RedScare

Lets take your example and run with it.....so a Texas Game Warden watches a guy fishing with a throw net (illegal) keeping undersized trout from that throw net (illegal) without a license (illegal) and dumping his trash on the beach (illegal). When he approaches the guy he says, let me see your fishing license so I can write you a ticket for breaking the law. Guy replies, I dont have one. Ok, let me see your drivers license or id card, so I can write you a ticket. Guy replies - I dont have one. Why the heck, should the game warden not be allowed to arrest him on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant in addition to his other infractions?

If he writes the guy a ticket and releases him he will just move places and continue...he has nothing to lose, there are no repercussions for breaking the law. I personally think that the game warden should arrest the guy. ICE should come get him, verify his status, and if he is here illegally he should be deported back to _________and the _________ government should reimburse us for every penny it costs us to get him back to __________. If they do not reimburse us for this, then we should slap a 20% "fee" on all wire transfers originating in the United States and going to ___________. That money can then be used to further continue to deport the _____________ people back to ___________.

The Arizona law is not perfect, but I have no problem at all letting a cop verify citizenship once someone is already caught breaking the law. All the Arizona law did was make it a State crime to break a Federal law. I have no problem with it at all.

Because state and local law enforcement agents do not have the authority to enforce federal law. HOWEVER, there is no reason that the game warden cannot arrest the fisherman on the fishing infractions. Once at the jail, the jailers may notify ICE that the arrestee may not be legal. Once ICE confirms same, a hold is placed on the illegal fisherman.

For a lawyer, you sure have a weak understanding of law...especially the Constitution.

Sorry Red.. You're no longer cool.

All you Heights people as well as you East End and Rice/Musuem District peeps are hereby removed from the cool group..

Only INNER-Inner Loopers need apply.

I blame Lisa Gray.

It seemed woefully incomplete (and about half of the action OUTSIDE the inner loop) but I thought you guys might enjoy it.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_18/b4176120000767.htm

Umm...only ONE thing to do was outside the Inner Loop.

In fact, 5 of the 6 things to do are located in an area within the loop, I-10 and 59. That area is probably one-sixth of the inner loop.

I might point out that I am speaking of North Carolina, not ANWR. North Carolinians are not known for their liberalism. They hunt, they fish, and they love their land. And they do not want people with your mindset running drilling rigs off their shores for precisely the reasons that you state in your posts. They do not mind that you find beauty in Texas, and they do not mind that Texans drill and endure oil slicks and all those other things. They simply do not want to endure it themselves. As a states rights guy, you should respect the Carolinians preference not to live by the rules of those who say "f__k birds" and think 400 square mile slicks are no big deal.

Even if there were an impact, large bird die-offs occur on a fairly frequent basis from meteorological phenomena. The reason you don't hear about them, however, is that nobody who is ever going to buy products advertised in the media really cares about birds. Mostly, they just want to be entertained. So unless bird deaths can be linked to some other controversy, to celebrities, or to whack-jobs that take themselves too seriously to realize that they've become accidental clowns...it doesn't matter. ____ birds. :shrug:

Thus explaining why your opinion is an outlier. To nearly everyone who does have even a passing interest in nature, this has the potential to be a major spill. And the fear of those that oppose drilling off of their shores is twofold...that these blowouts may occur, and that those in the drilling industry think as you do. Having grown up in North Carolina and living in Texas, I wouldn't want Texans drilling off the North Carolina shores, either. Texans just flat don't care about the environment, at least not to any appreciable degree. Your statements and opinions, along with those of Marksmu and Ricco, are fairly typical of Texas attitudes toward the environment, and it shows. Our beaches are butt ugly, our landscape is butt ugly, and we are forced to find 'beauty' in the rubbish that man creates. Only a Texan would find a 400 square mile oil slick to be no big deal.

If you are capable of doing math, you will confirm my calculations that the top 20% of US households earn 50% of the total income in the US. Yet they enjoy only 38% of the expenditures.

