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http://blog.chron.com/txpotoma... that picture says it all

That is a rarity... most taxis are rented.

When you work for a taxi company who charges you a percentage of your fares for the right to drive the cab, that rate is typically one-third of your overall gross fare income, according to "Forbes." If you bring in $200 in fares during your shift, one-third is about $66. That means you have $134 left, part of which you use to pay for your gas, if required by your company

http://work.chron.com/much-far...

According to http://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html, your run of the mill grocery store has a profit margin of a whopping 1%. Can you explain to me how that's supposed to pay for increasing the wages of the majority of their workforce by 100%. Labor is the biggest cost of doing business, pretty much across the board.

All similar business in the same geographical area pay generally the same wages, and so have the same general costs of doing business. As such, any business that attempts to inflate their profit margins have really only one way to do so: by increasing the price of their products. But if they were to do so, they will be immediately underpriced by their area competitors. As such, profit margins of general businesses, not just grocery stores, but all general businesses, tend to be razor thin. They can only charge a bare minimum above the cost of their products, in order to stay in business.

And we're not talking about just your cashiers in the grocery store. The companies that run the trucks that deliver the goods to the store also have to raise their minimum wage too, and will also have to increase their costs to deliver goods, which gets passed down to the grocery stores, which will also have to increase their own prices on account of that too.

The janitorial services, that send their workers to the local businesses, to clean their toilets, will also have to increase their own minimum wages too. This also translates to their direct costs, which they have no choice but to pass down to the grocery store, as their customer, who will also have to increase their product prices on account of that too.

You can come up with a myriad of examples. Do you know who really ends up paying for the $15 minimum wage? You, the helpless consumer. Always.

There's an old term for all of this. It's called "trickle-down economics". Perhaps you've heard of it. Much derided by the radical left; perhaps the term was originally poorly chosen. A better name would've been "real life".

4 days later we have SUV smashes into East Harris County daycare. Driven by? An 81-year-old.

150 grams of carbs isn't low carb at all.

An average American male eats 2,512 calories and 296 carbs per day. So I'm restricting myself to one-half the average.

http://livehealthy.chron.com/average-american-diet-calorie-intake-2960.html

The stuff you post just doesn't gel together in a reasonable fashion.

This is Slashdot. You must be new around here.

That's the search term I'd be looking for, to compare college presidents to CEOs. With that search term, I keep getting hits for average fortune 500 CEO salary, and the range is from 10.5 million to 13.8 million.

Texas? Are you refering to the state that has gone out of it''s way to hamper women's civil rights by enacting new barriers to abortion?

Or is it Texas - the state that has made it illegal for people who are legally women to use the women's washroom?

Or is it Texas - the state that just loves to hate on anyone not white?

Texax - where if you're not white and male, you're sh*t. No thanks.

My uncle is 6'2 and flew reconnaissance F4 Phantoms in Viet Nam. Just what is the height constraint?

http://work.chron.com/air-forc... states:
Pilots have to meet the Air Force’s height, weight and physical conditioning requirements. They must be 64 to 77 inches tall when standing, and 34 to 40 inches tall when sitting...

77 inches is 6 foot 5 inches, so looks like your uncle made it with three inches to spare.

My wife was telling me about a story she read regarding a North Korean defector who fled across the border to China and then eventually made it to the West. The thing that convinced him he needed to leave? A soldier from the other side of the DMZ accidentally dropped nail clippers and didn't care enough to come back and get them later. When he realized that something as "incredible" as nail clippers were basically worthless to the other side's soldiers, he knew he had been lied to about how things were outside of his country.

Take it with the requisite grain of salt, but it's an interesting anecdote, nonetheless.

I wouldn't discount it in the least.

When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake

For a wider perspective:

Grocery stores are a marvel. ...

What you see is a miracle. This is the pinnacle of civilization, in its own way. No king in the history of mankind had access to riches like this. Look - here. (picks u box of special expensive gourmet crackers) This is someone's livelihood. Someone got a loan, started a business, hired people, paid someone to design this, because he or she wanted to make a special cracker, and here it is next to all the other special crackers, and this is just the special cracker department in the cheese department. There's another special cracker section in the cracker aisle. He might fail, he might win, but you can do that here, you can try. And if someone says why do we need so many cracker choices, this is why. Do you want some governing Cracker Bureau to say no, don't make crackers, make pretzels. But I don't want to make pretzels. I want to make crackers. Sorry, we have enough crackers. But I have this new taste. SORRY.

