News sites have editors that are many times more informed than their average reader.
Haven't met many news site editors, have you? Knowledge of Strunk and White doesn't translate into an infallable understanding of world or even local politics.
~50,000 students attend that school and none of them are being tracked,
Are you an official spokesman for the FBI who has firsthand knowledge of this as a fact, or are you making this up as you go along?
... except the Arabic one who has no prior criminal history/evidence of wrong doing.
After reading the Wired article, we learn many things:
His father took the family back to Egypt, but he alone returned.
He regularly sends money back to people (his brothers) in Egypt.
His "friend" allegedly posted something about bombs on a website and was known to be under investigation.
He was contacted by the FBI before for questioning.
He's on the watch list for flying.
His lawyer is a member of CAIR. CAIR:
"seeks to empower the American Muslim community and encourage its social and political activism.", according to wikipedia.
was created by "three officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine" (ibid), and we all know that Palestinians have absolutely no axe to grind with the US.
In 1998, Omar Ahmad (a joint founder of CAIR) was reported to have said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."
He's going on "a short business trip" to Dubai in a few weeks.
Of course, none of that is illegal, but neither is going to a flight school and asking to taught how to fly. The point being, those who claim he was targeted only because he was half-Egytian or that this is based on profiling aren't looking at the entire picture.
CAIR, in particular, looks a lot like the German-American Bund from pre-WWII days. They claimed to be formed to further German-American relations, but promoted Nazi propaganda and anti-semitism, as well as being a cover for espionage.
The fact he was knowingly driving with expired plates makes him a valid traffic stop by any policeman he goes by.
The AZ government IS being accused of racial profiling, even as we speak.
Yes, I know that. An accusation isn't the same as a fact. Do you understand that? Or do you still think the wikileaks creator actually is a pedophile?
The fact is, if you know what the proposed law said, you know the accusation is false. The new law applied ONLY after two conditions were met: 1) contact made for some other valid, CRIMINAL reason. I.e., not just "cop saw you walking down the street", or "you asked a cop for the time". 2) A reasonable suspicion that the person was in the country illegally. I.e., not just "has an accent", or "has a certain coloration." "Profiling" meets neither of those conditions.
Additionally, the law was simply enforcement of the existing federal law, so if the AZ law was truly "profiling", then the federal law is, as well.
Maybe you need to come out from under your desk once in a while.
I never understood how it actually worked, except as you suggested, the script kiddy crowd are heavily in to giving money to strangers in exchange for uber zomg epic sexual prowess.
Never watched late night cable channels, have we? Does the word "Extenze" ring a bell? Those ads are taking the word "ubiquitous" to a whole new level, and proving that "skank hoes" ain't just on the street corner anymore. Well, ok, they DO go out and do "man on the street" interviews, where amazingly enough, every man they come across is a satisfied user and every woman is a satisfied usee, and they all crow about "the certain part of the male anatomy".
I've been in one flight already that allowed iPads while everything else was forbidden. It is slowly moving in the right direction.
On some airlines. On United, the dimwits are now being explicit in saying "noise cancelling headsets must be turned off", in addition to everything else.
There is NOTHING in a noise cancelling headset that can possibly interfere with the aircraft electrical or radio systems. There is no local oscillator or even clock generator. It's a completely analog, audible frequency system. In fact, people wearing those headsets are safer because they can be (as I am) plugged into the aircraft audio system, so they can actually HEAR the safety briefing and any announcements, while the rest of the cattle have to strain to understand the noises coming from the tiny speakers over the din of the engines and everyone else talking.
It's almost at the point where I'm going to modify my pair to remove the power switch. They say "anything with a power switch". Nope, mine don't have one.
The power source is irrelevant, while the phone drains battery like a bitch if I put it in offline mode and just use it to read then it lasts 90-100 hours.
I'm HOPING that you left out a comma where one is needed, not that your phone "drains battery like a bitch if I put it in offline mode". I just read the latest Linux Journal and it has an excellent article talking about the N900 and actually doing something with it. I'm thinking about buying one.