Your math confirms that the wealthy have a greater ability to pay higher taxes (since they consume less of their income), making the case for a progressive tax system.

Thank you for saving me the trouble of finding the support for that conclusion.

What a crap piece of reporting..."could lead to a major oil spill" - its not leaking. Coast Guard has confirmed its not leaking, and the Robots have successfully closed the sea bed valve. That is just more MSNBC crap reporting, trying to get everyone all fired up about the devastating effects of oil and the environment.

The rig was burning natural gas, and onboard fuel, minor amounts of oil spilled during the blowout - its a capped well now, and its not leaking at all.

The environmental impact will be marginal unless something else goes wrong.

Turns out that the "crap piece of reporting" may have come from Fox News itself.

A slow-motion environmental disaster may be in the making with the discovery Saturday that 42,000 gallons a day of crude oil is spewing from a well on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico near where a huge drilling rig sank last week — and it could be months before it's stopped.

The spill, which a day earlier Coast Guard officials believed was contained within a 16-square-mile area on the surface, now covers some 400 square miles — slightly bigger than the city of Dallas — and could grow as the well continues to leak, Rear Adm. Mary Landry, commander of Coast Guard District 8, said Saturday.

“This is a very serious spill,” she said at a press conference, adding that governments of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida had been warned about the threat of oil coming ashore and invited to participate in the response.

Oil May Spew For Months

The more money a corporation has the more money it can invest in the future....the more future investment, the better off everyone is. The same argument goes for income taxes on individuals as well, but were just complaining about corporations here....The more the government stays out of our pockets the more successful the country will be.

Actually, this thread was started by you to complain that the wealthy pay too much taxes. Now, you claim corporations should not pay taxes. In another thread, you complained of the budget deficit. The reason you are a lightning rod for criticism is that you have no ability to view the situation holistically. The government must have revenue to operate. Yet, you (and most Republicans) insist on lowering or eliminating taxes on everyone or everything that has the ability to pay them, while simultaneously claiming that the deficit is too large. Perhaps because you are a product of wealthy parents and grew up during the easy credit days you have no concept of balancing budgets, but your complaints conflict with each other.

Look at where the wealth in the US is concentrated.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

The top 20% of US households control 85% of the total net worth in the US. Total financial wealth (not including one's home) is an even more staggering 93% of total financial wealth held in the top 20% of households. Yet you cry that the top 20% pay too much. Reality is that they pay only 86% of the taxes. The top 20% are actually paying LESS than the percentage of the wealth they control.

If you are capable of doing math, why don't you tell us how exactly YOU would balance the budget. Use REAL numbers, not the vague talking points of the news channels and tea partiers. I'd love to see it.

What a crap piece of reporting..."could lead to a major oil spill" - its not leaking. Coast Guard has confirmed its not leaking, and the Robots have successfully closed the sea bed valve. That is just more MSNBC crap reporting, trying to get everyone all fired up about the devastating effects of oil and the environment.

The rig was burning natural gas, and onboard fuel, minor amounts of oil spilled during the blowout - its a capped well now, and its not leaking at all.

The environmental impact will be marginal unless something else goes wrong.

Actually, Fox News is reporting the very same thing from the very same sources. And, CNN has quoted BP's VP as saying...

Officials do not know whether oil or fuel are leaking from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig and the well below, but BP Vice President David Rainey said "it certainly has the potential to be a major spill."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/23/oil.rig.explosion/index.html?hpt=T2

Your blood pressure would be lower if you would simply read the articles rather than blow a gasket prematurely.

336,000 gallons of oil per day may not be much to you, but it is considered 'major' by most everyone else.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36683314/ns/us_news-environment/?ns=us_news-environment

Officials had previously said the environmental damage appeared minimal, but new challenges have arisen now that the platform has sunk.

