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California Senate Approves Net Tax Bill
Grant Erickson points to this internet.com story, which says "On Thursday, the California state Senate approved a bill that requires businesses with stores in the state to charge their customers sales tax for purchases made over the Internet." The state's huge ($35 billion) budget deficit is named as a driving force for the measure.
Yes, I'd say it is more a division between centralist authoritarians - which no party wants to admit to being, and Libertarians, who want almost all government functions but policing (markets, borders) to be pushed down to the state level, or lower.
this previous position on the reporting of ANY TYPE of child abuse to Child Protective Services, is not only WRONG, and not only very DANGEROUS to the child, it is frankly illegal by Texas law.
It is NOT up to the individual citizen to try and make a judgement call as to whether or not "real" abuse is occuring. That is up to the authorities. What you are advising, is frankly not only utterly wrong, it is actually ILLEGAL.
Texas law states, "A person having cause to believe that a child's physical or mental health or welfare has been adversely affected by abuse or neglect by any person shall immediately make a report."
" A person commits an offense if the person has cause to believe that a child's physical or mental health or welfare has been or may be adversely affected by abuse or neglect and knowingly fails to report as provided in this chapter."
And for any Professional in the childs life, it is against the law if they do not report it in 48hrs.
So, once again, the plot thickens.
Minor spoilers above.
It's a never ending battle between the republican types (who hate government involvement) and the democratic types who want more centralized/governmental control.
This is an old stereotype that doesn't mean much anymore. Republicans are approximately the same as Democrats with similar levels of soft money contributions and an equal amount of separation from their constituants.
Republicans currently want big government through debatable "Homeland Security" causes.
Democrats currently want big government through naive "feed the poor" causes.
Both are equally misguided and equally wasteful. Call 'em Republocrats or Demolicans--it really doesn't matter.
It is a good time for a third or fourth party to become significant enough to sway votes in congress. Only, then, will the stupidity and polarity of the Bill Clinton impeachment vote, for example, get resolved. Does anyone have the guts to not vote the party line, anymore?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Fool.
You're drawing a false analogy.
While the government has indeed regulated a great many acts between consenting adults in the name of public good, sex with children is a considerably different matter.
It is generally accepted that sex with a minor is psychologically damaging.
Furthermore, children are not considered to have the same rights as adults not in the least because of diminished mental capacity. Many of their rights are controlled by their parents, many others are simply denied.
A better comparison would be why, say, bigamy is outlawed in most states. Again, being between consenting adults, I see no reason for its outlawing.
I guess it all comes down to whether you believe that the actions between consenting adults can have an overall detrimental effect on society. These laws were written in a much more conservative time when this was a strongly help position. I think it would be difficult to impossible to prove that sodomy has a general detrimental effect on society, but that in itself doesn't imply that it doesn't have a negative effect.
If this also passes the assembly it will almost certainly be signed into law - because Gray Davis is clueless about anything financial. (Witness his reaction to the "electric deregulation" debacle.)
Republican govenor Pete Wilson refered to the electricity deregulation bill, as he was signing it [...]
Never said that some Republicans didn't have any blame coming for the way the law was written. (Although Pete Wilson wouldn't qualify as a Republican in most states other than CA. B-) )
But note that I was pointing to Davis' rabid flames at the energy companies for doing exactly what any economist would have told you they'd do, given the structure of the so-called deregulation:
- The energy suppliers letting PG&E bid the price up to astronomical levels whenever there was a crunch - and doing their best to encourage crunches. (Why generate another kilowatt and sell it for a penny, when you could generate half a kilowatt and sell it, and all the others you're generating anyway, for a dime?)
- PG&E runing out of power and money, going belly-up, and requiring a bailout in the billions to keep the lights on at all.
Yes, some energy execs "laundered" some price-controlled generated power through adjacent states. But even without that the incentive structure would have produced much the same result.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So frankly, I don't hold much hope out that they'll remember in November. I'm afraid that we're in for four more 'fears' with King George.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"