You know you're from Amarillo when....

KaNineteen · 2012-05-26T23:38:06.078275+00:00

I dunno, does anyone FROM Amarillo actually eat at the Big Texan? It's more of a tourist place, I've lived in Amarillo all my life and I can't think of any locals who eat there.

In part because it isn't all that great. By an odd coincidence I just ate there today, for the first time ever, and it was pretty blah. Their chicken fried steak was a frozen patty with nasty commercial breading. My friend had the prime rib, and he said it was pretty flavorless and the outer layer was rubbery.

I'm pretty sure they depend on tourist business because no one wants to eat there twice.

Wolf97 · 2012-05-26T14:23:52.857562+00:00

I just tried geocaching for the first time, and the cache was a small plastic bottle. About 1 inch tall and 1/4 inch wide with a really tiny roll of paper as the log. It was hidden in a hollow stick.

tempurababy · 1 day

No reasons given per the linked article.

I assume admitting that they canceled because of pressure from the right would have been harmful to Nikon's business interests.

SolidSyco · 2 days

If by "vegetarian" you exclude fish, then most traditional Japanese food won't really be accessible. Even ramen and noodles often have a base involving dashi, which is a fish stock.

Mysticbus · 2 days

I've observed a lot of talismanic/idolatrous behavior with the Bible. In my neck of the woods (the Texas Panhandle) I often see people lugging around giant Bibles with highly decorated covers that they make a very big show of keeping. But I notice they don't seem to actually read said Bibles. In fact, when I have been able to observe those Bibles up close, most appear to have never been read at all.

I'm not sure I'd say they're using the Bible as an idol, but they're definitely using it as a tribal identification symbol more than anything else.

justinamash · 2 days

I think you don't understand what "top marginal tax rate" means. A top marginal tax rate of 90% does not mean a tax of 90% on all of said person's income. And that's not even addressing the fact that most of the wealthy don't even get the majority of their income in a form that is subject to income taxes. Capital gains taxes need to go up too.

Nor am I trying to run such people off. I'm just not in favor of letting them coast as they have been and ask us to pick up the tab.

And, here's the thing, the top 10% pay a lot of the taxes collected because, unsurprisingly, they have a lot of the money. When compared to the percentage of wealth they have, they actually pay a bit less than we do.

The top 1% of Americans own 42% of the money. They pay less than 42% of total taxes collected. So even if we argue that it's proper for each group to pay an equal percentage of taxes it still isn't fair.

And, I argue for progressive taxation, that is the more a person has the more they should be paying simply on the grounds that they can afford it.

Take 30% of the wages from a person who makes minimum wage and you've inflicted some pretty significant economic damage. Take 30% of Bill Gates' income and he won't even notice. Fair doesn't necessarily mean equal.

We need to tax the rich not because we're trying to "punish success" but because they've got all the money. You kind of have to go where the money is, you know?

justinamash · 2 days

That didn't happen in the 1950's. And besides, what's the alternative? Letting the country go bankrupt because you're afraid to tax the people who have all the money?

Assume you're right and a significant number do leave. At least then they won't be using up resources while contributing nothing. But I doubt many will leave.

alllie · 2 days

About damn time.

justinamash · 2 days

Just remember that eliminating the Bush tax cuts would raise the tax rate on the lowest bracket by 50%.

Tax rate is not the same as tax. And the Bush era cuts didn't cut the taxes of the poor by 50%.

After tax income increased by 0.7% for the lowest quintile following the Bush tax cuts.

I'd rather not increase taxes on the poor by repealing only the tax cuts for the rich. In my ideal world we'd go back to Eisenhower (a Republican remember) era taxes where the highest marginal tax rate was ~90%. But I'd settle for going back to Reagan era taxes where the highest marginal rate was 50%.

However, if we can't get the R's to agree to a partial repeal, then I'm in favor of letting all of the Bush taxes expire. I wouldn't like the increases for the poor and middle class, but it beats letting the tax rates continue as is.

The thing is, eventually we do have to raise taxes on the rich again. They've got all the money, see, and that means they kind of have to pay the most taxes. It's either that or let the nation go bankrupt.

diamondpeople · 3 days

Remember though, that Rome had unusually good roads in the area near the city itself and the older sections of the empire.

