rhaig

did you seriously spend a whole page arguing about the "takes effect on" date of a law? Lucky: seriously... it's ok to admit you should have re-worded something. We all know you're fallible. Admit it to yourself. Everyone else: He's not worth that much effort. A full page? Really? -- Rob

this guy apparently knows how drunken sailors spend their money. -- Rob

If the crooks don't KNOW about the law, how can they be deterred by it, Mr. Legal Genius? shh... he's too busy telling Texas cops how the law in Texas works. When really that's only up to the judge. -- Rob

It's sad that since you cannot make an argument that you must PA. what's ironic, is that in that sentence, you're attacking the poster, not the contents of his post. -- Rob

http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html They're made out of Meat by Terry Bisson "They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "Meat. They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat." "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars." "They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines." "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact." "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines." "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat." "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat." "Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage." "Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?" "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside." "Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through." "No brain?" "Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!" "So... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat." "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat." "Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years." "So what does the meat have in mind?" "First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual." "We're supposed to talk to meat?" "That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing." "They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?" "Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat." "I thought you just told me they used radio." "They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat." "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?" "Officially or unofficially?" "Both." "Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing." "I was hoping you would say that." "It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?" "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?" "Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact." "So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe." "That's it." "Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?" "They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them." "A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream." "And we can mark this sector unoccupied." "Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?" "Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again." "They always come around." "And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone." -- Rob

actually no, it doesn't. when was the last time a mortgage payment was made in cash? either bits are shifted in accounts, or a check is written. in either case, debt is transferred from one account to another. -- Rob

When people use "progressive" and "regressive" to describe taxes it's usually implied that they're indexing total tax paid back to the person's income. You're right that a true regressive sales tax would be absurd. Imagine paying 50% sales tax on items $5 and less rolling off to 5% sales tax as the value of the item increased to $10,000. Now THAT would have poor people rightfully pissed off. A flat sales tax is regressive under the assumption that poor people live paycheck to paycheck spending every dime they make, which makes their effective tax rate as a percentage of their income equal to the flat sales tax rate. People who are not poor generally have some level of savings/investments which they can use to earn additional money none of which sales tax touches. This reduces the effective tax rate as a percentage of your income the more you make. People who aren't "super rich" but complain about estate taxes are being called stooges here, but I don't know if that's necessarily fair. People focusing on a carrot out in the distance is probably a good thing. I think it's more worrisome when poor people don't empathize with a hard-working middle class person that gets screwed over by policies. a flat sales tax on everything sure. but did you read the rest of my post? If like tx sales tax, food isnt taxed, or like the fairtax.org system, there was a monthly tax prebate, then the month to month folks (I live month to month) wouldnt be affected by this tax as much since they wouldnt be buying non necessity items. -- Rob

how is a sales tax regressive? I envision a national sales tax implemented much like TX sales tax is. Non junk food isn't taxed, theres a weekend before shool starts every year where clothes and school/office supply type things aren't taxed. With that kind of a system, what's so regressive about a sales tax? -- Rob

reminds me of one night at skydive USA (now long defunct) sitting across from a whuffo who decided to buy beer and stick around, and next to a DPS officer/jumper. The whuffo started railing on cops, and the officer next to me gave me a look like "let it go", then she started egging him on. Eventually he looked at us both and said "one of you is a cop aren't you!! (fucking pigs)" and wandered off. -- Rob

of course... It's not anyone's fault they didn't do elementary school math on their income and expenses (my first grader is learning greater-than and less-than). It's the banker's fault. what?? BOTH parties are at fault. to deny consumer fault is ignorance. -- Rob

bequeathing property to family is not running a modern economy. Your comparison is moot. So you'd rather the government take a big chunk of it, and give it to welfare recipients? -- Rob

I have relatives with property on the border. They don't go out at night. They don't go out alone during the day. If I lived along the border, and didn't have the means to move, I'm not sure what I'd do. -- Rob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GosClBN6rzk FUCK YOU WHALE!! -- Rob

what hte hell is it with you and the winking... If I make a shit-ton of money, and decide to will it to my children upon my death, then I expect that they would live off of it or extend their lifestyle, or save it, for the rest of their lives. Yes. If I leave them a business with employees, It has to be run by someone. I'd expect them to run it, or sell it. Niether of those I'd consider mooching. Now, if I made a shit ton of money and built a large business and it paid dividends to my children for the rest of their lives, I'd not want them to make that their entire life. (just spending their earnings) But would prefer they did something good with that money. But it's theirs to give away, not the governments to take. -- Rob

