Teh Ricer Civic!

Rofl!!! you found it! Ahh my paint skills are the best. That was back before i was TRC.

Yeah but you forgot the qualifier of my statement which was, if i had the money that Al Gore had. Short of that, I'll just settle for the 10 acres and the ranch house. Maybe get some horses... not that i ride horses, but you gotta have horses if you got that much land.

Fine. How about Pelosi sayin that 500 million Americans lose their jobs each month. I guess some of us will be losing their jobs 2 times in 1 month. lol

haha i saw this on another website, classic to see a kid doin that though.

If i had Al's money i'd have my own wind/solar farm just so i could laugh at the electric companies and all my friends when their power goes out but my mansion is still lit up. ... but then again... i dont want a mansion... too big and i don't wanna pay people to have to clean and take care of it. I'll just have 10 acres and a ranch house with a wind and solar farm on it. Oh and a golden retriever named Arfy to guard it, cause golden retrievers are the bestest guard dogs EVER!

Yes life does happen... as for our veterans, that is a failure of our Federal government and they are a worthy cause to give aid to, even if that means the state has to set in. I would not be opposed to giving families who have lost their sole breadwinner some aid for a limited amount of time, but they cannot become dependents of the state. This is certainly true. But what needs to be assessed is how does all the government bureaucracy and inefficiencies affect government programs vs charitable ones? How much is needed to donate to achieve goals? These are not short term ideals, and in the meantime government intervention may very well be necessary, but if we continue solely on the course of government aid... then i fear our nation will lose much of its values as the government continues to become our sole caregivers. How about if i replaced the word with assessment? Auditing the charity if you will. Hmm... you know i think i was getting 2 reports mixed up. Here's the one i was thinking about http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/718/republicans-happier but its not the one that had the tidbit about the taking care of a spouse... so i apologize and retract that statement until such a time i can find it. Still, Republicans are happier! No, these programs were created due to New Deal and 60s Entitlement programs. They are largely partisan projects that have had mixed results at best. And i'm not even really arguing against what you are mentioning... I am arguing against continuious of welfare programs, against the Earned Income Tax credit (surely there must be a better way of working the tax code than WRITING a check to someone just cause they earned less than such and such money a year! that kinda kills incentive to prosper in a way). It's surely a tragic incident, but are you honestly telling me that you have no friends who would be there for you in a time of need until you can get back on your feet? Do you not keep a rainy day fund? Now i am not going to make an argument for parents who throw their kids out at 18, because that would be really tough and unfair for the kid. I fully agree with you, i know several dysfunctional families who are more of a headache to deal with than just to ignore. But that doesn't mean that EVERYONE who falls on bad time has to rely on the government now does it? And once again if they HAVE to, make it for a limited time, or make those people have to do community service in exchange for their unemployment (setting aside time to look for jobs of course!). If they are at least, in some way, providing a service to the community then it would be far more acceptable in my view than if they were just straight up given a check. Fresno is the largest city not on an INTERSTATE highway. Although really... come on... the 99 is just the more inland route of I5... i mean it only exists after it breaks off the I5, and then it merges back into the I5. And i must admit, i hate large cities and prefer suburbs so i am biased in that regard. Hows that even an argument? You know, i don't know why poor people gripe about being poor, they sure make a lot more than people in Liberia! But seriously, gridlock sucks during rush hour.

Dude, you live in the Central Valley. The economies of the Central valley are mixed at best with still large leanings on agriculture and oil... which are very cyclical industries (well agriculture is). And even though Fresno is a large city, it still has underpinnings in agriculture... plus it is not a terribly well off economic area since it lacks the centralization and large scale commerce of the Bay Area and LA. Nay, Fresno is merely just a large city... i don't really even understand how it came to be so large, there really is nothing around that area... other than the fact that its cheap to live there. Fresno also has a lot of gang problems... not as bad as LA... but pretty bad. And all i stated was Republicans tended to donate more to charity. Significant changes to the tax codes would still be required in order to encourage far more contributions.