I opened up my PRS-505 today looking for a book. I could write a tome twice as long as yours detailing the problems dealing with that little beasty and completely ignore the benefits of the format, just as you have. Just to mention a few: no backlight, so I had to turn the page towards the light to read it... and it crashed while rendering the page I wanted to read, so it took five minutes to reboot, rescanning every document to extract titles from each PDF. After it rebooted, the clock was off by ten years, which for most things would be a detriment, but for this it is a benefit: the DRM on "library" books checked out is based on the reader clock, and I now have 1000 more days to read the books I checked out for two weeks (three months ago.) Oh, while it was busy scanning every document, it consumed 1/3 of the charge on the battery.
Or a kewl final problem: you can plug it into a computer USB port and it will recharge, but if you plug it into a USB POWER source (no computer) it will happily keep running the CPU trying to enumerate itself on the bus, never allocate power for itself to charge, and drain the battery in an hour or less. BUT, you can plug in a coaxial power adapter right next to the mini-USB connector and it will happily charge up quickly. ($24.95 for the AC adapter from Sony. $2 for a USB-coax cable from electronics shop.) And if you use the "safely disconnect" option under Windows to safely disconnect the beasty from your computer but don't immediately disconnect it, it goes back to "trying to connect" mode and discharges the battery.
If I understand what you wrote correctly, you're saying that Europeans are scared of guns because Europeans are scared of guns.
I'll hazard a guess that it's political. One is scared of what one does not understand. Europeans have a history of governments that make gun ownership hard, thus there aren't that many to be familiar with, and thus "guns" are a big, nasty unknown. In the US, we started out only because we HAD guns, and guns were used by many if not most people on a daily basis just to survive. We know what they are and how to use them. That, and the fact the government started out knowing what happens to countries where gun ownership is made as difficult as possible.
Actually, it's more likely that the 0% fire coverage for the county was due to the votes of the more populous people (in the cities and towns with their own FD) than in the sparsely populated rural areas.
Nonsense. The people in the city won't be voting on a rural fire protection district for the county. They can't vote 'no' on a tax on county residents anymore than they can vote 'yes' on one.
If the city residents aren't getting the service from the county, they won't be voting on the tax to pay for it.
Example: Over 55 plus a broken arm = "fly to trauma center" even if you're sitting up and chatting with the cops.
Only if you agree to it.
A conscious adult has the right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. They can't fly him anywhere if he says he refuses their treatment. He may have to sign a paper saying this, but it is still his decision.
We covered this in a First Responder class. If you come across a conscious patient who is bleeding profusely but still awake and alert, and he refuses your assistance, you are not legally allowed to touch him.
The "solution", as we were told, is to stand there and wait until he passes out, and then he's no longer able to refuse treatment and you can go to work on him.
What is strange about you Americans is that you...
Wow. What a vast over-generalization. Perhaps "you foreigners" aren't familiar with the concept of "local government", and that this story deals with one county (subdivision of a state) in one state (subdivision of the whole US) that has decided ("democracy" and "freedom") not to pay for fire services out of property tax revenues. That's hardly a representation of the entire US.
... you seem all very happy to pay taxes to buy tanks, ships, bombs, helicopters...
Those items come out of the FEDERAL budget, not the budget of some small county in rural Tennessee, and are an expression of the Constitutional authority for the federal government to provide for the common defence. But yes, just as MOST of the counties in this country do pay for fire services out of tax monies, most of the people in this country believe buying guns and tanks is a worthwhile expenditure.
We also believe that local counties and the people therein have the right to govern themselves when it comes to the local issues like paying for fire departments and such. It is an unfortunate abberation that we've abandoned that concept when it comes to things like schools and healthcare, and many of us would rather the feds keep their noses out of our business.
"This person lived outside of the city fire jurisdiction."
No such fucking thing.
Of course there is. Maybe you live in a part of the country like Mass. where every tiny city has expanded until the borders all touch and there is no unincorporated area, but out here in the big bad west we have LOTS of places that are outside the city's jurisdiction, both for fire and police.