Jebus812 · 3 days

Ender's Game is ok, but hardly the be all and end all of SF. It also isn't my first pick for an introductory book.

It's largely a Mary Sue fantasy with a large helping of self pity porn. I liked it well enough and I'd certainly recommend people read it as it's been influential. But it's not the best thing ever by any stretch.

justinamash · 3 days

I'd rather we kept the cuts for the middle class and poor. But yes, if the Republicans won't move on the issue, then better we let all the cuts expire via inaction.

Not exactly my ideal outcome, but such is life.

WarriorAlice · 3 days

Go back to /r/mensrights and stop posting BS here.

justinamash · 3 days

The fact that in 80 years we are projected have a major problem does not mean we should kill the program today. And let's not play word games here, the Ryan plan isn't a "fix" for Medicare, it's completely destroying the program and calling something radically different by the same name.

My point is, there's no need to try to rush into things. We aren't facing an urgent emergency, we're looking at a potential long term problem. We've got a decade or so to work out real fixes before problems even begin to show up. We do not need to be slapping into place the first, very bad, idea that comes up.

You're at odds with Obama on the Bush tax cuts. He either doesn't want to or doesn't have the balls to let them expire for everyone.

Yup, no argument at all. We needed a fire breathing partisan to undo the damage of the Bush admin, end the wars as close to overnight as possible, conduct a through housecleaning at the CIA and other agencies to root out the torturers, aggressively investigate and prosecute the Wall Street criminals who cratered the economy, etc. Instead we got a milquetoast "centrist" with a bipartisanship fetish so strong that even after being repeatedly drubbed by the Republicans he still keeps blathering about the need for bipartisanship, and an utter terror of doing anything effective.

In 2008 I favored Obama over McCain, even knowing that he was such a milquetoast, and in 2012 I favor Obama over Romney. But to me that's not so much a choice between bad and good as a choice between "leaving things very bad and not fixing them" vs. "making things a whole lot worse very quickly". From my POV Obama represents, at best, a continuation of the status quo and things getting worse slower than they would under a Republican.

Save the talking points for someone who is fooled by them. The idea that we can close the deficit solely with military cuts and tax increases on the wealthy is laughable.

No fooling needed.

The military budget is around half the total amount of the deficit. Ending Bush's wars and tax cuts will cut the deficit in half. Technically, we could close the deficit completely simply by eliminating the military and Bush's tax cuts.

In practice I'm not a pacifist and I don't advocate ending hte military completely. But an eventual goal of cutting hte military budget by, say, 3/4 seems perfectly reasonable. We'd still be outspending China (the current number two in military spending) even if we cut the budget by 3/4. Of course, we'd have to massively scale back US military operations, but I see no reason why that isn't' a good idea. We don't need the current crapton of military bases worldwide. Nor do we need 13 active carrier groups. Cutting that to six would be a tremendous savings. I'd suggest mothballing them rather than scrapping both the bases and the carriers, you never know what might be needed in the future.

And, as I said earlier we'd need to make the military cuts gradual so as to avoid crashing the economy. The military budget is around $1.3 trillion/year, taking that out of the economy all of a sudden would be catastrophic. A swords to poughshears program would be necessary.

Increasing the tax rates to merely Reagan levels would close the rest of the budget deficit and produce a surplus. So, yeah, we can actually balance the budget with military cuts and tax increases on the wealthy.

But that's just a very small bit of tinkering. I personally favor going back to Eisenhower level taxes on the rich. Make the top marginal rate 90% again like it was back in the 1950's, increase the estate tax so as to avoid an aristocracy, etc. I doubt I'd ever get my ideal scene, but I think that with some work we can at least get back to Reagan level taxes.

justinamash · 4 days

The Ryan plan is a giveaway to the rent seeking insurance industry, and a recipe for disaster as health costs inevitably increase beyond his caps.

Vouchers are just more free marketism and we've already established that free market health care is a failure.

And, frankly, Medicare is not going to bankrupt the government. Once we end Bush's wars and allow his idiot tax cuts to expire the deficit will decrease by more than half. Balance the budget on the backs of the wealthy, not the elderly and poor.

mepper · 4 days

So if I declared that my religion mandated drunk driving, prostitution, and cocaine, I'd be perfectly fine in North Dakota?

