Seriously I do feel awful badly for those folks. I hate when bad things happen to anyone, even if they hate me with a passion.

I agree. However, I am reminded of the story of the farmer who's trying to show someone how to train a mule. He starts by walking up to the mule and whacking it on the head with a club, knocking the mule out. When the pupil asked him, "Why did you do that?" the farmer said, "Well, first you have to get his attention."

One has to wonder if a theoretical compassionate God is trying to get Texas and Oklahoma's attention. But then, considering the annual number of tornadoes and other natural disasters that hit Texas and Oklahoma, you'd have think He'd just give up by now and smite the whole region and leave it to the armadillos.

How did you get "the tax goes from 3% to 4%" from "the state raises taxes on car dealers by 30%?"

About your other point, sure some of the dealers may only raise prices by 29% and absorb that other 1%, but you're still missing the point

Are you really that stupid? Do you understand the difference between raising taxes on dealers "by 30%" and raising the taxes on dealers "to 30%"?

Raising taxes from 3% to 4% is a 33% increase in taxes. Raising taxes from 6% to 8% would be a 33% increase in taxes. Raising taxes from 15% to 20% would be a 33% increase in taxes. But even the biggest of those increases, assuming there's no competition and no dealer decides to take a little less profit in order to increase market share, the largest pass-through to consumers would only have to be 5%.

If you don't think only consumers pay taxes...

I never said that. Consumers often pay taxes. In the case of Amazon, the consumers would be paying the sales tax, because up to now Amazon has been able to avoid taxes on the notion that the internet is some magical places where taxes should not exist because...computers or something.

Maybe you can understand it if I explain it another way. If you have ten apples and I take ten percent of them today, and tomorrow I raise the percentage of apples I take from you by 100%, it does not mean I'm taking 100% of your apples.

Here's a nice tutorial on calculating percentage change with a calculator if you're still having trouble. If you need help turning on the calculator, you'll have to ask someone else.

http://www.wikihow.com/Calcula...

Seen any suspicious rainbows lately? This might fill you in on what the governmen is doing I hear it targets Christians:

Actually, there was a big stunning double rainbow over Dublin last week as the people of Ireland rejected the teachings of the Church and approved same sex marriage.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u...

Texas, on the other hand, outlawed gay marriage and got deadly floods and tornadoes.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/26/...

Coincidence?

What is so hard to believe that we created the "god" myth? It's been done many times over the ages, so we have more proof of that than the other way around.

Yes, but all those other people who created gods were just making them up, whereas the god we made up is the Real Thing!

Maybe the anti-creationist, anti-Christian witch hunters set this bogus thing up, just to have an excuse to go after the Christians.

That's...plausible.

But maybe the Creationists set it up just to make it look like the anti-Christian witch hunters set it up so that then they could say, "Look how we're being made to look stupid and a little evil by the anti-Christian witch hunters who are all hiding in plain sight just steps away from the Christian churches that are on every other block throughout the United States.

Instead I consider this repayment for my good fortune and a way

Now that's a sentiment I can relate to.

Sorry for the novella but this doesn't fit into a single paragraph very well.

Not at all. It was a perfect post.

So you're saying that our educational system should focus on not leaving any children behind?

I'm not saying that any more than you're saying our educational system should focus on leaving a large percentage of children behind.

Because I think I can see a tiny flaw in that plan.

I went to a private school (Kent's Hill if you are curious) and we used to bring our firearms from home and have them on campus - in our own dorm rooms AND unlocked.

You were in Maine. You probably needed the guns to protect yourself from black flies the size of crows.

Also, Kent's Hill is a high school with a $48,000/year tuition. You probably had a gun valet carry your weapons for you when you were walking from class to class.

I think that mixing the smart kids in with everyone else is just misguided in the first place -

Hey, wait a minute. My freshman year at Catholic high school I made enough money doing football players' Latin homework that I was able to start a nice record collection. It taught me entrepreneurship, the value of a dollar and the fact that football players were decent enough guys, one of whom could get the best weed.

You're talking about taking away some of the most valuable learning experiences of my youth. The summer before my freshman year, my parents sent me to this weird school for high-achieving kids in Evanston and I hated it. All this adult attention and zero fucking around.

I learned a ton from my classmates during the years of parochial and public education, both the ones above and below me on the achievement scale. I also made some lifelong friends who are more important to me than whether or not there are sufficient software engineers to fuel Silicon Valley's dreams of our future.

Anyway, it's not the high-achieving kids that need to be sequestered and given extra attention. They're going to do fine (except for the ones who end up shooting up a shopping mall). The ones that need help are the ones at the other end of the scale. The ones that have been hosed by history and will grow up in a world without jobs.

Hey now, I am retired and I don't even take (I think I am old enough now - I have not looked to be honest) the Social Security that I paid in.

Unless you're at least 67, you'll be leaving a lot of money on the table.

If you are 67, and you really don't want that extra couple grand a month, you think you can just cash the checks and send them to a worthy charity? I'm thinking specifically about my bookie. I mean broker.

I'm not saying we should have kits with mercury and radioactive materials like we did in the 50s

Spoil-sport.

you will find your beagle's battery...difficult to user service...when depleted.

A few doggie treats and a quick nap on the porch is all the user service she needs.

"Sniffing and tracking"? My seven year old beagle does those things and has much longer battery life.

Call me when you're bluetooth device can fetch a tennis ball.

Man, that's horrible. What part of the world has ISPs with 40GB data limits?

- New Zealand.

Yeah, but on the plus side, you get to live in New Zealand. I'm not sure I wouldn't trade my higher data limit for a chance to live over there. I've never been there, but it looks like a wonderful place.

So... that English woman who was Born in 1815 "invented coding"... hmmm.

You really don't know who Ada Lovelace is, do you?