That's why those areas that want fire protection create Rural Fire Protection Districts and vote themselves a tax (or sometimes a fee) to pay for it.
...if the request for help from other departments is made...
I guess you didn't read even the simple summary. There was no local fire department to make the request. The first part of your conditional is false.
...
THEY MUST ANSWER BY LAW.
Depends on what the law is, now doesn't it? Maybe some places have different laws than where you live? Just maybe?
County > city. Taxes should have been paying for this all along.
City taxes don't pay for county services. County taxes don't pay for city services. Basic accounting 101. I live in a city and have to pay both city and county property taxes. The county, as a service to the cities therein, sends the bill for both and distributes the payments, but still two different governments.
What you think taxes should be used to pay for is trumped by what the citizens who pay the taxes want them to pay for.
We have this crazy idea over here that a person's right to emergency services shouldn't be based on how much money they're making, and shouldn't be removed through poor luck or illness.
Mod -1 flamebait.
Over here, we have this crazy idea that PEOPLE run the government, not the other way around, and that they can CHOOSE not to have their government provide a certain service if they don't want their tax dollars being spent on it.
Fought a war over that one. Forgot who won. Do you remember?
By the way, that $75 as a tax would mean that failure to pay would result in loss of household in about three years anyway. As a voluntary fee, failure to pay might result in loss of household IF there is a fire. You choose you r poison, you takes your chances.
I'm all for the free market, but making a public good like firefighting or police service an opt-in fee is stupid and results in dumb, avoidable tragic circumstances.
This has nothing to do with "free market". There is no competition in the marketplace, there is no other provider.
What this IS is an example of democracy. The people of that county are free to rule themselves in this matter. If they wanted a tax on everyone to pay for this, they could vote for it. Alternatively, their county commissioners could have voted for it, if their constituents wanted it. Apparently they decided not to. That is their RIGHT in a free society.
While the Constitution tells us what jobs are rightly the government's, nothing says that the PEOPLE can't decide they don't want their government doing one of them. It's not as if the local government's aren't able to levy taxes at the drop of a hat to pay for whatever stuff the commissioners or councils feel like doing.
It is none of our business how they want to tax themselves. Unless you live there, you don't get a vote, and your opinion doesn't matter.
Yes, I think it is stupid not to have this protection paid for out of property taxes, but my opinion doesn't matter, either. I suspect that the city fire department would love to have it tax-based so they get more money, and I also suspect that this will get the county to implement a new tax.
I think its a shame more people didn't get an opportunity to buy them.
Lots of people had an opportunity to buy them. "Buy one Give one", for example.
The problem was OLPC was vaporware, at least as far as being able to provide the "buy one" that I tried to buy. They charged my credit card the day I ordered, then tried dragging the delivery date out until after the time limit for contesting the charge. They lied to me about delivery dates about three times, claiming they had them in stock one day, then two days later admitting they'd been out of stock for a month.
I'd have cut them a lot of slack if they'd been honest about being able to provide what they charged me for, and didn't charge me until it shipped, but they shot themselves in both feet the way they did things.
If they've gotten their act together now, good for them. Once burned, twice shy.
Any computer programmer should check that there's matching orders on the other side of their trade before placing a large order.
Umm, sounds like a chicken/egg problem. I can't put in a buy order unless there is a sell to cover it, and I can't put in a sell unless there is a matching buy?
You seem to have completely failed to understand the argument that I presented, since you seem to think I'm opposed to making both DUI and texting while driving illegal.
I didn't say you were opposed to making DUI illegal, I said that USING YOUR ARGUMENT it shouldn't be illegal. There is nothing in the DUI laws that will stop you from being dead if you get hit by a drunk driver. That's your goal. Since the laws cannot prevent it, the laws are useless. That's what you argued about fines and jail for texting as the cause of an accident.
The grandparent post suggested that texting while driving should be fully legal, but associated with greater punishments after the accident occurs.
