That deduction for a kid is less than the deduction you as a person get.
So since it's more than one person, shouldn't the tax deduction go up?
Just like when I was single my tax deduction was 7500. When married, it went up to 15000.
Does that mean you're paying more for not being married? Nope. It means it's even.
Truly even, the deduction would go up to 22,500 for having a kid, 30k for two kids, etc etc.

but it doesn't. And kids are friggin expensive. Trust me on that.

I just assumed that her character had been so nerfed, she figured the only way to get it back was to run for office, and legislate the other classes down to restore rogue to top tier.

I'm hosed for karma now.
". Are you telling me that not one of them thought the bill was a good idea "
yes. And one apparently even agreed with all of it. (Senate was zero)
I don't know anyone that has read all 2801 pages that agrees with all of that bill. There are lots of good things in the bill, but there is also a ton of crap and just horrible things in that bill.
Had that bill been broken into say 28 different items, (100 pages per. I know it wouldn't really work out that easy) then the people voting on it would have maybe read each of them before the vote and then decided to vote for some of the good, and punt some of the bad.
I have also spoken with several representatives that said "We didn't have time to read all of it, so we just voted the party line" (Both Ds and Rs)
There was entirely too much in that one bill to not have issues with and there was entirely too much in there for there to not be good in it.

health care in this country does have serious issues and needs a lot of fixes. BUT there was too much crap in this bill for it to be the "fix" we need. Including "savings" by "keeping benefits the same" they are going to pay doc's less for the same procedures, because they have become common. So for procedure A in 2014, a Dr will make less than he did in 2008. It's still the same procedure, and inflation has occurred, soooo.

Oh dear.
Here we go again, "everyone will get 54 mpg"
No, the automakers are behind this because it allows for MORE shenanigans, and they can say "look we're struggling cause we're having to be green"
Remember, this is NOT based on MPG.
It's carbon output. WITH "incentives"
EPA is establishing standards that are projected to require, on an average industry fleet
wide basis, 163 grams/mile of carbon dioxide (CO2) in model year 2025, which is equivalent to
54.5 mpg if this level were achieved solely through improvements in fuel efficiency.11
(This is from http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-25_CAFE_Final_Rule.pdf )
So have a "good" AC that doesn't leak? That's 24.4 grams/mile credit. No mileage improvement at all. Just a non leaking AC. ;)
Have LED lights? that's a savings.
(NO IT IS NOT)
Have some other vehicle that is electric? That's a savings for your trucks. So some good exhaust cleaning, good AC, good LED lights, and your 22mpg SUV has the emissions of something equivalent to 50mpg.
My motorcycle that DOES get 40mpg, but has no exhaust cleaning systems, no AC improvements, no LED lights, etc, is without the bonuses WORSE for the environment.

The EU and the "Green Cert" or whatever that stupid environmentally friendly crap are the reason FOR these lights. If you use the remote to turn it off, it stays in "standby" so it has to let you know it's in standby. That way you'll know to turn it all the way off to make the light go off. Some of the Samsung TV's have a "full power" switch by holding the stupid button on the tv. No way to turn the light off from the remote.
As for the lights on the chargers, that's just stupid. :) And I hate all people that do that. One of the more gratifying moments in my career was smacking an engineer at Ericsson when he decided to have the LED light be always on when charging. He wouldn't admit "most people" would want it off, and just have an icon by default, but we added the option in the menu's to NOT have the bright ass blue light kick on when it was fully charged. (which woke me up at night when the phone finished charging)

Since I couldn't find the actual patents in my 45 seconds of looking, (yes I'm lazy) I'm not sure if they are what I would consider "valid" patents or more of the blatant "on a phone" type patents.
I also did zero research to see what NCKU was, and whether it was a "proper uni" or if it was a "for profit" type uni.

BUT to me, a patent troll is someone that has a patent for 5 years, does nothing with it, then sues someone that made a successful device. Once more information is available, maybe the joke won't be as funny. But mainly, it was just a smart ass comment. I was amused by it.

Cheers. :)

So now we've even outsourced our patent trolls? When will it end.

that said, this could get interesting, and lets go super conspiracy theory.
Patent troll sues Apple, Apple "settles" which gives legitimacy to said patent troll.
Patent troll uses that legitimacy to get injunctions against all other smart phones that use voice.
Apple wins.

Damn it.

Normally I don't chime in, but your statement is so wrong about what the flat tax is, I wanted to.
Flat tax= flat marginal tax rate. Aka, someone makes 20k, they pay 2k. Someone makes 1m, they pay 100k. It's not the same actual amount. That said poor don't like the flat tax because currently, they make 20k, they get back 5k. And the rich don't like it because they "make" 100k, and the other 900k just "shows up tax free" so the flat tax closes the loopholes at both ends of the spectrum.

Currently both repub and dem, are BOTH for more government, just can't decide what to do with that more government. It's insane. As a country we are broke, you can't spend more to stop being broke.

In addition Sully had an issue with his plane. He did not intentionally ignore a nav chart and try and take off from an interstate instead of the runway.
This moron parked his boat on one rock, then ran it aground as he was jumping ship.
Sully=doing his job damn well as an example to follow.
This jerk=screw up after screw up followed by saving his own ass as soon as he could.

To be honest, you don't even need to do 1 or 2. Just doing 1.1 a simple one line deal my touchpad went from crap, couldn't play any videos, constantly slow, to really good, played youtube at 720 (assuming good network) and could play HD videos I'd copied onto the device so the kid could watch Shrek etc in the car on trips.

Why they had logging turned up THAT far on a released product is beyond me.

Lots of police cars have automagic plate scanners that pop up vehicle type, etc etc.
So don't have the right type of car, you run a risk of getting a NASTY ticket for that type of nonsense. Also "spoofing" a known plate is a reason for more complete monitoring. It would catch this immediately, "this plate is here, and over here at the same time. dispatch two officers to investigate both vehicles"
teacher gets annoyed for being pulled over, and student gets a nasty ticket.

"Think it was Toyota's fault that your corolla pegged 100 mph all on its own and ignored the brake? A proper data recorder would provide important proof one way or the other. "

Not really.
Since the main complaint was that the system was ignoring the brake depress, and staying on throttle. The data recorder would not know that the brake was depressed. Also, what's to be done in cases like my Jeep with non standard tires?
She came with ~27" tires and now I have ~36" tires. I've also regeared the axles so my speedometer (and odometer) are off by right around 10%.
I'm too lazy to drop the money to fix that last bit since I can do 10% in my head easy enough. :D
Also, if it's damaged, who's fault is it? I've trashed just about everything on my Jeep and street legal dirt bike from off road riding. Do I have to check this constantly? Will they provide the tools for me to check it?
Not a good idea in any way shape or form.

"Best defense is a good offense"

If you can attack them quick and well enough, they won't have any non compromised systems left to come back at you. :)

Well, playing with figures like that is only to get a point across.
What the study shows, is that if you're poor, and you only make 20,000 per year, you spend almost all of that money on something that requires sales tax. So you spend 100% of your income, and have to pay 17.2% in sales tax. (what it doesn't mention is that you might also be getting food stamps and or medicare etc)
the rich start off at 200k, but 50k in tax deferred shelters(401k etc), donate 50k (making up numbers here) live on 100k and a chunk of that is going to mortgage etc.
So they are only paying sales taxes on say 25% of their income that they actually "spend" so even though they still spend say 50k they pay less percentage wise in sales taxes...