FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Mar 18, 2007 -> 08:26 PM) That's a no-brainer! Indeed. If I had to restrict myself to one everyday American micro, it would be Sierra Pale. Bigfoot is out and about now, btw. Snatch it up while you can! QUOTE(Middle Buffalo @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 10:37 AM) Would it be too much to ask for Capri Sun to throw an extra straw in the box? It seems like every other box I open only has nine straws for the ten delicious drink pouches. I'm going to make a crazy suggestion here I know, but have you thought about rinsing off one of the old straws to keep around for just such an emergency?? I know that's always been my strategy for when I discover I'm down to my last rubber anyway. . .

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 17, 2007 -> 01:49 AM) I hate Waffle House. I Love Waffle House. Smothered hash browns "all the way", Mmmmm.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 11:04 PM) If anything was going to take down Rove or Cheney, I think their behavior in the Plame matter was more deserving of scorn than in this case. Or in anything they did dealing with Iraq of course. Well, maybe that's what Kap is getting at - that it might not be the Attorney sacking that takes Rove down, but that he'll be the next in the Austin Gang to fall in the wake of something else. As for Cheney, I'm 99% sure the only way he's leaving office before the end of his term is if they carry him out with a sheet over his head after his bum ticker finally gives out.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 07:46 PM) I wasn't exactly sure where to stick this one since there were plenty of Dems in the pocket of the banks who voted for this bill, but it's interesting, and I pretty much figure this is my thread. Credit Suisse has put out an interesting analysis of one of the effects of the new bankruptcy bill that the Congress passed in 05, making it much harder for people to declare bankruptcy. Their conclusion? By making it much harder for people to declare bankruptcy, Congress may have inadvertently exacerbated the sub-prime and foreclosure issues currently plaguing the housing market. Their argument is pretty simple; it's now much harder for people to file bankruptcy, which used to be an option for people who wound up in financial messes. But without that option, people who can't pay their bills wind up having no other way out of debt other than to completely lose things they'd bought on credit, i.e. their mortgages. Based on that graph, there has been a 50% drop in people who are in foreclosure filing bankruptcy. This clearly can't just be from fewer people getting in financial trouble, and the pre-law change small spike doesn't nearly make up for the 2 year drop. In other words, 50% of the people who used to be able to stave off losing their homes by filing bankruptcy are now going straight to foreclosure, and therefore, helping feed into the mortage issues plaguing the economy right now. I started wondering about this connection when the New Century story broke last week. Scary. This is probably worthy of it's own non-Buster thread - it would make a good discussion.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 03:01 PM) That's bulls*** and you know it, and nothing you say will make me change my mind! oh wait... I just did an honest to goodness spit-take. Luckily it was soda and not beer or I'd be nonplussed.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 01:18 PM) I'll say this as clearly as I know how... This is the fairest individual tax system you will ever find. There are loopholes that need to be closed, and much more so on the corporate side, but all in all, the system works pretty well. The only thing I would like to see is another simplification of the code, and the reduction of the IRS, but that is another story. The poorest taxpayers, are not taxpayers at all. In fact they actually come out ahead because of tax credits like the EIC. I have sited the link a bunch of times, usually when this very topic comes up, so it should be at least a memory to most people. The lowest quintile of tax payers, has a net negative tax rate, and the second to lowest quintile has a tax effective rate of zero. You can't get a much better situation than the bottom 40% of taxpayers paying nothing. I agree that it works now for the poor, but if it doesn't work for the higher earners and if something migt be done in the future to correct that then I'm tr4ying to figure out a way basically keep the poor in that same tax-free situation while giving the top 60% something better. Not that anybody's going to be asking my opinion. And that's probably a pretty good thing.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 01:09 PM) I don't see how that winds up being any different from the mess we've already got of lobbyists...to my eyes it might even make it worse. Suddenly you have lobbyists who can cut the price of a good by 75% simply by getting it moved into a different tax classification. OK, how about just tattooing "POOR" on the foreheads of the lowest 25% of earners? And none of the Fair Tax projections I've seen are predicting a 75% tax rate. Edit to add: OK, how about re-purposing a leaner IRS to process tax refunds for the lowest 25% of earners? It It wouldn't have to require filing for anybody who gets a W-2 at least, and only a little bit of work to file an annual income disclosure in other cases. OK, I'm out of ideas.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 12:58 PM) No, I hear you, and with your additional comment tagged at the end, I agree with you, in principle. However, you don't do it with a voucher system. Maybe not a voucher system. How about waiving the tax across the board for groceries and certain other essentials?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 12:28 PM) Those evvvvvvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiillll rich bastards! REDISTRIBUTE! NOW! GIVE ALL YOUR MONEY TO THE GOVERNMENT! Equal pay for equal mindless drones! YES! OK, my response is a little over the top, but this argument is always the same. As is the response. I'm not faulting anybody for being successful. And I'd like nothing better than to go the Fair Tax route rather than the current system, modified with some sort of voucher system to address its regressive nature and the burden it would otherwise impose on the poor.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/03/16/m...reut/index.html Now, if only we can locate that machine with the handprint switch that Schwarzzeneger used to give the planet an instant atmosperee we'd really be in business. Cool stuff. Crazy how much we still don't know about even our nearest neighbor in the solar system.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 12:01 PM) "Smoking in the boys room.........." "Smokin'" was one of the big songs off teh debut album actually. By all accounts, Delp was about the nicest guy you could ever know, so it's really doubly-sad.