Well, then, texting wouldn't be FULLY LEGAL, would it? It would be legal to text and not run people over, illegal to run people over, and more illegal to run people over while texting.
This would work well if people actually were capable of neutrally and accurately assessing their own competence behind the wheel (and the effect of texting on that competence).
No. It would work when people consider the COST versus the benefits. If it costs an arm and a leg (literally) for running someone over while texting, and only a few dollars for running them over while not, most sensible people would consider the cost not worth the risk and not do it.
I'm pretty sure that you meant to aim your vitriol at the poster above me,
There was no vitriol, just putting your argument into terms of other offenses. If laws that say that texting while driving result in higher fines or jail time aren't acceptable to you because it won't change your dead/not dead status after the fact, then the same argument means that laws that say that being drunk when you have an accident results in higher fines or jail time won't be acceptable for the same reason. You will be just as dead.
I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who figures it's okay for him to get loaded at the bar and then drive himself home;
I'm pretty sure that I don't care what he thinks about getting drunk, I'm responding specifically and directly to your argument about fines and jail.
There is not one vote per person either, not really.
The electoral college makes pointless all votes in uncontested states for the office of president.
First, there are a lot more elections than just the Presidential.
Second, your statement is patently absurd. I have never heard of an uncontested presidential ballot in any state. It would be a major failure in the system had that happened; one that even MSNBC would report on. There are results that are very lopsided, but then those votes that made it lopsided certainly counted for something. They weren't pointless.
In Mississippi, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the state will vote republican (unless the republicans put forth too dark of a candidate).
The "state" doesn't vote. Your claim that "the state will vote republican [sic]" is absurd. Many of the people in the state will vote that way, but that's something VERY different. Your statement makes it appear as if you think your vote should be more important than the vote of anyone who votes differently than you. Why else would you think that your minority vote should matter any more than a majority vote?
What you are forgetting is that, as a supporter of a candidate, it is YOUR JOB to get others to vote for him. You don't get to claim that your vote didn't count or that other people's vote counted more than yours. All that does is make you look like a whiner.
And here's a final point: if you are unhappy with the "winner takes all" system your state uses to allocate electors for the Electoral College, it is YOUR JOB to get it changed. Simply whining about it quadrennium after quadrennium accomplishes nothing.
I believe this is fair -- as a matter of fact, I believe it doesn't go far enough. I can be sued into bankruptcy, and even do jail time, if someone I employ accidentally kills someone in the course of doing their work for me (e.g., if I, as the employer, was guilty of some kind of contributory negligence to manslaughter).
Yes, if you commit a crime, you can be punished.
Why are owners of a corporation sheltered from that risk of jail time?
Because simply owning stock in a company is not a crime. If they, too, committed a crime as was required for you to see jail time, they, too, could see jail time.
I have a retirement account through my employer. I make no decisions about what companies the retirement account company invests in, there is no fairness in punishing me by taking my money away when someone else commits a crime.
Freedom of religion does not grant special tax status.
It does protect them from being abolished outright, which the OP claimed was a better solution than simply taxing them like corporations.
Of course, another poster has already pointed out that they are taxed like other corporations -- tax exempt corporations. If you want to do away with churches, you better be ready to lose the United Way and thousands of other charitable organizations.
Slashdot Mirror
Haven't met many news site editors, have you? Knowledge of Strunk and White doesn't translate into an infallable understanding of world or even local politics.
Are you an official spokesman for the FBI who has firsthand knowledge of this as a fact, or are you making this up as you go along?
After reading the Wired article, we learn many things:
Of course, none of that is illegal, but neither is going to a flight school and asking to taught how to fly. The point being, those who claim he was targeted only because he was half-Egytian or that this is based on profiling aren't looking at the entire picture.
CAIR, in particular, looks a lot like the German-American Bund from pre-WWII days. They claimed to be formed to further German-American relations, but promoted Nazi propaganda and anti-semitism, as well as being a cover for espionage.
The fact he was knowingly driving with expired plates makes him a valid traffic stop by any policeman he goes by.
