"I doubt making your own biodiesel and using it is the offence. The offence is not paying a tax you are legally required to pay. In the UK you can run your car on biodiesel if you like, but that doesn't let you avoid paying tax - you have to pay the tax directly rather than it implicitly being included in the fuel price. Think of it as the difference between being employed or self employed - if you are employed then you pay your income tax by PAYE; if you are self employed you don't do PAYE, but this doesn't magically get you out of paying tax, you still have to pay it to the inland revenue at the end of the year."
I know your example is the UK, but, it is in response to something that sounds like it was similar in the US.
I don't know how this argument would hold up. Let's make a beer analogy.
I can legally make my own beer at home. I make it myself, I consume it myself, hell...I often have friends over to consume it with me (free).
Now, if I were to buy beer, I'd be paying taxes on it. However, I'm not paying taxes on my home brew...aside from some taxes on the ingredients (I could grow some of them if I wanted, like hops).
I'm not required to pay any tax on beer I make.
Now, if I were to make my own bio-diesel...or other type of fuel, why should I be force to pay tax on it? It is for personal consumption in my car like my beer is for my mouth. If I were to give it away....like my beer...etc.
What if I could generate enough of my own electricity to fun my own electric car...would they try to bust me for that too if I didn't pay some sort of tax.
Now, I dunno how things are different in the UK, but, in the US the only taxes for roads that I know of (in most states at least) are coming off of gasoline and diesel taxes bought at a commercial pump.
Playing with kids is a hell of a lot more fun that playing with a PS3, Xbox360 or your Wii Wii. It's also nice to have a life partner, rather than live by yourself."
Hmm...what about to each his own?
:)
I don't play console games...I've got WAY too many things to do. I have lots of fun, I live in New Orleans, where there is something going on ALL the time, for example, last weekend was Voodoo Fest, I saw some great bands, and partied...I came and went and didn't have to worry about kids anchoring me down. I have a dog for companionship, that is pretty much the ONLY true unconditional love that exists IMHO.
As for partners...I have plenty. I don't like the idea of being stuck with just one woman the rest of my life. There's always fresh game down here...and I have girlfriends around the US that come to visit me, or I travel with on vacations....sure, I like companionship as much as anyone, BUT, I also HIGHLY prize my alone time. I'm not afraid of being alone, in fact there is often time I prefer it. They way I live "I" get to choose when I'm around friends or chicks...and the best part is, they DO leave my house eventually to go back to their home.
I'm not saying either lifestyle is THE best one, but, they each have their merits. No, I don't know how fun it is to play with kids, it isn't something I've ever been interested in, but, my point of view is no less valid than those that promote the family above all else. More power to you if you want to have kids....but, it IS a lot of responsibility, and 99% of the time it involves personal and financial sacrifice, and you should know that going into it....and be prepared to live on a lesser scale, and quit bitching when things are tight, you made the choice to have those responsibilities.
And please, don't ask ME to pay for them for people that had kids....I already subsidize you by not getting tax deductions that families with kids get....etc.
I'm just saying, my way of life is just as valid as yours....I feel completely successful so far. Apparently you do to with the kid thing...enjoy.
"That's not entirely true - some people (will) rely on their children to help look after them in their old age, or even to completely support them."
That is just poor planning....you should be saving your money for retirement, if you had kids, I'd think the LAST thing you'd want to be is a burden on them...
"XBMC is a media player only. If you want to record TV, you still need Myth. If you don't, XBMC is roughly 325 million times easier to set up and use."
Buy a house and raise a family, then tell me how much disposable income you have. "
You know...there ARE other choices don't you? Frankly, I've never really wanted kids...I'd rather have my disposable income to come and go as I please, travel, buy fun toys, chase different women, etc
And even if you want to settle down and stick with one chick...not all of them want to be saddled with kids either. Face it, it is a choice you make. If you don't have a job making enough money for house, kids and family AND the fun things in life, well...life is full of choices, each with its consequences.
Choose, and live with the choice and quit bitching.
"Well said. My wife and I watched six episodes of The Office in 2 hours, instead of the 3 hours it would take to watch it live. I don't know about other people, but with a small child and two careers, my wife and I have about a 2 hour limit for any one-sitting tv session."
Just curious...if you and the missus are THAT busy, where you only have 2 hours to yourselves...shouldn't you have been fucking or something??
I mean, hats off to you if you were getting a BJ while the show was on...but, if all you have it 2x hours together and you waste it on tv rather than boinking or getting blown...well...
"Yes, this is true. However, in the animal kingdom dolphins are classified as mammals. Bats are not. Hence the significance of the story./end snob mode"
Yeah, but either way...the oral sex stops right after the bats/dolphins get married....
"At many companies, like the one I work at, you can't access anything on the internet via ssh. So this isn't a very useful solution."