Sounds like we are in agreement. Technically speaking, since it is laid out as a right in the constitution, this is within the process. Voting is also within the process. Which one of those actions is appropriate at this time? as you point out, they're both within the process, I don't see either as inappropriate. Voting, however, isn't taking place right now for representatives in our federal government. And they feel like they need to do something, so this is what they've chosen. -- Rob

you're reminding me of the pastor at my church. A few weeks ago his sermon was on NEVER rebelling against authority. (his emphasis) I asked him later what he thought about the guys in Massachusetts rebelling against the brits 235 years ago. His response was that "sure... there are exceptions... when I said never, I didn't mean never... uh...". Let the process work it's course is what you're saying right? Well, while I don't think it's time to go outside the process yet, the people in OK, apparently do think that time might be soon. Raising a militia is within their rights and they're choosing to do it now rather than later (when they perceive it might be too late). -- Rob

this will be interesting to watch. while states are allowed to form militias this could turn sour quickly. -- Rob

so you just don't want people to inherit their relative's wealth? That would be a massive inheritance tax you're wanting (double taxation). And could be a way out of poverty for some. STRAW MAN. I didn't say that. But yes, there should be an inheritance tax. And your silly "double taxation" argument has been debunked repeatedly. what you did say is you don't have a problem with people having wealth if they earned it. Implying you have a problem with people having wealth if they didn't earn it. To me, this says they were given it. That's where I drew my conclusion. What I left out was the word "all". you don't want people to inherit all of their relatives wealth. and in your reply, you confirm this, with your agreement to an inheritance tax. that right there is the first step to plain and simple wealth redistribution. The next step is to increase welfare programs. The next is "from each according to their ability to each according to their need". you don't think that taxing wealth (savings) is wealth redistribution? please explain. I don't understand son. you call me dear boy, I'll call you son. (because if I say "motherfucker" you'll scream PA) (edit to fix cheesetitted quote) -- Rob

so you just don't want people to inherit their relative's wealth? That would be a massive inheritance tax you're wanting (double taxation). And could be a way out of poverty for some. that right there is the first step to plain and simple wealth redistribution. The next step is to increase welfare programs. The next is "from each according to their ability to each according to their need". -- Rob

1) As of 2006, the bottom 40% had 11% of the income. . Ability to pay depends on how much you HAVE, not on how much you earn in any given year. am I understanding that you object to the possession of large sums of money? do you think we should tax wealth and not income? -- Rob

offering physical resistance to a blood draw is silly. It will only end up in injuries. A verbal denial of permission is all that's required. The judge will decide if it's usable or not. If they had a warrant then surely it will be. they started doing almost that in Austin last fall at halloween. There was enough of an uproar that at new years, they had a judge on call to write the warrant. Still stinks that they did it that way, but at least they set some conditions under which they'd make the call as opposed to just doing it without a warrant. -- Rob

wow... I really struck a nerve with that didn't I. In any case, I swapped the terms while typing them. Will edit to fix. Thanks for pointing it out, even in such an asinine manner. -- Rob

I didn't read all of it, because it was way too long for my attention span. I did notice some of the questions were pretty intrusive, like asking if a person has an emotional condition, or something like that. I can see why people wouldn't feel comfortable answering a lot of it. So you have an emotional condition that makes you uncomfortable answering questions about your emotional condition. great... you just put him in an infinite loop. -- Rob

sure there is. failing to blow usually results in the suspension of your drivers license though as that was the agreement you entered into with your state when you got a license to drive on public roads. This of course differs state-to-state. In TX, there is an administrative hearing scheduled within 90 days where it is determined what happens to your drivers license. That, however, does not constitute a lack of self-incrimination protection. -- Rob

where have I said the rich shouldn't be taxed? Where have I said taxes should be low? you're ASSuming again that those are my positions. Property taxes dissuade home ownership when people being invested in their surroundings is something we need right now. As horrible as the current tax system is, it's cost of operation is a major chunk of it's income. simplify. flat tax with allowances for dependents only, or sales tax with prebates based on dependents. -- Rob