Yes, I know that. An accusation isn't the same as a fact. Do you understand that? Or do you still think the wikileaks creator actually is a pedophile?
The fact is, if you know what the proposed law said, you know the accusation is false. The new law applied ONLY after two conditions were met: 1) contact made for some other valid, CRIMINAL reason. I.e., not just "cop saw you walking down the street", or "you asked a cop for the time". 2) A reasonable suspicion that the person was in the country illegally. I.e., not just "has an accent", or "has a certain coloration." "Profiling" meets neither of those conditions.
Additionally, the law was simply enforcement of the existing federal law, so if the AZ law was truly "profiling", then the federal law is, as well.
Maybe you need to come out from under your desk once in a while.
Yes, were the AZ government to propose doing it, it would be wrong. Since they haven't, your point is moot.
Never watched late night cable channels, have we? Does the word "Extenze" ring a bell? Those ads are taking the word "ubiquitous" to a whole new level, and proving that "skank hoes" ain't just on the street corner anymore. Well, ok, they DO go out and do "man on the street" interviews, where amazingly enough, every man they come across is a satisfied user and every woman is a satisfied usee, and they all crow about "the certain part of the male anatomy".
Too bad they ain't talking about their brains.
On some airlines. On United, the dimwits are now being explicit in saying "noise cancelling headsets must be turned off", in addition to everything else.
There is NOTHING in a noise cancelling headset that can possibly interfere with the aircraft electrical or radio systems. There is no local oscillator or even clock generator. It's a completely analog, audible frequency system. In fact, people wearing those headsets are safer because they can be (as I am) plugged into the aircraft audio system, so they can actually HEAR the safety briefing and any announcements, while the rest of the cattle have to strain to understand the noises coming from the tiny speakers over the din of the engines and everyone else talking.
It's almost at the point where I'm going to modify my pair to remove the power switch. They say "anything with a power switch". Nope, mine don't have one.
The power source is irrelevant, while the phone drains battery like a bitch if I put it in offline mode and just use it to read then it lasts 90-100 hours.
I'm HOPING that you left out a comma where one is needed, not that your phone "drains battery like a bitch if I put it in offline mode". I just read the latest Linux Journal and it has an excellent article talking about the N900 and actually doing something with it. I'm thinking about buying one.
Or a kewl final problem: you can plug it into a computer USB port and it will recharge, but if you plug it into a USB POWER source (no computer) it will happily keep running the CPU trying to enumerate itself on the bus, never allocate power for itself to charge, and drain the battery in an hour or less. BUT, you can plug in a coaxial power adapter right next to the mini-USB connector and it will happily charge up quickly. ($24.95 for the AC adapter from Sony. $2 for a USB-coax cable from electronics shop.) And if you use the "safely disconnect" option under Windows to safely disconnect the beasty from your computer but don't immediately disconnect it, it goes back to "trying to connect" mode and discharges the battery.
I'll hazard a guess that it's political. One is scared of what one does not understand. Europeans have a history of governments that make gun ownership hard, thus there aren't that many to be familiar with, and thus "guns" are a big, nasty unknown. In the US, we started out only because we HAD guns, and guns were used by many if not most people on a daily basis just to survive. We know what they are and how to use them. That, and the fact the government started out knowing what happens to countries where gun ownership is made as difficult as possible.
Infrared lasers can blind you, too, and since you can't see the infrared you don't have the normal blink reflex to protect you.
Apparently this is a problem with some (many) of the newer green laser pointers that operate by doubling an IR laser to get to green.
Nonsense. The people in the city won't be voting on a rural fire protection district for the county. They can't vote 'no' on a tax on county residents anymore than they can vote 'yes' on one.
If the city residents aren't getting the service from the county, they won't be voting on the tax to pay for it.
Only if you agree to it.
A conscious adult has the right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. They can't fly him anywhere if he says he refuses their treatment. He may have to sign a paper saying this, but it is still his decision.