Now apply that to everything here! And the other store that has the stuff this one doesn't! And the other chain that carries a different line of speciality stuff!

And a different perspective:

Bernie Sanders: Don’t Need 23 Choices of Deodorant, 18 Choices of Sneakers When Kids Are Going Hungry

But not all of us want to be surrounded by right wing gun toting rednecks, and if you have experience with Texas you know that is what makes up the majority of the Texas population.

Texas only has a gun ownership rate of 35.7%. Compare that to Arkansas which has a rate of 57.9% or the national average which is 29.1%.

Sounds to me more like the assholes are the ones perpetuating the stereotypes.

As promised, are this year's high temperatures due only to El Nino with "nothing particular" connecting them to anthropogenic global warming? If that's true, it should be easy to confirm by comparing this El Nino to past El Ninos. This graph (backup) shows global mean surface temperature (GMST) during just El Ninos in recent decades (excluding Pinatubo). It has a positive slope. If this year's high temperatures are due only to El Nino, why are El Nino years getting warmer at about the rate projected by the IPCC? Once again, ocean heat content (OHC) reveals much more of the cumulative radiation absorbed over the last few decades than GMST does.

In response to a request for peer-reviewed literature, Lonny Eachus quotes from the same opinion piece that "Jane Q. Public" quoted above without linking. Will Lonny Eachus admit that he wasn't quoting peer-reviewed literature, despite the clear request? [Dumb Scientist]

You neglect to mention that before that, I cited IPCC's own statement on the matter. Are you also going to claim IPCC's comments aren't based on peer-reviewed papers? For example, will you now claim that their summary is not based on peer-reviewed science? You really can be an idiot sometimes. And the more you try to prove somebody wrong, the more idiotic you have tended to get. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-10-25]

No, you repeated the same IPCC link I gave you hours earlier and (innocently?) misrepresented it while calling Eric Holthaus a "bozo":

I'd be fascinated to read peer-reviewed literature saying CC will cause fewer Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Doubt it exists, but may have missed it. [Eric Holthaus]

IPCC, you bozo: http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment...
"it is likely that the global frequency of tropical cyclones will either decrease... or remain ... unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in ... maximum wind speed and rain rates."
That's one. ... For somebody who likes to insult others so much, you sure don't know much about the subject. [Jane/Lonny Eachus, 2015-10-24]

Eric Holthaus asked about Cat 4/5 hurricanes, but Jane/Lonny Eachus couldn't/wouldn't answer the actual question. Instead, Lonny called Eric a "bozo" and desperately tried to deflect attention away from Cat 4/5 hurricanes. Ironically, Lonny's quote should have been a clue that answering an imaginary question about the frequency of all hurricanes (Cat 1+) isn't the same as answering Eric's actual question about Cat 4/5 hurricanes because those have the maximum wind speeds and rain rates which will "likely increase".

Prof. Adam Sobel answered Eric's actual question with TS.26 on p. 108 here, which is also Fig. 14.17 on p. 1250 of Ch. 14.

The "global

here is another relavent article Hiding backdoors in hardware. it references the NSA operating its own chip fab plant. it is in Fort Meade, Md. i don't know if it is still operating though.

other searches shows that the NSA recently took over an old Sony chip fab in san antonio

Why? In the US, at lease, taxes are paid on net income, not earnings.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/smallbusiness-taxes-based-revenue-gross-profit-50369.html

To begin training, a candidate must be 18 to 34 years old, be a U.S. citizen and have a bachelor's degree...

They must weigh 160 to 231 pounds, depending on height. Depending on age, men cannot have more than 20 to 24 percent body fat, while women cannot have more than 28 to 32 percent body fat. Pilots also must be able to complete a minimum number of push-ups and sit-ups and finish a timed 1.5-mile run.

http://work.chron.com/air-forc...

Mod parent up. I live in Houston, and the Houston area is now the most diverse in the US: link. How are the Indian kids doing? How are the other Asian kids doing? What about the kids who are actually from Africa (there is a fairly large Nigerian community)?

The Science can hardly be called transparent and there is very little empirical data. One station for thousands of miles, adjusted data without explanation, etc.

Climate Change will be on this list one day.

"10% of lawsuits against employers were won by the employee"

As one of the AC's replied, this could very well be because 90% of those cases are completely frivolous. Also, does that 10% include cases that were settled? The EEOC reported that 9% were settled in 2012. That would leave just 1% that were won in favor of the plantiff:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com...