Yes... and the way to teach people to be responsible is not to bail them out. You don't teach people anything by saying "oh boy you screwed up bigtime, but i'll take care of it." You teach people stuff by saying, YOU screwed up. YOU deal with it, and learn from your mistakes. The Government also had a large rule in how it dictated lending standards during the period... don't put blame solely on the financial industry. And if you are arguing that a charity will be less efficient in delivering proper ratios of aid than the government... well then i am truely at a loss since the government is the king of giving disproportionate aid. heavy Tax code revisions STRONGLY encouraging charitable contributions. Evaluations can be conducted just like any other survey assessing effectiveness. I am aware of how statistics works. These were same questions asked to everyone. The numbers are well outside the margin of error and are several standard deviations away from each other. Hmm... permanently disabled and mentally ill people fit into my definition of people who do deserve help as they... well can't provide for themselves. However, to say that giving up YOUR earned cash to the government is not giving up liberties... then i dont know what to say. YOU earned it, YOU should be able to spend it the way you see fit. As i said, i dont mind the temporary unemployment until people can get back on their feet... but really this can be accomplished through churches and other charitable organizations, but failing that i suppose the government can be the "lender of last resort" in these situations. Of course taxes are a necessity. The question is HOW much is a necessity? Defense spending, infrastructure spending, emergency/police spending, and educational spending are all vital to the country... what else is ACTUALLY a necessity that without our country would fall apart? I hardly think entitlement programs fall into that category... perhaps people have forgotten that keeping strong family ties is beneficial during hard times? Your FAMILY used to be your safety net, and i don't understand why people are so depending on the government for safety nets... if i ever fall onto hard times i can always rely on my family to be there and help me get through it. Now granted if you have no family you must seek other organizations... or once again... perhaps the government as a "lender of last resort." SoCal and NorCal generally despise each other (dating back to water rights and LA... long story). There is a very large valley in the middle of the state where a sizable portion of the nations food is grown... these are amongst the most conservative areas of the state along with the central cost... The middle part of California kinda takes a mix of SoCal and NorCal mannerisms but isn't really part of either per say... i don't even know how to classify it. A lot of the states Oil is around this area. We use different formulated fuels so our gasoline is more expensive... but its worth it given the large amounts of smog that would be generated by densely populated regions of the state (which just flows down into the central valley creating awful air quality). Most of the oil that is extracted in California is not all that useful for gasoline (it would require soo much refining that it would not make economic sense to do it)... it is heavy crude oil. That being said, California represents the forefront of oil extraction techniques. We have developed ever advancing tools to extract that last ounce of oil out of the ground. there are large amounts of depleted reserves in California by general extraction methods, so technology always advances to continue scraping the bottom of the barrel... which benefits the rest of the nation because these oil companies can use these techniques elsewhere to provide more affordable fuel. You will see a lot of domestic vehicles (especially trucks) in this area of the state compared to other parts. If you are seeking a large city then LA, the bay area, or Sacramento are your best bets... Suburbs are your best bets for somewhat affordable housing... they all have awful traffic. Fresno is a large city... but... its kinda lame... doesn't have that large city feel to it even though it is pretty big. if you are seeking a small sedate town, there are a bunch of them scattered along the central coast... most of them are very nice and a lot of people like to retire in these areas so they are somewhat sleepy little towns. NorCal generally has more beautiful landscaping and is green more often. SoCal has that characteristic "California gold" (Hueeellll Houser's California GOld! lol) color most of the year. It is generally green and quite pretty during the spring however. All in all, California is a beautiful state that offers all the geographic regions you could possibly want... Mountains to the east, Desert to the south, green rainy stuff to the north, and BEAUTIFUL coastal areas from the central coast down to San Diego. The only reason i exclude NorCal from the coastal regions is cause its just too cold up there and the beaches are all rocky. But the coastal regions up north are very beautiful too, kinda woody and pristine... just they are no good to actually GO TO the beach.

haha i love chuck norris jokes. Chuck Norris CAN divide by zero!