Just use ssh with port forwarding...and send your traffic through something like 443 which your company has open for https traffic...
I used to do this to got to a box I had running squid at home, that way I could bypass the webfiltering content the work place had...that was actually blocking websites that WERE work related. But you can run pretty much any traffic through there...if a company has any internet access...it has ports open somewhere that you can go through.
"Not to mention, of course, that for most of us, running an email server on our home computer would violate our ISP's terms of service. Jumping from a "home" account at $30/month to a "commercial" account at $130/month is a big hit for most of us."
Nah..not that bad. I have a Cox Business account to my home...$69/mo, no caps, I can run all the servers I want, static IP address, etc.
"And who supports big business over individual rights? Oh yea, conservatives."
Really? I've certainly not seen any different support with the liberals currently in power.
They seem to support big business over individual rights just as readily as the conservatives from what I can observe.
Possibly, they do tend to favor the big unions over big business, but, those aren't really concerned with individual rights either...both parties suck just as badly.
"And finally Barak Obama who is going to increase our national debt from $130,000 per home to $200,000 by the end of second term (2016)."
You know...I'm starting to doubt already if Obama will be a 2 term president...
His numbers are dropping quickly...and being associated with the Dem. majority in congress which has VERY low numbers, I think if another candidate that is decent comes along, Barack will be a one term president.
"I'm operating from the assumption that an Indian is just as valuable as an American"
Not if your an American....not if you are a US citizen and wanting a home and to feed your family. At that point...you don't give a flying fuck about giving your job to 2 people abroad.
It is one thing to give and care about others in the world, but, rarely is someone altruistic enough to do so at the expense of their quality of life.
I"m not talking about unhealthy thin...but, fit and healthy thing...something like Jennifer Anniston, I mean that lady is 40 and STILL looking hot...or something along the body fitness of Adriana Lima (I think that's her name) of Victoria Secrets. These women are very healthy, no pudging bellies, no cottage cheese thighs...something that looks good with their midriffs showing.
There's a difference between being fit and being anorexic.
Not saying to require it to be in the US...but encouraging it a LOT. Why not give huge tax breaks and incentives to have the work done in the US employing US citizens?
That's not doing anything wrong...nothing more than other countries do...don't subsidize it...but encourage more businesses to do their thing HERE rather than another country...
"My knowledge of the dismal science is sketchy at best, but I'm pretty sure the imports = good, exports = bad idea that was pushed by mercantilism was roundly trashed and replaced with the modern view that trade is good."
I'm thinking more from the point of view of the problem we have with unemployment here currently in the US, shouldn't we (and the current administration) do most everything in their power to encourage businesses IN the US to open and employ US citizen here at this time?
Cheap goods don't do you much good if your people have no jobs to earn money to consume....
"...Nuclear Power Plants also make an abundant supply of Radio Active Waste..."
Well, if we'd just change our laws/policies/regulations and start allowing reprocessing of our spent nuke fuel we could use it much more efficiently, and in the end, there would be MUCH less waste and it also would not be nearly so toxic. I think France does this will all their nuclear facilities?
I think one of the larger questions should be, why the fuck aren't we manufacturing these things in the US??
I thought a lot of this push by the Obama administration et al was to put US citizen to work and boost OUR economy, not China...why is our government not pushing for all aspects of the alternative energy initiatives they are promoting to be done in the US? Where are the tax credits and incentives to US companies (established and especially startups) for developing and manufacturing in the US and employing US citizens? During the election campaigns, I recall hearing that the move to clean/green energy sources wasn't JUST for the health of the environment, but also for generating new jobs and industries for the US.
I know China technically owns a lot of the US at this time, but, c'mon no one has been annexed yet, and this is not helping US citizens as much as home grown/developed/manufactured solutions would be...
"Regardless of the risks, the fact that you're fine is no shock because there will always been somebody to tell that story. The kids that don't make it aren't around to tell their story.
To put it into statistical perspective, lets exaggerate a bit (ok, a lot:)) and say that all those activities you listed has a 40% chance of resulting in death or dismemberment. Is that an acceptable statistic? Absolutely not, yet you'd still have 60% of people sarcastically proclaiming "Hey I did all that stuff as a kid. How did I possibly survive!?!?". The answer is simple: you survived because you were in the group that fell on that side of the equation. That doesn't mean though that any legislation that drops that accident rate from 40% to 0.05% is wasted effort though."
Err...the point of my anecdotal rant wasn't so much that only I survived due to the things I did. It was more that my entire generation, and generations before mine that did just fine without 24/7 instant communications, and did just fine playing outdoors all the time doing things that would be considered too dangerous for little Johnny and Susie to do today.
My point is the mentality has changed so drastically, that our precious children are so helpless, and need overprotection...and now we're trying more and more to mandate it into LAW that affects not only kids behavior, but, also that of adults wanting to do adult things.