The well could be spilling up to 336,000 gallons of crude oil a day, the Coast Guard said, and the rig carried 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

Crude from the well had been burning off but when the rig sank earlier Thursday the fire was extinguished. What's not clear is if the crude is still spewing below the surface.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said crews saw a one mile by five mile sheen of what appeared to be a crude oil mix on the surface of the water.

I agree that oil spill containment and recovery are much improved, but to suggest that cleaning up a spill is as simple as wiping a Bounty paper towel across a countertop is flat out lying. This cleanup will be easier if they can close the blowout preventer and the winds keep the 5 square mile oil slick at sea, but if the winds change, it will cause serious problems.

The potential for these calamities is why some coastal residents oppose offshore drilling. It doesn't matter that they are relatively infrequent, but that they do occasionally occur.

Not sure if I missed something but it seems that all the noise for the apartment complex near Katy Mills WAS initiated and supported by someone with specific interests in the land around Katy Mills (smells like a neighouring money grubbing developer holding out for more cash). The reason why I bring this up is that the new apartment complex construction (on the corner of Roesner and Katy Ft-Bend road) is just about a half mile away from where the low-income apartment complex was set to be built..... and I have not even heard a peep from our Mayor Elmer Fudd. The question is "why isn't Elmer out there looking for illegals" as he said in his statement.

Hmmmpppphh must mean no one is interested or they're all tired from fighting the other developer. I feel sorry for the home owners near there since their values are about to go down.

Actually, it is neither. The other complex was in the City of Houston, so Katy would receive no taxes from it, making it a pariah to the good mayor. The others are all within Katy town limits, making them good taxpaying citizens. And apartment owners pay full freight on their property taxes, not those lame homestead exempted rates that the whiny, demanding homeowners pay. And apartments pay higher water rates, and haul away their own garbage, saving valuable city resources. The mayor can't get enough of them, so that he can assess lower rates on the voting homeowners. Frankly, Katy residents would be lucky to have half the intelligence of the hayseed mayor.

I notice you chose the crappy GE and left out Exxon. Even more interesting is the fact that both companies made out like bandits with tax deductions and credits, just like the poor people that Marksmu was railing against. I hope to see him spewing venom against these deadbeats soon, lest he lose credibility.

You're right, technology has improved a tremendous amount, but don't tell that to the Sierra club and other environmental people. According to them they are all the rigs are made of tin and are susceptible to collapse if a seagull lands on it funny. I'm struggling to remember when the last major leak occurred from a rig in the gulf or California.

Umm...today?

Burning Oil Platform Collapses Into Gulf

There were also several dozen rigs that broke free of their moorings during Hurricanes Katrina and Ike. Some were never found.

Technically speaking, that's true. But these are multinational companies, and their domestic business lines are not profitable. They aren't taxed on a loss, yet are still able to claim tax credits, deductions, and adjustments, not unlike a household in many respects.

To borrow a phrase...

I find that difficult to believe. Please cite a source or otherwise clarify your statement.

But for sake of argument, do you (or anyone for that matter) have any actual evidence that indicates a progressive tax scale leads to the stagnation of civilization?

It's all hyperbole and greed.

While gto is providing that evidence, maybe he will explain why the most productive years in US history, from the end of WWII into the 70s, also had the highest tax rates, some as high as 94%.

I do not fault you for wanting things, or for wanting to provide for your family....the new war on the "rich" that the democrat party seems to be weighing is all breaking down to who gets to decide when you have enough. Personally I think that should be the individuals choice, not the neighbors, the guy at the soup kitchen, or the government. If a person wants to work for more, they should not be penalized for doing so.

This statement is symptomatic of the "rich"'s war on the middle class. There is no penalty for working more, any more so than there is a penalty on all workers. The tax system is set up to pay for all those things that makes life easier to live, to make commerce easier to conduct, and the wealthy easier to protect. If the rich do not want these things they should say so. But, they do not, because quite simply, the rich want more roads, more police, more prisons and bigger armies. They simply do not want to pay for them.