First off, i should probably clear up my statement. I have meet a lot of smart people from the LA and the Bay area, however given the LA AND BAY AREA >>overall<< voting records, i remain leery of people form there that i do not know personally. Not the ones that i do know, for they are all fine people and will likely go far in this world. As to our budget problems, you nailed the argument on the head right there. We have backed ourselves into a political corner. The only way out is to freeze budgets and wait out the storm until our budget balances once more (which will never happen in this state). OR we could raise taxes, but we already have high rates... how much higher do you want to go? Alternatively we could cut programs, but it looks REALLY bad to cut welfare programs and stuff like that. So what do we do? And as for the Middle Class... you realize that the only reason the middle class was even still expanding was due to more and more dual income earner households right? Now has that really been worth the extra hours worked? Has it REALLY been worth the boom in childcare industries? Has that had any negative impact upon the family structure? Who knows, i certainly don't. Point of the matter is, we want to ATTRACT business in times of recession, not drive it away! But anyways... as to the budget problem, the point stands that if we had not started any of those entitlement programs in the first place (oh and went to the federal minimum wage standards instead of CA's one) then our budget wouldn't be so out of whack... and more people would be employed... and dont go blabbering about the standard of living cause you know damn well making $4.95/hr is a hell of a lot better than $0.00/hr. Face it, California has been in debt for a while now... and it is partially because of the way our tax code works, taxing profits is not a very steady way of generating revenue... that being said, its fairly stupid to tax corporations who aren't making profits. And while that may be great that SF and LA likes to create entitlement programs for poor people, but there are a LOT of people that are NOT in those areas who would rather keep their own money in their own communities, if we want to help the poor we do so through charities, not through the government. There are still lots of people who view the government as the enemy, being grossly inefficient and very leery of increased government control of our lives. It is for people like us that donating to charity to hell the needy seems a far better option... or lacking the financial ability to do so, to volunteer for charity work! The RIGHT THING TO DO, is to instill VALUES into people. To make PEOPLE responsible for their own actions. To instill in people that it is GOOD to do CHARITY work. To Volunteer every once in a while and help the needy find jobs or whatever. Shoveling that responsibility onto the government doesn't make people take more responsibility for their actions, it makes them take LESS responsibility for their actions. That is one of the great unintended consequences of these entitlement programs. A society who has lost these values becomes increasingly subjected to the nanny state and RELIANCE UPON THE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERYTHING, and the ultimate and final form of the nanny state is a 1984ish scenario... i would rather not continue on the path towards that. A government that is NOT in debt is NOT tying up money in the economy and therefore there is MORE money IN the economy to create jobs for people and therefore do NOT need these entitlement programs. Plus, large government debts (which means they are spending it somewhere) tend to create MORE inflation which just makes things worse (although its great cause when you pay back your creditors, they have essentially lost money on the deal if you keep inflation higher than your interest rate). Now unemployment and other various temporary safety net programs are okay i suppose, after all everyone hits a snag in the road every once in a while... but tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit are a joke, creating massive marginal rates in the areas when it is phased out and discouraging people to take promotions because, in the end, they gain no financial benefit from it due to these programs. Liberals are quick to say that us conservatives are heartless, evil and greedy. But they fail to see that we are not. Republicans tend to donate far more time and money to charities than do their Democrat counterparts. We do not enjoy seeing homeless people. But we seek to aid them through WORK. Through JOBS. There are many in the community who feel we should help these poor souls, and so they do. But they do not do it through the government! They do it by forming an organization, a charity, and seeking donations from people to help take care of the needy... to help them get back on their feet. These organizations are running on tight budgets usually and are generally far more efficient in providing services than the government could ever be. It is organizations like these that should be promoted through the government. Re-write the tax code for special deductions for charitable contributions to charities who help the poor and needy (hell lets just give a special credit for people who make these kind of charitable contributions... or maybe even a credit for volunteering say 50 hours a year at a charity!). This should be the role of government in helping the needy - encouraging the citizenry to be active in charities I saw a poll that asked a simple question that was to the tune of "If you spouse (or parents or something, i dont remember) is sick, do you feel like it is your responsibility to take care of them?" Republicans responded with somewhere around 60-75% saying Yes, it was their responsibility. Less than 50% of Democrats took the same view. Now if that is not reflective of the differences in who should take care of who... then i don't know what is. We keep giving up our liberties, our freedoms, to the government. We continually risk becoming a nanny state and losing self-responsibility for ourselves and for others. It is not patriotic to pay taxes to have the government take care of people. It is PATRIOTIC for ALL OF US to help those people back on their feet through active volunteering yourself, or through donating to a charity who can do the job. It is OUR patriotic duty to stay vigilant against large overbearing governments that weigh down upon its general citizenry And yes, you could certainly place what has happened over the last 8 years in the Security State (a form of the police state) within this category, as well as Iraq. IT IS ALL OF OUR PATRIOTIC DUTIES TO DO WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND THAT IS NOT LETTING THE GOVERNMENT DICTATE HOW WE SHOULD LIVE OUR LIVES OR SPEND OUR MONEY. What is best, in my opinion, is for you and your country is to maintain a free and prosperous state... not a debt laden state where no one takes responsibilities for their own actions. ::edit:: haha wow, i didn't realize i typed so much. Anywho i'm sure its probably a bit muddled since i didn't proofread it and its essentially just a stream of thought. I apologize for the aggressive stance i have taken, it's not that i have any great disdain for the welfare programs, or the good intentions behind them. its just that i don't feel they are the best route our nation can take to helping those people.

How are you defining common sense? I'm defining it by people wanting an actually balanced state budget that doesn't tax us to hell compared to other states. How are you defining it? I'll admit, ive meet a lot of smart people from the LA area, and i've meet many smart people from the SF area... however given their voting record i am still quite leery of them. Oh and just to argue semantics, most "common" sense isn't very common... what you refer to as common sense is obviously different than how i define it.

Of course there are plenty. They just don't make up the majorities.

