain how they cannot "take sides." Yet not using the word IS taking a side - that of the government. Unfortunatley, the side that is not taken is the truth.

This is utter bullshit. Glenn Greenwald, as linked above, takes NPR to task on this. I am very much looking forward to NPR's (likely bullshit) response. There really is only one right answer here. NPR should report the truth. It should not matter which "side" is hurt by it or which side uses the language. Objective reporting requires reporting the truth. Anything else is propeganda. Not using the word "torture" to describe torture is propeganda.

Over the years, I've heard many an NPR pledge drive. I did once contribute to NPR, though my labor, not through money, though it was 16 hours of labor, not a small investment. When it has come to money, I have not pledged, though I have always intended to - likely when I am no longer paying for child care. But no more. This Orwellian nonsense has killed any incentive I would have had to give them any of my hard-earned cash. Instead, I am going to call them on pledge weeks and tell them what I'm saying now - until they stop with the propeganda and actually accurately report torture as torture, I will NEVER give them a dime. And it isn't just on the torture issue, but all issues where they play these language games, adopting the Orwellian language, usually of the right-wing, to describe things. Real reporters report facts and don't care which side those facts hurt. NPR is nothing more than a propeganda organ for the right-wing so long as they adopt right-wing language over truth. (Same goes for any left-wing Orwellian language, though there is far less of that).

So NPR had better clean up its act, or no money from me. Somehow, I'm not expecting anything to change. Glenn is going to be either rationalized away or ignored. The rot in the MSM is too deep for anything to matter now. I expect the MSM ship is going to sink to the bottom and be replaced by something else - the inanity of the cable news is likely unfixable, given the way the MSM is structured and financed. But at least my voice is out there, for what it is worth.