There is no new war on the rich. There is finally a realization that George Bush was conducting a stealth war on the middle class. Your initial claim that the poor and middle class do not pay anything is evidence of that. The lowered tax rates and capital gains rates and deregulation of banks, etc., allowed the wealthy to become wealthier at the expense of the middle class, to the point that growing numbers of workers do not make enough to even owe taxes. It also came at the expense of the budget deficit that you scream so much about. There is a move to roll back some of these rates...not to the 50% Reagan years...but to the 39.5% Clinton years. Frankly, until tax rates return to the level of your hero Reagan, I think you are simply full of hot air.

I think the problem is that almost all of the people who move to Houston are not in it for the long haul, which is fine, but they have also somehow convinced themselves that to protect their boom-and-bust short term interests they must be dogmatically against any long term improvement/investments.

Yeah, there are so many people fleeing Houston that the metro has grown 109% since 1980 (2.75 million to 5.78 million). But, Portland, Oregon, where no doubt everyone moves to stay for the long haul, has only grown 67% in the same period. Wonder why that is?

Nope. When the city came out in 2009 to replace my meter due to a leak. they broke the plumbing to my house and were forced to replace a short section cause they made the same assumption.

Your post makes absolutely no sense, but then they usually don't. At any rate, the original poster stated that his house was built in 1995, so it is going to be PVC.

By the way, if you haven't called anyone yet, my plumber friend said that his company, Vossler Plumbing, would likely fix a small leak this one for $180-250. (713) 688-2304

Back on topic, we cannot allow our satellite technology to fall prey to asking permission to go up and fix them, from any other nation. There are things in orbit that are our real strategic strength. Mars is a dream, and the return to the Moon is not the essential role of the space program. Instead, the DOD program should be left in tact with NASA. If Colbert's visit can assist with the exposure needed to draw the proper attention to these subjects, then, BRAVO!

NASA is already developing robots to handle that task. There are commercial vehicles capable of taking the robots into orbit. We don't need anyone's permission to service the satellites. Other than Hubble, I don't recall the space shuttle doing much of that anyway. The only losers will be high school science projects. NASA doesn't need to be in the satellite repair business. NASA needs to be in the research and development business.

So then, our call to rally against the British was "no taxation without representation", so shouldn't there be "no representation without taxation"? Seems there should be.

Do you know anyone who is not taxed? There are the income taxes, of course, though some low wage earners and unemployed do not pay them. However, every wage earner must pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, as do the self-employed. Anyone who owns a home or land pays property taxes. Even the homeless pay sales taxes on their booze and cigarettes. Do you not think those taxes are sufficient to entitle one to be a citizen and represented?

But, to answer your question, no, I do not believe in no representation without taxation. I do, however, believe that some people in this country are far too selfish and greedy, and that they should spend more time appreciating what they have and less time trying to make everyone else pay for it.

Let's wait until Colbert delivers a satire on President Obama, and uses the, "N" word, and see how funny you think that is.

You'll wait a long time. That is not Colbert's character. Watch the show before you comment on his humor. You'll make far fewer mistakes.

No worries, Niche. I won't condemn you after Whataburger and Thunderbird have turned your arteries as brittle as Dick Cheney's heart and your liver as spotted as his soul.

I'm only going after people's grandmothers.

Finally, someone else gets the axe. They've been going after my whiskey and cigs for years. It's about time they went after other peoples grandmothers.

Escrow is recalculated yearly. The method of calculation is included in your new escrow notice, or can probably be found on your mortgage company's website.

That green splotch at the intersection of I-10 and Beltway 8 is likely created by CityCentre.

Or maybe you get bonus points for pedestrian friendly freeway flyovers?

Are we too self-important to give a key to the city to a celebrity, especially one who has his own treadmill named after him on the Space Station?

(And, you are correct, I had not noticed that he was merely visiting NASA, no doubt to do a segment, not an entire show.)