"These are the kinds of people who decide cases - morons"

I've been on quite a few juries. My anecdotal experience has been the complete opposite.

"but it's idiotic to just assume the jury got it right"

It's also idiotic to assume that the jury consisted of idiots.

Apparently, a law degree is not required to be a judge, perhaps you should apply for the job since you think others are so poor at it.

http://work.chron.com/qualific...

Almost, there are some extra pay/bonuses for certain things.

That's only if you actually shoot a person. http://www.chron.com/news/crim...

My favorite story in this category has to be Sparkler Filters based in Conroe, TX. Apparently, they still have a IBM 402, the only known remaining working system of this classic 1948 model. The Computer History Museum tried to coax the company in selling their system to them as an exhibit, but apparently, they failed. The company will reconsider as they slowly phase out the punch card system for PC's.

Taxi drivers are mostly independent workers, leasing a cab and pay a percentage back to the company that owns the cab or the medallion they're driving under. The only difference between them an an Uber or Lyft driver is that there are more people and local governments sucking on the bottle. These people aren't being paid under the table, they take pride in what they do and they're entrepreneurial, choosing when they want to work, just like regular cab drivers.

So from the standpoint of "illegal" the only thing that's threatened with Uber and Lyft are Cab companies, medallion holders and city governments who look to the licensing and regulation of the taxi industry as a revenue generation.

How east Texas became the epicenter for 'patent troll' lawsuits

Company with no product wins $533M verdict vs. Apple, says it’s no “patent troll”

East Texas Federal Judge Sets Rules for Post-'Alice' World

As I read this article, I could instantly see how this looks just silly to people who populate the tech sector. It is easy to make snap judgements and laugh at the crazy, stupid, unwashed rubes living elsewhere. A wiser person would ask, "why do people in Texas feel the need to own, armor and heavy weapons? Is there something going on?

In a nut shell, people in Texas are scared. How would you feel if the Federal government were conducting war games in your state, for the express purpose of invading your ass if you get upidity? Ok, lets put it this way, remember all that awful rhetoric that rules the forums 10 years ago about how Bush was a NAZI and wanted to impose his views on you? How would you feel if he ACTUALLY then sent the U.S. army in to act out a scenario where California, Washington, and Oregon rebelled because they wanted more federal control over money, more liberal tax policies, and open borders? You see news reports about this, some blogs. You think it is crazy. Then, one day, you wake up to the awful sound of attack helicopters conducting a drill over your neighborhood. Yes, OMFG you would be crapping your pants and creating a shit-storm in the blogosphere....and you would be perfectly correct to do so.

The difference is that for all the rhetoric and sensationalizing, Bush never did such a thing. I doubt he even dreamed of it. On the other hand, Obama is conducting operation Jade Helm this summer. He HAS used the IRS to attack police enemies and change the election. He HAS threatened to shut down Texas airspace if the state passed an anti groping bill limiting the TSA from feeling up children. Admit it, under such an environment, no matter how rational you deem yourself, you would be nervous too.

The problem lies in the exaggeration of political views. In what should be a healthy debate over tax policy and building codes has turned into ball-sport where people think anyone who is not wearing your color of shirt deserves death. It is absurd. It is counter productive. It is destroying our civilization. Worse, it is very common here on good ol' slashdot. Ask yourself, have you said something like "I hate fox news?" or I hate Bush and republicans?" Hate is a very strong word. In fact, many enlightened liberals feel it is a crime. Why do you have such strong, murderous feelings over, someone who views the tax code differently than you. Isn't that a little extreme? You say you hate Fox news, and feel it is cool to say so? Why? Because you don't agree with all the viewpoints, and it challenges the narrative that you never do? Do you think the new sources you enjoy are really any less biased? Really?

I point this out because such thought is so common place on slashdot I find it heart breaking. When I first joined this forum, near 2000 it was a free and open forum where you were modded up by the strength of your argument and how well you defended it. Now, I have a troll moniker for simply not agreeing with destructive comments on the forums. If we are to survive as a society, we need to be intellectually honest. We need to face honest criticisms of our cherished beliefs with joy instead of hatred. In the crucible of conversation, we can arrive at better solutions. Living in an echo chamber or rage will lead to....

