I saw it when it came out, so my memory may be fuzzy.
This is a movie that takes place in about 1870, and one of the main characters is African-American, and the movie doesn't have the word nigger in it.
Now that's a bit hard to believe. I know it's an ugly, horrible word, and if they don't want to use it in the move, that's fine.
But that makes it a lot less than realistic, doesn't it?
If by "Jack" you mean Jack Daniel's, then worry not, you haven't been drinking Bourbon.
But you might mean "Jack" in the way that some people use "Dude", or "Man" or something. In that case, carry on.
But Prop 13 doesn't just govern property taxes. It also makes it effectively impossible to raise ANY taxes. So since 1978, CA has been living in the magic dreamworld where prices go up, population goes up, but taxes (except regressive taxes like sales tax and gasoline tax, etc) never go up.
I used to live in the central valley, I bought my house in 1999, and the value tripled in the 10 years I owned it. But my taxes never went up, and I moved to another state because the schools in the central valley are among the worst in the western world.
You cite Texas in defense of your position.
Seriously, Texas? They got some great schools there.
I've heard a lot of talk about spending being the problem, and I'm not really arguing against cutting spending, but there is this idea that since governments waste money, then taxes should be eliminated. When you do that, you end up with shithole schools (Like California and Texas have) and the biggest employer in the region is the department of corrections (hello Central Valley).
What, for example is the font of waste that everyone is talking about? What program is causing a state with one of the highest per-capita incomes to be in such dire circumstances? Which program needs to be cut? They've raised tuitions in state universities and Community Colleges, fired teachers at public schools, cut cops and firemen, stopped patching the roads. So what is it?
I pay a helluva lot more taxes where I live now, and we've got great schools, free public transit, clean streets. And we've got similar blowhard scoundrels in a Democratic state legislature. I'm just wondering what the difference is.
Wait, now who is mis-under-re-representing heresay? MA prop 2 1/2 is not at all like Prop 13. Tha MA statute caps property tax amounts at 2.5 percent of total cash property value! That's huge. And, more importantly, Prop 13 says that they cannot raise taxes ON ANYTHING without a super majority, not just property taxes. MA doesn't have that bit in there.
I'll try not to get you started on correlation between dollars spent and overall quality of education, but CA has been steadily reducing per student spending, and their schools have been steadily crapping themselves.
That is obviously true, so does every state. But the fact that they've put their tax statutes in the hands of special interests is a leading cause of thier budget shortfalls.
It can hardly be blamed for their current financial problems.
Of course it can. Their taxes were too high 30 years ago, then a special interest group passed an initiative that eliminated tax increases. Thus, for 30 years, while the cost of everything has gone up, California's tax revenues have remained at 1978 levels. Since the late '70s, CA has been cutting education and infrastructure spending, firing cops and firemen, adding lotteries and Indian gaming, all in an attempt to make up for lost revenue.
Now the recession is eating away at sales tax and gambling revenues (the only positive streams since 1978) and the revenue vs spending values have reached a tipping point.
Their spending, though, is out of control.
Compared to whom? Which US state with a gigantic population would you cite that compares favorably to CA in terms of over-spending?
I agree that CA wastes money, all governments do, but none that I am aware of have such extremist tax statutes. Does another state have a law making it impossible to raise taxes?
Prop 13 effectively makes it impossible to raise any taxes.
In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes.
I moved from CA to a city and state where property taxes can go as high as 1.8. The result: housing is expensive, so no McMansions, and my kid is going to a public school that outperforms any school district in CA, even the extremely expensive West Valley districts.
In CA, they spend less per pupil, and the property taxes are extremely low. As a direct result, they have shite schools, crowded prisons and insolvency.
Prop 13 was championed by No-Tax fanatics, and their progeny are going to keep the state in the toilet.
I hate paying taxes as much as the next person, and I hate waste, too. But the solution to a cash problem isn't eliminating the revenue stream.
If there is another system that hasn't had to raise spending in 30 years, I'd like to see it. Gas prices have gone up, but the state can't raise taxes to pay for them, so they cut transportation services. Costs of living have gone up, but the state can't raise taxes so they fire teachers.
