What about a nuclear powered hot air balloon?

Here is some source material for you. CITATION

On that note, someone needs to make an ultralight "ship" out of composite materials and build a giant hot air balloon that looks like a Final Fantasy style air ship. That is the first thing that came to mind when I started reading the article.

Remote controlled Deathrace 2000!

All my Java code is two space indented. All my sentences are two spaces after the period. Always has been and always will be.

Actually, before the income tax everyone paid taxes. They paid luxury taxes on stuff like alcohol. The income tax was the greatest con job ever on the american people. They got it passed by promising to only tax people like the Rockefellers i.e. the top 1 or 2%. The income tax was then gradually broadened to start taxing the middle class. How the original income tax was set up the middle and upper middle classes shouldn't have even needed to file. Income tax has been and always will be a scam.

I assume you're joking, but it raises a very important point. Quality of jobs. Do we create jobs just to be creating jobs or do we make jobs to benefit society. If we can do something more efficiently that should free up more people to do other jobs. Less people spending energy working the tax system means we could have more people working on feeding the hungry or building a better space program. If they are smart enough to learn the tax code they should be able to get a job in a different field pretty easily, its just people don't like change.

What people would be hurt? They would be getting a nearly 24% raise in pay since they wouldn't be paying any taxes out of their paycheck, no income, no social security, nothing. Not one dime coming out of their paychecks. On top of that they would be getting a check every month from the government to cover the cost of those necessities in the form of a prebate.

The rebuttal to that point is several pages, but needless to say you are misinformed.

You're 41% number is off, and I would hope that if/when the bill was up for debate that pre-tax accounts would be reimbursed. I'm well informed on the fair tax, but far from an expert. But that is something that would be easily fixed.

Yeah, I don't see the IRS going away either, but I do see them leaving nonbusiness owners alone. If you own a business you'd still be required to file sales taxes, but it would be part of your job, not something you have to do to be a citizen. If you own a retail business you still have to pay taxes, but there are a lot less retailers than there are people which means there is a smaller pot to have to watch and a lot less loop holes to wiggle out of. I'd rather the IRS be watching Wal-Mart than watching me. I shouldn't be put in jail or fined because HR Block fucked up my taxes, I shouldn't have to file taxes anyway. I don't mind paying taxes I mind the stress properly filing.

Unless you're buying a new house there would be no taxes to worry about. Just buy a used house, that is the huge mortgage deduction you want. If you're rich build yourself a new house and pay the 24% sales tax on the house, if you can't afford that buy a used house and safe 24%. Its not that hard and that is what is good about the Fair Tax. Also deductions are already calculated based on your income and given as part of your monthly prebate check. So you wouldn't need to keep receipts. That alone would encourage savings since if you aren't spending, but you're earning you'd be making money off the fair tax.

Then you sir are a lucky man. I guess you've never been divorced, paid child support, bought a home, remodeled a home, moved between states, had a family member die or any of the other "life changing" events that would require more than filing a basic tax return. Not to mention people who've had multiple jobs in a year or kids over 18 who are still getting money from their parents. And if you're just doing the basic filing you're paying more in taxes than you need to, which is ok, but some of us have better things to do with our money.

You know nothing of the fair tax then. Under the fair tax only the FIRST sale of goods is taxed, the entire resale market is untaxed. So only the early adopters (aka wealthy) pay a heavy tax burden, if you buy used you don't pay any taxes at all. As for necessities the fair tax has a PREBATE that makes it a progressive tax. You get a monthly check to cover the taxes on things like food. If you only buy used goods you can actually come out way ahead under the fair tax.

It would be a huge tax break on the poor for things like houses and cars. And would be a huge tax hike on the rich for houses and cars, unless they are frugal and buy their cars/homes used.

Used technology would be tax free, but those who need the newest iPhone would be hit with the tax.

Look I realize that it will never pass, but the current system is completely corrupt and needs reform and if the VAT taxes pass we're really screwed. We need some system of taxation that would fall under the KISS method so that there aren't so many loop holes to get out of paying taxes. We also need to have a higher percentage of voters paying taxes instead of getting paid by taxes. So that they'll stop voting for stuff we can't afford. Progressive taxation is good if you're protecting those in need, but then you've got people gaming the system like my wife's ex who has been on unemployment on purpose and only goes back to work long enough to get it reinstated. Totally mooching the system and I'm sure he's not the only one.

By far the best aspect of the fair tax is that it is CONSUMPTION based, meaning if you're not spending money you're not being taxed. So if you're not consuming much you can actually save more of you money for when you actually need it instead of having an annual tax bill to have to worry where you're going to come up with that extra $4,000 to pay the tax man. And you can't mess it up since it is payed when you buy goods, not through some arcane filing system that everyone makes mistakes on. Even the people who write tax law make mistakes on their taxes.

So if you have a better system that has widespread support you let me know and I'll support it to, but the current system where we have to file and our taxes are withheld so we don't realize how much we're actually paying sucks.

So if you could reflect the heat to generate power and use photovoltaics to generate power, could you also create them translucent to some spectrum of light? Then you could grow crops under the solar array, use the array for water capture so the irrigation would hold water better and provide power and temperature maintenance. This idea only works if photovoltaics and plants uses different spectrum to generate power/photosynthesize.

Stuff like this is why a program like the "Fair Tax" won't ever pass. There is nearly a 400 Billion dollar tax preparation industry. They would all be out of work if something like the fair tax ever passed, so not only are we stuck paying income tax we have to pay for all those tax services and tax lawyers that go with it. Intuit is part of the problem, not part of the solution, they are making your life harder not easier.

Yeah the "has" was a "was" typo. In that case I wasn't speeding and pulled google maps to show where the officer was and where I was stopped in traffic and how I could not have been speeding since I was stopped in traffic. The officer after writing my ticket pulled back into the stopped traffic and pulled someone else over, it was total BS. But what can you do? Nothing, they are the boys in Blue.

Over memorial day weekend I got a speeding ticket where I was actually speeding and I just wrote a check and mailed it in. I do speed a lot if I'm actually speeding I pay the fine. I normally do 84 in a 70 because we have "super speeder" fines in my state. Basically 15 over and you get hit with a big fine. The state troopers ignore the non super speeders because there are to many of those and it costs to much to prosecute them. My memorial day ticket I wasn't in my normal commute area where I know all the speed traps and didn't notice that the speed dropped to 55. The officer was polite and didn't hit me with the super speeder so I counted my blessings and just paid the fine. I've been driving for about 20 years and I get about 1 ticket every year or every other year. They are infrequent enough that the points don't stay on my license and the time I save on my commute daily is worth the extra $80 ever other year.

Only Hypocrisy. You can be a sheep if you want, but some laws are horrible and/or horribly enforced. Most Interstate speed limits are set to low, and speed traps are for generating revenue, not for public safety. If they wanted safer traffic they would be ticketing tailgaters and weavers.

I has stopped in traffic and got a speeding ticket. I was so upset that I started a log of all the police I caught breaking traffic laws. I started calling 911 and their supervisors whenever I caught one doing over 90 MPH traveling out of county. I had about 4 pages full of incidents in my log book before my court date. I even thought about getting front and rear dash cams in my car (still wish I had those I watched a car slam into the guard rail and roll 3 times in my review mirror the other day on the way home). Didn't need to use the logs because the ticket got thrown out.

I'm going with sucky airflow. I've been having the problem and my solution was ice packs (stated in a post below). My laptop doesn't have a lot of air flow, so I've put gel ice packs under the air intakes for video card. I haven't had it overheat with the ice packs, but I've forgot to change them once they've melted and my system shuts right down.