The Iowa caucus process has a caucus vote before the actual caucusing. Sadly, a lot of people go home after the vote but before the caucusing starts. Also sadly, the media lazily reports on and misleads the public into thinking that the initial caucus vote is relevant in the process.

Two things happen, one after the other: First there is a caucus vote. But it's only after that vote that the caucusing itself starts, which selects delegates to go to district and state conventions where the national delegates get selected. It's who those delegates support and who they vote for at the national convention that counts. The caucus vote doesn't make any difference to that process.

Again, the selection of the national delegates, and who they vote for, has *nothing* to do with the caucus votes that are reported on in TFA--those caucus votes are as much of a straw poll as the Iowa straw poll is, and sadly enough many people are taken in by that.

If the caucus-goers vote in that caucus vote that they are supporters of candidate A, but then vote for delegates who are supporters of candidate B, then it's candidate B that they're truly giving support to, (as those delegates will then vote for national delegates who are supporters of candidate B.)

The winner of the Iowa caucus process is the candidate who gets the most delegates supporting them, not the candidate who ended up winning the "caucus vote" poll that was done before caucusing started.

Confusing the two things is conceptually no different than a person telling a telephone pollster that they are voting for candidate A but then later in the ballot box actually voting for candidate B. It is also no different conceptually from the media continuing to report on poll numbers after an election and neglecting to report on the actual election numbers.

Winning means actually getting delegates. You can call winning a poll that has no effect on anything winning if you want, but it's a pointless use of the term.

Articles at the time talking about this:

• http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/08/28/yes-ron-paul-won-the-iowa-caucuses
• http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2012/0618/Ron-Paul-wins-Iowa!-Does-that-matter
• http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/05/breaking-news-ron-paul-wins-iowa-yes-iowa/#4127101=0

It is a lot broader than that. The Houston Chronicle has a decent article summarizing Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).

Then there is that question about taking more than $10,000 in cash out of the country when traveling.

And, of course, seizures of suspicious amounts of cash when stopped by a law enforcement officer anywhere for anything.

(Suspicious being anything the local LEO decides it is. How fucked up is that?)

Consulting is quite a bit different than running a business that pays minimum wagers. An average restaurant, for example, makes a profit of about 3-3.5%. A restaurant tries to keep the labor component under 30%. If the cost of labor goes up by 25%, as is proposed in California, then the labor component raises to just shy of 35%, and the profit goes to about -3.8%.

I also agree Walker looks like the front runner. He's still developing, but he starts from a very strong position. If he can avoid any major flubs that the media can run with, he has a real shot.

No, he really doesn't.

Add up all the "blue" states where no Republican that can survive the primary can win, and you get 254 electoral votes.

Add up all the "red" states where no Democrat that can survive the primary can win, and you get 149 electoral votes.

The Democratic candidate needs 1 large "toss-up" state, or two smaller "toss-up" states to win 270 votes. For example, VA will do it, and it's likely to go to the Democrat. Obama carried it twice and in the 2014 Republican wave election, the Democrat won the senate seat. (And governor, but the Republican candidate for governor had a pretty nasty scandal)

The Republican candidate needs every "toss-up" state, and needs to turn one "blue" state.

It's going to be extremely difficult for the Republican to win in 2016. Which is a big part of why the Republican primary race is such a clown car.

Pretty pictures and more analysis from right after the 2014 election: http://blog.chron.com/goplifer...

You're getting these states because of demographics.

The 2016 Democratic candidate will start with 257 electoral votes. No Republican that can survive the primary will win CA or NY or similar "blue" states.

The Republican will start with 149. No Democrat that can survive the primary will win TX or AL or similar "red" states.

The Democratic candidate will need to pick up 1 large or 2 small "toss-up" states. So, pick up VA or pick up CO and IA. That will give them 270 or move votes. Both are quite "gettable" - all 3 in that list went for Obama in 2012, and in 2014 the Democratic candidate won the VA senate seat despite it being a Republican wave election.

The Republican candidate will need to pick up every single "toss-up" state, and turn one of the "blue" states to reach 270.

You have a clown car of candidates because the Republicans who can count realize they can't win the White House in 2016.

Here's a post on it with pretty pictures: http://blog.chron.com/goplifer...

Do you have a source for that? Certainly there are narcs, but I've never heard of any of them enrolling in high schools undercover. Cops threatening high school kids who got caught anyway to cough up some names, sure. But when they invest an undercover agent (= lots of money), it's going to be for a big investigation, not to find out which high school kid sold a dimebag to which other high school kid.

http://www.chron.com/neighborh...