Or if we're limiting this to extant religions rather than just crap I made up how about if I convert to the worship of Kali, become a Thuggee and I declare that murder is a necessary sacrament in my religion?

What if I declare that my religion has abortion as a sacrament? Do I get an exemption from the anti-abortion laws?

mepper · 4 days

I disagree, one thing this bill is designed to do is grant legal protection to parents who allow their children to die by denying them proper health care and instead relying on faith healing, or prayer, or crystals, or what have you.

justinamash · 4 days

Do you have any better ideas?

Ultimately it comes down to a simple question: do we let people die, or not?

But we've tried the free market, and it didn't work. The result of our free market approach to health care has been exploding costs, lousy healthcare outcomes, lack of care for most people, and (before the government got involved) lots of people being left to die.

If we chose not to let people die, then we're looking at significant government involvement in healthcare, and so far Universal Single Payer has the best track record for costs and benefits among nations with universal health care. The health insurance industry will hate it, of course because it means the end of their industry. And I'd be a strong advocate of job retraining, placement, and even simply paying the salaries of non-executives in the health insurance industry until they can get jobs in a non-parasite field.

Medicare isn't really a good example for cost savings because it is prohibited from using it's clout to bring down medical costs in many areas (prescription drugs, for example).

For any modern nation with universal health care then yes, health costs are going to be a major government expense. Not much way around that except letting people die and we both appear to be opposed to that approach.

Costs are an issue for any health care system, but they're an issue that I maintain is easier to deal with if we implement Universal Single Payer.

justinamash · 4 days

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-system-cost

Switching to universal single payer would be a net gain. And provide a club to beat costs down with.

justinamash · 4 days

If you have a better proposal for lowering the rate of growth of Medicare, I'd love to hear it.

Universal single payer.

justinamash · 4 days

You do know that in the USA we pay roughly double what everyone else pays for medical care, yes?

Perhaps we should look at cutting costs for medical care rather than letting sick people die.

justinamash · 4 days

It is not a 'Libertarian fantasy' that we don't need government for marriage. It's an actualized reality.

Yeah? Show me the nation where it's organized in the way you propose then.

justinamash · 4 days

Eh, I should know better than to argue with libertarians.

You start talking a good game about freedom, then you go into some weird stuff about how government is evil and in your obsessive hatred of government you wind up forgetting the original bit about freedom.

And, for the record, my marriage had absolutely nothing to do with any religious institution. It was purely a civil matter, and isn't that what you're insisting is necessary? Why do you feel the need to take away the word marriage from me and gay people?

And, why are you so terrified of social conservatives you want to surrender to them instead of fighting? They really aren't that tough.

justinamash · 4 days

What do you propose cutting? And why?

We've already got one of the lowest government expenditures as a percentage of GPD in the developed world. Why do you think it should be lower?

justinamash · 4 days

We don't need the government to be married. How can you not understand this?

Because what you say is not true.

Marriage involves many government things. Immigration status, for example. Tax status for another example. Laws mandating hospital visitation. Common law inheritance if a spouse dies without leaving a will. Laws regarding who gets to make the decision on the disposal of a deceased spouse's remains in the event of disagreement. Stuff like that.

We don't live in your idealized libertarian fantasy world, and in the real world marriage has legal ramifications.

Because of people like you who do nothing but stir up polemic and bitch and moan.

??? You honestly think that the only reason conservatives hate gay people is because they, and their liberal allies, finally got sick of their second class citizen status and started advocating for equality?

Way to blame the victim.

We'll get equality in marriage for gay people the same way we did for interracial marriages like mine: the supreme court will curbstomp the social conservatives, they'll whine about "state's rights" for a while, and in thirty years they'll be so embarrassed about opposing it they'll pretend they never did.

If you want me to listen to your proposals you'll have to show me at least one or two successes by your approach. I can't think of a single civil rights gain that has been won by your method. Show me a victory or two and I'll consider that maybe you aren't just all about surrendering to the social conservatives. Until then, I'll go with what's worked in the past.

We got interracial marriage by protesting, and marching, and court cases, and not by surrendering to the evil bigots you so fear stirring up.

Me? I'm a scrapper. Fuck the bigots. When we stop pussyfooting around and go toe to to with them we win. When we bow and scrape, and do our best not to offend the evil bigots we lose.

sotonohito

TROPHY CASE

sotonohito

TROPHY CASE

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