Tax magic is right. The authors knew how to ask/answer the right question. The critical missing bit of information, of course, is how much more are the top income earners worth now compared to 1996? If the top earners are worth more than 5% or so than they were in 1996 then they are giving the government a lower percentage of their income than they were in 1996, regardless of whether that total paid by the rich is 5% more than it was in 1996. And if that is the case, I would guess the tax breaks have a lot to do with it.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 03:30 PM) And it's irksome that every single thing that is even a little questionable in terms of the administration's happenings rises to the level of "SCANDAL!!!!" in most of your eyes. It's shallow, stupid, and maybe even questionable. In fact, I've said repeatedly I personally dislike a lot of the Bush Administration policy. But I certainly don't run around and throw gas on the "republicansarebabykillers.com and republicanskickthes***outofpuppies.com crowd" like some here do. The administration does a good job all on its own throwing gas on the fire. But I'm in complete agreement that the current situation is far, far from being the most odious thing Abu Gonzales has been a part of. And he may very well take the fall for something that would have been a much smaller issue if it wasn't more fuel on his fire. Tax evasion was far from Al Capone's worst offense, but that's what took him down. OMFG. . . that moonbat lefty a$$hole just compared the Attorney General to Al Capone. . . No, of course I didn't. I merely mean to point out that it's not necessarily the biggest scandal or crime that brings a body down.

You're all being dense on purpose I know, but it is irksome. 2 months into an administration ≠ 6 years into an administration. The circumstances are very different, and ritual incantation of the ever-pithy Kap&SS "It's Always Different" mantra doesn't change that fact.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 03:29 PM) they only way to resolve this is to commission a committee to authorize a committee to investigate the authorization of the commission of the committee. then we'll get the truth YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 02:13 PM) You are the cherry pickingest, most liberal agenda driven soxtalker around. That should be your new member title. QUOTE(Cknolls @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 02:25 PM) LMAO. QUOTE(mr_genius @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 02:49 PM) I don't see where it is cherrypicking to respond to the people who said the current sacking is 'exactly what Clinton did' to go and actually find out what exactly Clinton did do in terms of firing U.S. attorneys in the middle of their term. There was obviously a reason to fire the dude who choked the reporter, and I guess biting your stripper is a no-no as well (I'll file that away as useful information). In the current situations, the reasons do not seem to be as legitimate, do they?