There you go. The story quotes one of the sheriffs stating that they have done this in other cities throughout the county as well.

A bill has been introduced in the Texas Legislature to make it illegal for anyone except a 'professional reporter' (whatever that means now) to record police activity within 25 feet: http://www.chron.com/news/poli...

You do realize that when you make a statement like that, it takes only a single counterexample to prove you wrong?

Irony abound.

http://www.whas11.com/story/news/2015/03/10/campbellsville-police-child-shot-in-leg-by-parent-repairing-gun/24698611/
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Texas-Boy-6-Hospitalized-After-Shot-By-Little-Brother-294704731.html
http://abc13.com/news/4-year-old-dead-in-accidental-shooting-in-north-harris-county/539586/
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Child-wounded-in-gunfire-in-NW-Harris-County-6105827.php

For every news story that shows someone shooting in self defence, there are half a dozen stories about someone being shot by accident. Statistics have shown you're far more likely to shoot yourself of someone you care about with unsecured firearms around the house.

But the actual cost per arrest to deport is about less than $1,000, from what I understand.

The average cost to arrest, try and deport an illegal immigrant is only $12,000 (source = http://blog.chron.com/immigrat... )

So the cost of $28k is ridiculous.

Suprisingly, apparently even with a cost of living differential, not so much.

http://work.chron.com/much-fed...
As of 2012...
"For example, new lawyers working in Washington, D.C., earned $62,467 annually, a locality increase of over 24 percent. For candidates with two to three years of experience, the locality increases for the same area amounted to a yearly salary of $89,033."

It's extremely unlikely that the legal documents were personally vetted by even $100 an hour attorneys.

Many attorneys who "bill" $300 an hour do not bill 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. That's more typical of rainmakers at large legal firms.

And only a small amount of attorneys with top grades and/or from top schools get top compensation.

$100,000 a year is not "$12.50" an hour. I think you need to check your math.

Besides legal clerks and junior goverment attorneys make much less than $100,000 per year.

http://work.chron.com/much-fed...

"Attorneyâ(TM)s Offices ...as of 2012, an assistant U.S. attorney working for the agency in the Eastern district of California was recruited at a pay range of $54,478 to $144,189 per year.

Other Agencies
For attorneys hired under the GS pay scale, those with a law degree received a basic annual salary of $50,287 as of 2012. One year of post-law school judicial clerkship experience brought in $60,274 per year, and at two to three years of experience, the yearly salary was $71,674. Because costs of living vary by city, lawyers also receive locality adjustments, which are increases to the basic salary. For example, new lawyers working in Washington, D.C., earned $62,467 annually, a locality increase of over 24 percent. For candidates with two to three years of experience, the locality increases for the same area amounted to a yearly salary of $89,033."

And this presumes no automation of redaction of any kind. As if the most highly paid and experienced lawyers must manually find and redact every occurrence of "Jim Davis" in the documents. What's more likely is that they assigned the work to a highly paid and experienced lawyer who assigned it to a clerk or sub attorney to work, then the expensive attorney spot checked a few cases and signed off on the work and the entire body of work was billed as if the expensive attorney actually did the tedius and mind numbing work.

So the cases could have been reviewed by legal clerks and lawyers with two to three years experience first.

What is your viewpoint (what type of photography do you do)? My viewpoint is that the photography market is not strong, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims an overall loss of 10,000 full-time photographers between 2008 and 2010:

"As of 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 139,500 workers who claimed photography as their full-time jobs, earning a mean annual wage of $36,330. The 2010 BLS count of photographers was down sharply from that of 152,000 working in 2008."

source: http://work.chron.com/being-ph...

Just about every supermarket everywhere disagrees with you... http://smallbusiness.chron.com...

We're definitely talking about different things here.

After all, how can walmart pay a 2.17% dividend if they're only making ~1% profit? :)

I was talking return on investment (ROI) where as you are talking about profit margins on goods sold. They are not the same thing.

A $100,000 investment to create a business selling widgets that cost $1/unit to produce and sell for $1.01 and sells 2 million units a year.

The profit margin on the product is 1% (1.01/1.00)
On the other hand the ROI is 20% (2M x 0.01 profit/unit = $20,000 per year) 20,000/100,000 = 20%

I would definitely consider investing $100,000 in company that would earn me 20% back in year :); even if it only makes 1% margin on units. I wouldn't touch with a 100 foot pole a company that would only return 1% a year.