CA has a system that is guaranteed to fail. I lived there for a long time, taxes are incredibly low, and services are incredibly shitty. Education is lousy (CA is below average in per-pupil spending, though above average in per-capita income), infrastructure is dangerously inadequate (CA is dead last in funds spent for transportation).
While the rest of the country was booming in the Clinton years, CA could'nt raise any revenue, and now they're paying for it.
I left CA in 2008 after 20 years. The special interests of which you speak are actually part of the CA statute, and have been since 1978. See Prop 13
The proposition's passage resulted in a cap on property tax rates in the state, reducing them by an average of 57%. In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes. Proposition 13 received an enormous amount of publicity, not only in California, but throughout the United States.
I set up OpenFire for a financial svc company (a bank). SSL, full AD integration with SSO, made a little widget to display who was available on the intranet.
The AD bit took a while to set up, but once I got that sussed, it was really great.
I floss and brush regularly, and see the dentist twice a ear, but... Bike crash at age 16. Bent my front teeth all up, but I had braces and they saved my teeth. Over the years, I would mention to my dentists that a couple of my teeth felt "funny", but they said, "If they don't hurt, they're fine." 20 years on, they started to hurt, two were dead, and there was a huge (~1cm) abscess way up there. So I got 2 root canals. Not really too bad. But that wasn't enough, so a year later I got an apicoectomy. That sucked, a lot. My endodontist thinks it's likely that I will keep them, but the damage from the crash turned out to be more than could be gleaned from an x-ray (some radial fracturing). He says that 40 years of flossing has kept my gums healthy enough to hold on.
For me, as a person born in the Southern US in the 1960s, this event is a very, very big deal. I've seen people do things that should never be done, and get away with it, and I never though that a black man could ever be president.
I'm very cynical about politics, but not about people. And for the first time in my life, I am truly proud to be an American.
No one expects miracles, but it feels good to put that chapter in our history at least partially to rest.
I was being tongue-in-cheek before, to point out your universal assumptions, which are inherently wrong. Therefore, my assertion that you are wrong is not strictly illogical; I was trying to make a point.
There is a major fallacy in your logic with this statement:
Asserting confidently that there is no God is no different than asserting confidently that there is.
Atheists don't, to my knowledge, assert as a matter of fact that there is no god, but rather, that there is no evidence for belief in any particular god, such that a belief in one is pointless. Google the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Teapot, etc.
As an atheist, and a scientist, I CAN assert that some level of evidence will always be considered in my belief system, and it is the lack of same that has led me to believe what I do vis-a-vis theism.
Furthermore, a cursory understanding of human psychology would provide ample evidence to an open minded observer for the origins of religion and mythic beliefs.
While there is no evidence for the existence of god or gods, there is plenty indicating that such deities were created by man.
Whether it be Zeus, the Sun, the Bear, Jesus, the Unicorn, they are all the same.
As an atheist, that's what I believe.
PS. I originally disagreed with your assertion that ANY atheist believes "the universe is a result of random chance." This is simply not true, and I suspect that it speaks to a lack of understanding of mathematics and/or statistics on your part.
What I believe is not important. It could be anything at all, except that "the universe is a result of random chance." What is important, in this case, is what I _do_not_ believe. That is, after all, the definition of atheist, no?
You don't know what atheists believe, no one does, yet you claim to.
Since you choose to apply assumptions universally, I am applying one to you.
You are wrong about everything. You have always been, and always will be.
Anybody who is an atheist will believe that the universe is a result of random chance.
I'm an atheist, and I don't believe that.
Since you are wrong on this point, It is accurate to assume that you are wrong in everything you do and say, and that your very existence is an exercise in wrongness.
Cut it out.
Slashdot Mirror
I saw it when it came out, so my memory may be fuzzy.
This is a movie that takes place in about 1870, and one of the main characters is African-American, and the movie doesn't have the word nigger in it.