We covered this in a First Responder class. If you come across a conscious patient who is bleeding profusely but still awake and alert, and he refuses your assistance, you are not legally allowed to touch him.
The "solution", as we were told, is to stand there and wait until he passes out, and then he's no longer able to refuse treatment and you can go to work on him.
Wow. What a vast over-generalization. Perhaps "you foreigners" aren't familiar with the concept of "local government", and that this story deals with one county (subdivision of a state) in one state (subdivision of the whole US) that has decided ("democracy" and "freedom") not to pay for fire services out of property tax revenues. That's hardly a representation of the entire US.
Those items come out of the FEDERAL budget, not the budget of some small county in rural Tennessee, and are an expression of the Constitutional authority for the federal government to provide for the common defence. But yes, just as MOST of the counties in this country do pay for fire services out of tax monies, most of the people in this country believe buying guns and tanks is a worthwhile expenditure.
We also believe that local counties and the people therein have the right to govern themselves when it comes to the local issues like paying for fire departments and such. It is an unfortunate abberation that we've abandoned that concept when it comes to things like schools and healthcare, and many of us would rather the feds keep their noses out of our business.
Of course there is. Maybe you live in a part of the country like Mass. where every tiny city has expanded until the borders all touch and there is no unincorporated area, but out here in the big bad west we have LOTS of places that are outside the city's jurisdiction, both for fire and police.
That's why those areas that want fire protection create Rural Fire Protection Districts and vote themselves a tax (or sometimes a fee) to pay for it.
I guess you didn't read even the simple summary. There was no local fire department to make the request. The first part of your conditional is false.
Depends on what the law is, now doesn't it? Maybe some places have different laws than where you live? Just maybe?
No, One World Order is the law, I guess.
City taxes don't pay for county services. County taxes don't pay for city services. Basic accounting 101. I live in a city and have to pay both city and county property taxes. The county, as a service to the cities therein, sends the bill for both and distributes the payments, but still two different governments.
What you think taxes should be used to pay for is trumped by what the citizens who pay the taxes want them to pay for.
Did you fail your basic civics lessons?
Nope. But you did. Democracy rocks, dude.
Mod -1 flamebait.
Over here, we have this crazy idea that PEOPLE run the government, not the other way around, and that they can CHOOSE not to have their government provide a certain service if they don't want their tax dollars being spent on it.
Fought a war over that one. Forgot who won. Do you remember?
By the way, that $75 as a tax would mean that failure to pay would result in loss of household in about three years anyway. As a voluntary fee, failure to pay might result in loss of household IF there is a fire. You choose you r poison, you takes your chances.
This has nothing to do with "free market". There is no competition in the marketplace, there is no other provider.
What this IS is an example of democracy. The people of that county are free to rule themselves in this matter. If they wanted a tax on everyone to pay for this, they could vote for it. Alternatively, their county commissioners could have voted for it, if their constituents wanted it. Apparently they decided not to. That is their RIGHT in a free society.
While the Constitution tells us what jobs are rightly the government's, nothing says that the PEOPLE can't decide they don't want their government doing one of them. It's not as if the local government's aren't able to levy taxes at the drop of a hat to pay for whatever stuff the commissioners or councils feel like doing.
It is none of our business how they want to tax themselves. Unless you live there, you don't get a vote, and your opinion doesn't matter.
Yes, I think it is stupid not to have this protection paid for out of property taxes, but my opinion doesn't matter, either. I suspect that the city fire department would love to have it tax-based so they get more money, and I also suspect that this will get the county to implement a new tax.
Current history disproves this your statement. We cannot yet make online voting work and yet we function pretty well in the "digital age".
Yes, when you deliberately break the standards and go your own way, you can consider that "done first", since everyone else is doing it the right way.
Lots of people had an opportunity to buy them. "Buy one Give one", for example.
The problem was OLPC was vaporware, at least as far as being able to provide the "buy one" that I tried to buy. They charged my credit card the day I ordered, then tried dragging the delivery date out until after the time limit for contesting the charge. They lied to me about delivery dates about three times, claiming they had them in stock one day, then two days later admitting they'd been out of stock for a month.