I have a hard time believing that there are more child sex offenders, abductors or what have you out there today than in past years. Maybe a few more, but, not so many as to warrant the fear and overprotection measures out there today. I say it is more the instant communication, and the multitude of 24/7 news channels that have to have something to report that is sensational enough to gather large commercial watching crowds.
But really, those things I listed I did as a kid, were NOT done alone...I had friends, lots of friends who were there doing that stuff with me. Most all kids my age were doing shit like that...it was known back then at "being a kid".
"I was trying to say, without actually saying it, that I get everything I want to watch online, in one form or another (IF YOU FOLLOW) when I want it, regardless of what the television happens to have on at the time."
Ah...gotcha.
I have MythTV running, so, that while I may have TV on all the time, I'm not a slave to what they have scheduled on at any given time, I can what what I want at my leisure. About the only things I watch in real time are college football...or the news channels which I sometimes just keep on in the background.
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I know your example is the UK, but, it is in response to something that sounds like it was similar in the US.
I don't know how this argument would hold up. Let's make a beer analogy.
I can legally make my own beer at home. I make it myself, I consume it myself, hell...I often have friends over to consume it with me (free).
Now, if I were to buy beer, I'd be paying taxes on it. However, I'm not paying taxes on my home brew...aside from some taxes on the ingredients (I could grow some of them if I wanted, like hops).
I'm not required to pay any tax on beer I make.
Now, if I were to make my own bio-diesel...or other type of fuel, why should I be force to pay tax on it? It is for personal consumption in my car like my beer is for my mouth. If I were to give it away....like my beer...etc.
What if I could generate enough of my own electricity to fun my own electric car...would they try to bust me for that too if I didn't pay some sort of tax.
Now, I dunno how things are different in the UK, but, in the US the only taxes for roads that I know of (in most states at least) are coming off of gasoline and diesel taxes bought at a commercial pump.
Playing with kids is a hell of a lot more fun that playing with a PS3, Xbox360 or your Wii Wii. It's also nice to have a life partner, rather than live by yourself."
Hmm...what about to each his own?
I don't play console games...I've got WAY too many things to do. I have lots of fun, I live in New Orleans, where there is something going on ALL the time, for example, last weekend was Voodoo Fest, I saw some great bands, and partied...I came and went and didn't have to worry about kids anchoring me down. I have a dog for companionship, that is pretty much the ONLY true unconditional love that exists IMHO.
As for partners...I have plenty. I don't like the idea of being stuck with just one woman the rest of my life. There's always fresh game down here...and I have girlfriends around the US that come to visit me, or I travel with on vacations....sure, I like companionship as much as anyone, BUT, I also HIGHLY prize my alone time. I'm not afraid of being alone, in fact there is often time I prefer it. They way I live "I" get to choose when I'm around friends or chicks...and the best part is, they DO leave my house eventually to go back to their home.
I'm not saying either lifestyle is THE best one, but, they each have their merits. No, I don't know how fun it is to play with kids, it isn't something I've ever been interested in, but, my point of view is no less valid than those that promote the family above all else. More power to you if you want to have kids....but, it IS a lot of responsibility, and 99% of the time it involves personal and financial sacrifice, and you should know that going into it....and be prepared to live on a lesser scale, and quit bitching when things are tight, you made the choice to have those responsibilities.
And please, don't ask ME to pay for them for people that had kids....I already subsidize you by not getting tax deductions that families with kids get....etc.
I'm just saying, my way of life is just as valid as yours....I feel completely successful so far. Apparently you do to with the kid thing...enjoy.
That is just poor planning....you should be saving your money for retirement, if you had kids, I'd think the LAST thing you'd want to be is a burden on them...
So, it is basically a glorified DVD player?
Buy a house and raise a family, then tell me how much disposable income you have. "
You know...there ARE other choices don't you? Frankly, I've never really wanted kids...I'd rather have my disposable income to come and go as I please, travel, buy fun toys, chase different women, etc
And even if you want to settle down and stick with one chick...not all of them want to be saddled with kids either. Face it, it is a choice you make. If you don't have a job making enough money for house, kids and family AND the fun things in life, well...life is full of choices, each with its consequences.
Choose, and live with the choice and quit bitching.
Just curious...if you and the missus are THAT busy, where you only have 2 hours to yourselves...shouldn't you have been fucking or something??
I mean, hats off to you if you were getting a BJ while the show was on...but, if all you have it 2x hours together and you waste it on tv rather than boinking or getting blown...well...
Yeah, but either way...the oral sex stops right after the bats/dolphins get married....
I've always played with MythTV...how would people that have used both compare them? Pros vs Cons of each system?
Don't most people just leave their computers on 24/7 these days anyway?
Just use ssh with port forwarding...and send your traffic through something like 443 which your company has open for https traffic...