Now that's a bit hard to believe. I know it's an ugly, horrible word, and if they don't want to use it in the move, that's fine.
But that makes it a lot less than realistic, doesn't it?
If by "Jack" you mean Jack Daniel's, then worry not, you haven't been drinking Bourbon. But you might mean "Jack" in the way that some people use "Dude", or "Man" or something. In that case, carry on.
But there are no androids in Blade Runner.
Yes.
Algebra?
I used to live in the central valley, I bought my house in 1999, and the value tripled in the 10 years I owned it. But my taxes never went up, and I moved to another state because the schools in the central valley are among the worst in the western world.
You cite Texas in defense of your position.
Seriously, Texas? They got some great schools there.
I've heard a lot of talk about spending being the problem, and I'm not really arguing against cutting spending, but there is this idea that since governments waste money, then taxes should be eliminated. When you do that, you end up with shithole schools (Like California and Texas have) and the biggest employer in the region is the department of corrections (hello Central Valley).
What, for example is the font of waste that everyone is talking about? What program is causing a state with one of the highest per-capita incomes to be in such dire circumstances? Which program needs to be cut? They've raised tuitions in state universities and Community Colleges, fired teachers at public schools, cut cops and firemen, stopped patching the roads. So what is it?
I pay a helluva lot more taxes where I live now, and we've got great schools, free public transit, clean streets. And we've got similar blowhard scoundrels in a Democratic state legislature. I'm just wondering what the difference is.
Wait, now who is mis-under-re-representing heresay? MA prop 2 1/2 is not at all like Prop 13. Tha MA statute caps property tax amounts at 2.5 percent of total cash property value! That's huge. And, more importantly, Prop 13 says that they cannot raise taxes ON ANYTHING without a super majority, not just property taxes. MA doesn't have that bit in there.
I'll try not to get you started on correlation between dollars spent and overall quality of education, but CA has been steadily reducing per student spending, and their schools have been steadily crapping themselves.
I suppose it's a coincidence.
Thank you for agreeing with me. It's the tax revenues that have remained at 1978 levels, thanks to Prop 13.
Not true, CA population has increased more than 43% since 1980 http://www.censusscope.org/us/s6/chart_popl.html
That is obviously true, so does every state. But the fact that they've put their tax statutes in the hands of special interests is a leading cause of thier budget shortfalls.
It can hardly be blamed for their current financial problems.
Of course it can. Their taxes were too high 30 years ago, then a special interest group passed an initiative that eliminated tax increases. Thus, for 30 years, while the cost of everything has gone up, California's tax revenues have remained at 1978 levels. Since the late '70s, CA has been cutting education and infrastructure spending, firing cops and firemen, adding lotteries and Indian gaming, all in an attempt to make up for lost revenue.
Now the recession is eating away at sales tax and gambling revenues (the only positive streams since 1978) and the revenue vs spending values have reached a tipping point.
Their spending, though, is out of control.
Compared to whom? Which US state with a gigantic population would you cite that compares favorably to CA in terms of over-spending?
I agree that CA wastes money, all governments do, but none that I am aware of have such extremist tax statutes. Does another state have a law making it impossible to raise taxes?
I moved from CA to a city and state where property taxes can go as high as 1.8. The result: housing is expensive, so no McMansions, and my kid is going to a public school that outperforms any school district in CA, even the extremely expensive West Valley districts.
In CA, they spend less per pupil, and the property taxes are extremely low. As a direct result, they have shite schools, crowded prisons and insolvency.
Prop 13 was championed by No-Tax fanatics, and their progeny are going to keep the state in the toilet.
I hate paying taxes as much as the next person, and I hate waste, too. But the solution to a cash problem isn't eliminating the revenue stream.
No, really, please.
Buy my house.
If there is another system that hasn't had to raise spending in 30 years, I'd like to see it.
Gas prices have gone up, but the state can't raise taxes to pay for them, so they cut transportation services.
Costs of living have gone up, but the state can't raise taxes so they fire teachers.