Just about every supermarket everywhere disagrees with you... http://smallbusiness.chron.com...

You conveniently forget things that actually do get passed and signed, and focus only on your frustration when the agenda of one person is disliked by a majority of the people in the country...

Says who? Last I checked the majority of the country didn't even vote in the most recent national elections. 36%, says the New York Times and the Washington Post. The majority of the people in the country haven't expressed a meaningful opinion since 2012, and at that time, the majority of the country expressed agreement with his agenda.

... and by congress.

I don't give a flying fuck what congress likes or dislikes, since I am absolutely certain the only things they like are the things that bring in the most campaign contributions, and I'm not a billionaire.

The majority of the country find his foreign policy positions to be complete feckless, and clumsily handled even if they approve of them.

No, the 30% of the country that listens to Fox News thinks his foreign policy positions are completely feckless and clumsily handled. The rest of the country thinks he's substantially better at diplomacy than his predecessor, and for most of his terms in office, his foreign policy was roundly praised in the national media outlets most people consider important. Saying it ain't so doesn't make it not so.

The points where his own party dislikes his foreign policy are the points that, in a Republican president, the Republicans praise to the skies. Republicans like bombing the shit out of sand people. We have 8 years of quotes to prove it. We know damn well that had it been a Republican president bombing Libya, all Republican commentary would have been about how it's right and just and necessary to bring peace, democracy, mom, and apple pie to Libya, plus loud protestations that it's 100% constitutional and within his purview. We KNOW this, because those arguments have been made.

Obama and his party have solidly earned the opposition they've cultivated, and the recent mid-term election demonstrates once again how tone deaf they've been.

That's a remarkable echo chamber you have there. The recent mid-term election demonstrates that everyone hates Congress. It soundly demonstrated that the Republican Party is wildly tonedeaf to social issues. As noted by one of your own analysts, every Republican social initiative either failed to pass or was contradicted by votes. Republican economic positions failed too, with minimum wage hikes passing in every single state that had one on the ballot, including every single "red state".

Your entire argument consists of labeling. "We say it's bad, therefore it's bad. We say Obama is incompetent, therefore he is incompetent." The reality is somewhat different, and there are a few of you who have noticed, but not enough.

Anyway, I don't know what your beef is with Obama. He's the best moderate Republican president to come along in years.

Oh really? NASA is useless?

“It’s critical that the United States ensure its continued leadership in space,” Cruz said.

Disclosure: I am a realtor, mostly on the sell side 96% of the time, not representing the buyer. 4% representing the buyer. So I will speak from the selling side. And a big Doctor Who fan from the 80's
HOA's, condo's, and Co-op's are a form of corporations (non-profit) that run the land you are on and issue a set of rules you need to abide by.

When you buy into any of the above, you are required to abide by those rules. When I do a transaction I am required to present to you the rules of the association, sometimes in excess of 200 pages. And you have 3 days to execute a confirmation that you read these rules, otherwise I will put it back on the market. It's a take or leave situation, I think most people don't read the rules.

Most of the rules are common sense, for example, allocation of parking, pet policy's, exterior paint colors, lawn height (which in a condo is the association responsibility not the condo owner usually), cannot hang wet towels on the balcony rail to dry and a ton more. Some of the more interesting rules are
A) How bad of criminal are you... ( Violent crime of murder not permitted, but a Bernie Maddof welcome)
B) You cannot buy the property on credit, must be a cash transaction close
C) Limit on how many occupants in the unit

A common rule I tell people when they are presented with my property is, you are buying conformity, a lifestyle and sometimes peace of mind.

One of the huge problems in HOA's is the Flagpole issue, ex-military wants one on the front lawn of their house, most, if not all HOA's did not permit this, but every year we see it as a lawsuit http://blog.chron.com/advocate... ( that's a Texas one)
It got so carried away here in Florida that the state had to chime in http://www.hoaleader.com/publi... ( summary is, you can within reason)

When the 9 /11 happened, people hung American flags on the railing, well after 3 months some condo association and HOA's were tired of this, asked the residences to remove them, Boy did that start a huge problem, it's considered un-American, while the truth is, following rules is a rather American thing, otherwise why would we need so many lawyers to interpret these rules.

