AtticaFlinch

It's the Southern Baptists you're thinking of. And actually, they can dance. They're just not allowed to move their feet.

My comment was changed from a not so clever double entendre to something a bjtchy third grade teacher would say? Man, I feel hella safer.

I haven't seen a bar since I moved out to the 'burbs. All we've got up here are churches, TGIFriday's and more churches.

Formerly Catholic hospitals that resemble protestant megachurches are happenin' places to party. Whenever I bring visitors in from out of town and drive past St Joe's, they always say to me, "Man, I wonder how big the dancefloor is in there."

Well, I didn't really mean it as a reproach. I guess I accidentally slipped in the indefinite article a, which entirely changed the meaning of what was supposed to be a joke.

The bulk of the cost of publishing textbooks comes from the actual publishing. Eliminate that, and you can lower the cost of the ideas contained within. Paying a publisher $30 (or whatever) a year for each student for copyright use times the number of classes a student takes plus the cost of an ebook reader would probably be less expensive over time than purchasing new textbooks every five years. As an added benefit, the rate of scoliosis among school kids would probably drop as students no longer had to tote 300 lbs of books to school (uphill and in the snow both ways).

No. The frequency of punctuation won't affect it either. Any non-work and non-sleep time is Daddy time. Besides, haven't you noticed my geo-tag recently changed? I'm a suburban HAIFer now. I hear the inner-loop is full of robbing and raping. I'd go if I weren't so scared of getting mugged.

All those refineries in Pasadena and Deer Park should be chock full of tourists and 24-hour party people. When you fly into Hobby at night, those are the best lit places along the entire Gulf Coast.

Yes, they're attention-getters... for the tourists. They serve as attention- repellents to the residents though. It makes a portion of the city virtually unusable to people who actually live there. How many Manhattanites actually visit Times Square?

So that's why Houston can't attract very many tourists! We haven't been targeting the moth demographic!

Nice. You're not opposed to it for the bad precedent it sets. If I understand correctly, you're opposed because you think it's a misallocation of military resources. Am I the only one who thinks this precedent takes us ever closer to a police state, effectively giving the government a free pass to murder any citizen it disagrees with?

Effete aesthetes? It serves all y'all old-timer HAIFers right. When someone gives you a head, you're not supposed to critique their technique.

I dated her too... to the same effect. I don't understand how some people can be so unpragmatic. Don't get me wrong, I like nice things as much as the next guy. I just can't find myself being driven by the attainment of nice things. They're a nice ancillary in this journey we call life, but they're hardly worth living for. Why anyone would be so concerned with crap that truly doesn't matter is beyond me, and being reminded of people like this never fails to make me grateful for the upbringing I had.

That's fair, but here's where the nuance of what I was asking comes into play. If a person is killed in action, during a battle where shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later is a sensible policy, I don't disagree with you. However, that's not the case here. We know the guy's an American, and we're going to go out of our way to kill him without trial, criminal or military. His death won't be a battlefield statistic. His death will be deliberate. It'll be a calculated move by the government to kill an American citizen and deny him the due process of law. Perhaps I'm not explaining this well. First, let me categorically distance myself from the man's extremist point-of-view. My contention isn't that we even need to respect his right to be subversive. My contention is merely that since he's an American citizen, and since American citizens are supposedly accorded certain inalienable rights, and since government sponsored death without due process for American citizens violates the constitution, and since violating the constitution is illegal, isn't this act illegal, and if we can justify it, doesn't this set a bad precedent that can continue to be used against American citizens in the future? In other words, what's to stop the government from assassinating every future dissident based on some arbitrary (and most importantly) unproven pretext? The inviolable rule of law is what sets us apart from the tyrannical whims of dictatorships.

Heh. I don't even know what to make of this. Rick Perry is sponsoring NASCAR. Edit: Even funnier is that the drivers will be turning left the entire time.

Yes, you must. I recommend boat loads of puff paint and a bedazzler. You'll have more pizazz than an Elton John/Madonna/Barbra Streisand concert.

This one really gets me: Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen On some level, when we don't allow due process for enemy combatants of a different nationality, I don't really have much of a problem with it on a visceral level. However, this guy's an American. Regardless of his views and his politics and his extremism, does he not still deserve due process as afforded to him under the constitution as a citizen of the United States? If we can find a way to justify killing this man, are we not setting a bad legal precedent that can be badly abused in the future?

Or Katy!

I verified my terminology with the Wall Street Journal. It stands to reason I got it backwards. In other words, we agree on this. Your prose was just... less prosaic.

How? Even if we could fund our government on 17% of all individual income, it still doesn't negate the point that 17% of $20,000 is far more negatively impactful than 17% of $2,000,000. A flat tax, no matter how low you set it, is less fair to the poor and middle-class than a regressive tax. I readily admit the regressive tax is less fair to the rich, but being as they've benefitted the most from our free enterprise system, I consider it a wash.

If he's anything like his namesake...

Also, I thought Tipping was just a city in China.

Not really. My sense of self-worth isn't contingent upon peer approval on HAIF. Besides, if I'm the only one who's wrong and everybody else is right, and considering several people agreed with my position, that means despite disagreeing with me, you also agree with my take on this. We can call this the Fringe Paradox. But be careful with this paradox. If we let it get out of control, it'll rip a hole in the space-time continuum and destroy the universe.

You had to edit this post? I'm curious what it said before.

We already have this. It's set at 8.25%, remember? Do you propose we fund all government with this? Or, are we supposed to raise this tax to something like 50% to cover debts? What happens when the economy nosedives and people stop spending as much? My curiosity is piqued by the concept, but I'd like it to be more fleshed out. My general belief at this point though, is that once you start trying to work through the details of a consumption tax, you'll realize it's untenable as little more than a ideological talking point. I don't think our tax system is perfect, but it's actually pretty fair as is. The way to make it more fair is to increase the tax burden on the wealthiest ten percent and close a number of corporate loopholes. Other than that, we don't need to reinvent the wheel.