CA has a system that is guaranteed to fail. I lived there for a long time, taxes are incredibly low, and services are incredibly shitty. Education is lousy (CA is below average in per-pupil spending, though above average in per-capita income), infrastructure is dangerously inadequate (CA is dead last in funds spent for transportation).
While the rest of the country was booming in the Clinton years, CA could'nt raise any revenue, and now they're paying for it.
Anyway, Rosebud is a sled.
I set up OpenFire for a financial svc company (a bank). SSL, full AD integration with SSO, made a little widget to display who was available on the intranet.
The AD bit took a while to set up, but once I got that sussed, it was really great.
I floss and brush regularly, and see the dentist twice a ear, but...
Bike crash at age 16. Bent my front teeth all up, but I had braces and they saved my teeth.
Over the years, I would mention to my dentists that a couple of my teeth felt "funny", but they said, "If they don't hurt, they're fine."
20 years on, they started to hurt, two were dead, and there was a huge (~1cm) abscess way up there. So I got 2 root canals. Not really too bad.
But that wasn't enough, so a year later I got an apicoectomy. That sucked, a lot.
My endodontist thinks it's likely that I will keep them, but the damage from the crash turned out to be more than could be gleaned from an x-ray (some radial fracturing).
He says that 40 years of flossing has kept my gums healthy enough to hold on.
An' ya tell tha kids o' today that... an' they won't believa ya.
For me, as a person born in the Southern US in the 1960s, this event is a very, very big deal. I've seen people do things that should never be done, and get away with it, and I never though that a black man could ever be president.
I'm very cynical about politics, but not about people. And for the first time in my life, I am truly proud to be an American.
No one expects miracles, but it feels good to put that chapter in our history at least partially to rest.
No experiment
No data, no evidence.
Deduction based on "logic" which, in your case is based on mythical dogma is not science, and not evidence.
Goodbye
Which experimental data show "that the first cause, or Creator, has to be external to our time space matter-energy universe"?
Only the Bible
provides evidence of a creator. The Bible was created by men, ergo: men created god. As I said above.
Thank you for confirming.
OK, no one is reading this, save you and I.
I was being tongue-in-cheek before, to point out your universal assumptions, which are inherently wrong. Therefore, my assertion that you are wrong is not strictly illogical; I was trying to make a point.
There is a major fallacy in your logic with this statement:
Asserting confidently that there is no God is no different than asserting confidently that there is.
Atheists don't, to my knowledge, assert as a matter of fact that there is no god, but rather, that there is no evidence for belief in any particular god, such that a belief in one is pointless. Google the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Teapot, etc.
As an atheist, and a scientist, I CAN assert that some level of evidence will always be considered in my belief system, and it is the lack of same that has led me to believe what I do vis-a-vis theism.
Furthermore, a cursory understanding of human psychology would provide ample evidence to an open minded observer for the origins of religion and mythic beliefs.
While there is no evidence for the existence of god or gods, there is plenty indicating that such deities were created by man.
Whether it be Zeus, the Sun, the Bear, Jesus, the Unicorn, they are all the same.
As an atheist, that's what I believe.
PS. I originally disagreed with your assertion that ANY atheist believes "the universe is a result of random chance." This is simply not true, and I suspect that it speaks to a lack of understanding of mathematics and/or statistics on your part.
What I believe is not important. It could be anything at all, except that "the universe is a result of random chance." What is important, in this case, is what I _do_not_ believe. That is, after all, the definition of atheist, no? You don't know what atheists believe, no one does, yet you claim to. Since you choose to apply assumptions universally, I am applying one to you. You are wrong about everything. You have always been, and always will be.
Anybody who is an atheist will believe that the universe is a result of random chance.
I'm an atheist, and I don't believe that. Since you are wrong on this point, It is accurate to assume that you are wrong in everything you do and say, and that your very existence is an exercise in wrongness. Cut it out.
Is it the shite resolution?
All good reasons, to be sure, but ffs, stop with the fucking faxes, please.Is it the slowness?
The lack of security?
The 19th century technology?
The bulky machine?
The waste of paper?