So I don't understand what the big fuss is all about, the guy has a big blue box ( which I would love to own), it's rather different than what is normally seen, people complained, put it in the yard, end of problem. Or if the guy was smart, he should have asked his association about how to hold a wedding at his home, and they would have let him slide properly with all the form executed to do it. ( You need parking permits for gated communities when you hold huge parties, advise the association and they will set up a little shuttle cart for the bride and groom if needed, provide parking assistance ( by sending a note to the neighbors, see whom wants to offer up some driveway space, provides the cleaning service for all the exterior the next morning... )

A reasonable and balanced view?! Go watch more CNN and MSNBC, citizen.

On a less satirical and more serious note I think most gun owners share your viewpoint and in fact some of the things you mentioned are some the most fundamental rules of handling firearms.

I really think there needs to be more education about respecting and handling firearms, perhaps something along the lines of those horrific DMV classes, but unfortunately our society has stigmatized gun ownership so bad to the point that outreach at any level is politically incorrect and nobody wants to talk about it and instead would prefer dangerous Orwellian legislation over enlightening life saving education. The closest I've seen to any kind of education outreach is the local sheriff's department handing out free cable locks and pamphlets on how it is a felony crime to leave an operational firearm where it can be accessed by minor, which is a nice effort but clearly not enough; we need stuff like those PSA magazine advertisements and TV commercials like the ones that advocate against smoking.

I wouldn't be so sure about that...

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/DWI-suspects-to-have-names-plastered-on-Twitter-1694013.php

You must have missed the last election. Democrats were shellacked.

You must have missed the last election. Low turnout, which always favors Republicans, but every minimum wage increase passed, pot legaization passed, person hood amendments failed etc. In other words the liberal agenda made lots of progress. Here's a nice analysis by a GOPer:

http://blog.chron.com/goplifer...

"Democrats were shellacked"...through the power of gerrymandering and record low voter turnout. I think we are going to continue to see these contradictory election results (over 50% of a State's population is liberal, but over 50% of a State's elected candidates are conservative) until the districts can be redrawn in 2020. Of course, the Democrats need to have control in 2020 to redraw the boundries.... chicken meet egg.

The GOP has been broken for decades now. Their last good President was Eisenhower. They just keep drifting into more extreme white christianist views, and have doubled-down on religion at a time when smart people understand that the supernatural is imaginary.

ITT: Democrats sore about last election claim Republicans are done, starting....now.

How about a Republican sore about the last election and claiming the Republicans are done?

You must have missed the last election. Low turnout, which always favors Republicans, but every minimum wage increase passed, pot legaization passed, person hood amendments failed etc. In other words the liberal agenda made lots of progress. Here's a nice analysis by a GOPer:

http://blog.chron.com/goplifer...

You know that's not how it works, right?

http://www.prairiebizmag.com/e...

http://www.businessweek.com/ar...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

http://www.chron.com/jobs/arti...

http://www.impactstaffing.com/...

This might be part of it. My favourite part is how airlines (or just companies, really) that are doing poorly hire even more expensive CEO's with the expectation that they'll have some magic fix to things, but instead they drive the company into the ground and collect their big payout and golden parachute.

While anhydrous (dry) ammonia gas is lighter than air, will rise in dry air, and will dissipate. However, in the presence of moisture (such as high relative humidity), the liquefied anhydrous ammonia gas immediately forms heavier-than-air compounds that roll along the ground smothering and killing (ammonia compounds are strongly basic) most anything in their path.

The Houston Ammonia Truck Disaster 11976.

Scroll down and read what Mike Read says about it - he was in the Houston Post newspaper building when it happened. The occupants of the Houston Post newspaper building saw the ammonia gas cloud unfold and roll toward their office-and-printing building near the freeway site of the accident. Luckily someone in the building had the wherewithal to shut off the air-conditioning and air circulation system and those inside remained unhurt as the cloud enveloped the building and then slowly dissipated. During the following days the grass around the Post building died and turned black. Many died and many were injured.

For decades the EPA has limited use of ammonia inside heavily-populated areas for good reason.

Another example of corporates telling the taxpayer what he should pay. Fuck that. Spacex should fund the 25billion itself.

You are aware that ULA, the current American launch monopolist has succeeded, via lobbying, in having the Senate insert a poison pill rider into a bill that seriously harms SpaceX prospects. ULA is deeply afraid of how SpaceX has repurposed older but reliable technologies to create a launch service that is an order of magnitude cheaper than anything they can even imagine providing. SpaceX is hardly a villain here.