I used to do this to got to a box I had running squid at home, that way I could bypass the webfiltering content the work place had...that was actually blocking websites that WERE work related. But you can run pretty much any traffic through there...if a company has any internet access...it has ports open somewhere that you can go through.
Nah..not that bad. I have a Cox Business account to my home...$69/mo, no caps, I can run all the servers I want, static IP address, etc.
Well, at least he does seem consistent in his stand on squelching communications...
Really? I've certainly not seen any different support with the liberals currently in power.
They seem to support big business over individual rights just as readily as the conservatives from what I can observe.
Possibly, they do tend to favor the big unions over big business, but, those aren't really concerned with individual rights either...both parties suck just as badly.
You know...I'm starting to doubt already if Obama will be a 2 term president...
His numbers are dropping quickly...and being associated with the Dem. majority in congress which has VERY low numbers, I think if another candidate that is decent comes along, Barack will be a one term president.
Not if your an American....not if you are a US citizen and wanting a home and to feed your family. At that point...you don't give a flying fuck about giving your job to 2 people abroad.
It is one thing to give and care about others in the world, but, rarely is someone altruistic enough to do so at the expense of their quality of life.
I"m not talking about unhealthy thin...but, fit and healthy thing...something like Jennifer Anniston, I mean that lady is 40 and STILL looking hot...or something along the body fitness of Adriana Lima (I think that's her name) of Victoria Secrets. These women are very healthy, no pudging bellies, no cottage cheese thighs...something that looks good with their midriffs showing.
There's a difference between being fit and being anorexic.
We need to nip this in the bud right now...so, guys, QUIT fucking fat chicks!! Don't settle...wait around for quality women that don't weigh a ton.
Geez, with all the supposed 'pressure' they say is on girls to be thinner...it sure doesn't seem to be working that well.
That's not doing anything wrong...nothing more than other countries do...don't subsidize it...but encourage more businesses to do their thing HERE rather than another country...
Do you have a tv set with enough quality to see the difference? Big? HD?
Have there been any sightings of a three eyed fish ??
I'm thinking more from the point of view of the problem we have with unemployment here currently in the US, shouldn't we (and the current administration) do most everything in their power to encourage businesses IN the US to open and employ US citizen here at this time?
Cheap goods don't do you much good if your people have no jobs to earn money to consume....
Well, if we'd just change our laws/policies/regulations and start allowing reprocessing of our spent nuke fuel we could use it much more efficiently, and in the end, there would be MUCH less waste and it also would not be nearly so toxic. I think France does this will all their nuclear facilities?
I thought a lot of this push by the Obama administration et al was to put US citizen to work and boost OUR economy, not China...why is our government not pushing for all aspects of the alternative energy initiatives they are promoting to be done in the US? Where are the tax credits and incentives to US companies (established and especially startups) for developing and manufacturing in the US and employing US citizens? During the election campaigns, I recall hearing that the move to clean/green energy sources wasn't JUST for the health of the environment, but also for generating new jobs and industries for the US.
I know China technically owns a lot of the US at this time, but, c'mon no one has been annexed yet, and this is not helping US citizens as much as home grown/developed/manufactured solutions would be...
To put it into statistical perspective, lets exaggerate a bit (ok, a lot :)) and say that all those activities you listed has a 40% chance of resulting in death or dismemberment. Is that an acceptable statistic? Absolutely not, yet you'd still have 60% of people sarcastically proclaiming "Hey I did all that stuff as a kid. How did I possibly survive!?!?". The answer is simple: you survived because you were in the group that fell on that side of the equation. That doesn't mean though that any legislation that drops that accident rate from 40% to 0.05% is wasted effort though."
Err...the point of my anecdotal rant wasn't so much that only I survived due to the things I did. It was more that my entire generation, and generations before mine that did just fine without 24/7 instant communications, and did just fine playing outdoors all the time doing things that would be considered too dangerous for little Johnny and Susie to do today.
My point is the mentality has changed so drastically, that our precious children are so helpless, and need overprotection...and now we're trying more and more to mandate it into LAW that affects not only kids behavior, but, also that of adults wanting to do adult things.
I have a hard time believing that there are more child sex offenders, abductors or what have you out there today than in past years. Maybe a few more, but, not so many as to warrant the fear and overprotection measures out there today. I say it is more the instant communication, and the multitude of 24/7 news channels that have to have something to report that is sensational enough to gather large commercial watching crowds.
But really, those things I listed I did as a kid, were NOT done alone...I had friends, lots of friends who were there doing that stuff with me. Most all kids my age were doing shit like that...it was known back then at "being a kid".
Ah...gotcha.
I have MythTV running, so, that while I may have TV on all the time, I'm not a slave to what they have scheduled on at any given time, I can what what I want at my leisure. About the only things I watch in real time are college football...or the news channels which I sometimes just keep on in the background.