I'd have cut them a lot of slack if they'd been honest about being able to provide what they charged me for, and didn't charge me until it shipped, but they shot themselves in both feet the way they did things.
If they've gotten their act together now, good for them. Once burned, twice shy.
Umm, sounds like a chicken/egg problem. I can't put in a buy order unless there is a sell to cover it, and I can't put in a sell unless there is a matching buy?
Who's on first?
Yes, yes, it's a rule, so it must be done. Period.
That just points up the stupidity of the rules. Here's a novel idea: save $27 million by changing the rules.
$27 million is nothing ...
Alright then, carry on.
I didn't say you were opposed to making DUI illegal, I said that USING YOUR ARGUMENT it shouldn't be illegal. There is nothing in the DUI laws that will stop you from being dead if you get hit by a drunk driver. That's your goal. Since the laws cannot prevent it, the laws are useless. That's what you argued about fines and jail for texting as the cause of an accident.
The grandparent post suggested that texting while driving should be fully legal, but associated with greater punishments after the accident occurs.
Well, then, texting wouldn't be FULLY LEGAL, would it? It would be legal to text and not run people over, illegal to run people over, and more illegal to run people over while texting.
This would work well if people actually were capable of neutrally and accurately assessing their own competence behind the wheel (and the effect of texting on that competence).
No. It would work when people consider the COST versus the benefits. If it costs an arm and a leg (literally) for running someone over while texting, and only a few dollars for running them over while not, most sensible people would consider the cost not worth the risk and not do it.
I'm pretty sure that you meant to aim your vitriol at the poster above me,
There was no vitriol, just putting your argument into terms of other offenses. If laws that say that texting while driving result in higher fines or jail time aren't acceptable to you because it won't change your dead/not dead status after the fact, then the same argument means that laws that say that being drunk when you have an accident results in higher fines or jail time won't be acceptable for the same reason. You will be just as dead.
I'm pretty sure he's the same guy who figures it's okay for him to get loaded at the bar and then drive himself home;
I'm pretty sure that I don't care what he thinks about getting drunk, I'm responding specifically and directly to your argument about fines and jail.
First, there are a lot more elections than just the Presidential.
Second, your statement is patently absurd. I have never heard of an uncontested presidential ballot in any state. It would be a major failure in the system had that happened; one that even MSNBC would report on. There are results that are very lopsided, but then those votes that made it lopsided certainly counted for something. They weren't pointless.
In Mississippi, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the state will vote republican (unless the republicans put forth too dark of a candidate).
The "state" doesn't vote. Your claim that "the state will vote republican [sic]" is absurd. Many of the people in the state will vote that way, but that's something VERY different. Your statement makes it appear as if you think your vote should be more important than the vote of anyone who votes differently than you. Why else would you think that your minority vote should matter any more than a majority vote?
What you are forgetting is that, as a supporter of a candidate, it is YOUR JOB to get others to vote for him. You don't get to claim that your vote didn't count or that other people's vote counted more than yours. All that does is make you look like a whiner.
And here's a final point: if you are unhappy with the "winner takes all" system your state uses to allocate electors for the Electoral College, it is YOUR JOB to get it changed. Simply whining about it quadrennium after quadrennium accomplishes nothing.
Yes, if you commit a crime, you can be punished.
Why are owners of a corporation sheltered from that risk of jail time?
Because simply owning stock in a company is not a crime. If they, too, committed a crime as was required for you to see jail time, they, too, could see jail time.
I have a retirement account through my employer. I make no decisions about what companies the retirement account company invests in, there is no fairness in punishing me by taking my money away when someone else commits a crime.
It does protect them from being abolished outright, which the OP claimed was a better solution than simply taxing them like corporations.
Of course, another poster has already pointed out that they are taxed like other corporations -- tax exempt corporations. If you want to do away with churches, you better be ready to lose the United Way and thousands of other charitable organizations.