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 01:28 PM) ...with two charcoal grills? What does that do? Who the hell comes up with that way to kill themselves? I know...the Boston singer...but that's just friggin' weird! Probably rivals even Jim Elliot's asphyxiation by moped in the garage farewell stunt. Very sad nonetheless.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 01:09 PM) Let's see, Walter Reed, U.S. attorneys, and the usual Iraq war...I wonder how long they've been holding onto this "bad headline blocker". It certainly does knock all of the negative administration stories out of the limelight for a bit, but I doubt they had the confession before this weekend when they got the confession statements for everything else from him.

And when I said 'I never bet on baseball' all those years, what I meant to say was 'I never missed a chance to bet on baseball. It's a subtle difference I know, but apparently it is an important one to some folks.

Good to see nobody's too gay to fight and kill and die during wartime.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 09:32 AM) you ruined this one by spelling "new" "knew" Noo Noo?

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 09:38 AM) Nobody responded to the articles I posted? Are those scientists totally full of s***? Are they paid by oil companies? Do their findings hold water at all? Is there any room for discussion? Now I don't have the knowledge in this field to know or not know if what they are reporting is true, but some of you here do and haven't addressed it. J.R. Dunn, author of the first piece you presented, is not a scientist. He's an author/contributing editor for American thinker, and a former editor for the International Military Encyclopedia. He does as pretty good job of scouring the academic fringes looking for the climate change dissenters though, and his most recent American Thinker piece (LINK) actually mentions Svensmark and Calder from your second piece. I'm intrigued by the cosmic ray/albedo theory, by the way, but Dunn gets it right when he notes that the work is still entirely speculative. The Brit documentary appears as if it's going to pass it off as fact. Dunn also points to Roy W. Spencer as presenting serious scientific challenges to mainstream climate change views. Spencer is the guy I couldn't remember by name before - a respected scientist who for a long time was also a respected climate change dissenter, but who had major holes punched in his key findings when it was discovered that his math was wrong and he was remote-recording nighttime temperatures and thinking they were daytime temperatures ('Warming, what warming?? Nice and cool here.'). Spencer hasn't given up the ghost, and he feels he's been blacklisted by funding agencies for being a contrarian. I don't personally buy the blacklist claim but I won't get into it. He's greatly tempered his early rhetoric about no perceptible change, and now accepts there is change and says the true question is how much and how fast? Of course, mainstream science concurs those are the real questions. The problem is that Spencer seems now to be going down a similar road as Seitz and Sanger. He might not be getting rich off of Big Oil and Big Tobacco like those guys, but he is letting his personal beliefs cloud his scientific judgement. As the Scientific Advisor to the Interfaith Stewarship Alliance he followed his own long-time muse by recommending that, even if climate change is occurring, we shouldn't try to fix things but instead we should adapt (And Big Oil apparently didn't even need to pay him). And now he is moving away from the climate stuff somewhat – the field where he is a recognized authority – and is pimping for the Intelligent Design Folks and taking on evolution - a field where he is an educated layman at best. I'm not up to speed on the claims of Reiter and Clark beyond what is in the documentary story you posted. I'll have to get back to you on what I make of them. Cutting to the chase, if even holdouts like Roy and Spencer and the oil companies are conceding that climate change is occurring and that humans are responsible for some portion of that change and the questions are 'how much' and 'how fast,' then how much real dissent with mainstream science really exists? Those are the same questions other scientists are grappling with. Although if the body of evidents starts to look like the answers are 'quit a bit' and 'faster than the planet has ever experienced,' I hope the response will be to address some root causes and not just to deal with it like Roy Spencer has suggested.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 14, 2007 -> 02:10 PM) To be honest, I don't know how Fitzgerald is still around. This guy has been so far up everyone's ass in Chicago, its amazing he is still alive. He has hunted down Daley guys, and Ryan guys equally. If he survives the 09 inevitable purge, I wouldn't be surprised to seem him indict King Richard himself. Speaking of. . . it looks like the Conrad Black case is starting up and you gioys should be able to enjoy that for a while, eh?

Interesting story item of the day: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/14/rove-fitzgerald/