California is an entirely messed up state. This year they have INCREASED their spending despite an expected falloff in tax revenue. As a result of the gridlock in the California legislature (due to poor districting the democrat/republican lines run extremely deeply), Not that it would normally matter, but budgets have to be determined by like 67% vote. As a result, the governator is now furloughing state workers... which will only server to worsen the economy rather than trimming ineffective or non-vital government programs... it is equivalent to, i believe, a 6% pay cut. Never mind the fact that it took a California Judge to rule that the CONTRACT between the state workers union could be breached in order to do this. California has amongst the highest tax rates in the Union as it is (it is not the highest however, i do believe some of the states back east are higher). It also irks many of California's conservative in-land cities (and i mean conservative in the classical sense of the word) that they have to pay all these taxes to subsidize LA and the Bay Area, and in the end they get almost nothing in return for their taxes... except pollution from the San Francisco area and Sacramento. Oh and paying for those LA types to actually have water and electricity (There is really no reason the city exists, they have poor natural resources around the area without the California Canal system). Yep, California should have addressed its debt problem long ago by reducing spending until levels were manageable, however gridlock for the past umpteen years have prevented any such thing... California Republicans, believe it or not, are actually quite conservative and they are steadfast to oppose any raise in taxes which keeps this state in an eternal state of debt, and of course state democrats are not willing to kill any programs, but only add new ones... making the situation worse and worse. Basically California is your classic example of 1) how single party rule (i don't care if its republican or democrat) is bad over VERY long periods of time. 2) How constant partisanship can lead to worsening problems. and 3) What other states should not aspire to. Not all Californians are so critical of the "hick" states since there are large swaths of California itself who they also refer to as "hicks"... Even from some of the larger inland cities... hell in certain parts of the state there are basically just as many trucks as there are cars. Now the Federal government is going to be taking YOUR tax dollars to bail out an inept state that couldn't balance its own books. If California represents the future of this nation, i will be quite sad. And just for the hell of it, SoCalCTS... you do realize that Democrats are far more likely in ANY income range to have more debts and have a higher % of their wages go to home mortgage payments than Republicans of the SAME income range right? I associate a lot of conspicuous spending with liberals, not conservatives who, on average, tend to be a bit more... well... conservative with their income. Not to mention that Republicans tend to volunteer more often, as well as contribute more money to charities than Democrats to (i have no idea if this is related to conservatives vs liberals, all i know is the #s off of a... pew poll i believe it was... research into this topic). Actually let me rephrase that... ECONOMICALLY CONSERVATIVE types, tend to be better with their money... and there are a lot of people who consider themselves to be "liberal" or "moderate" socially who are still economically conservative (a socially liberal, economically conservative type is known as a Libertarian)... and economic conservatism is really what is important to spur investment by the private sector (and thus create jobs).

Well shucks, you know, pure water is bad for you too.

HFCS is dirt to cheap to make instead of sugar. Likely there would be a reduction in corn prices as more and more farm operations shift from growing corn (an get rid of the damn corn subsidies for ethanol) to sugar would help alleviate prices. However, in the absence of mercury, which i would take with a grain of salt until other studies come out that are actually peer reviewed, HFCS is merely a cheap sweetener that doesn't really do a very good job.

Yeah Coca Cola in the US is my least favorite by far soda. However mexican coca cola actually tastes pretty awesome. I'm all for real sugar.

Hmm i do believe i wrote a paper about the CNU back in the day... and i determined i liked driving & living in suburbs or rural areas... its not a bad idea though, its just not my cup of tea. and as for CAFE for the rest of the nation... i sure hope ya'll dont like modifying your cars, cause by law ANY MODIFICATION to your car in CA is illegal (not that its enforced very well). i dont know if thats just part of CA traffic law, or if its handled directly by CARB. Oh and as for the rail i was talking about, i meant primarily for commercial use... the mass transit part was just a side effect of the building of the rail... cause uh... we need stuff to help the economy first (not that mass transportation doesn't per se, just that it will yield faster effects if it was primarily for commercial use).

hmmm... instead of messing with this, lets just build up our rail infrastructure and get some semi-trucks off the streets? Or enforce stricter emissions on Ships (although i want to say that there is some post WW2 treaty that disallows this). Building more railway would give people jobs, be cleaner and more efficient, and spur private investing (due to better, cheaper, transportation options). Not to mention it could double for public transportation! Which, of course, would reduce emissions as well. This is not the way to go about reducing emissions, personal autos do not represent the largest contributor to smog (at least not anymore), so we should focus on sectors that will be larger contributors to cleaner air than making automobiles more expensive (especially in hard times!) with diminishing gains as to emissions reduction. What i mean by the diminishing gains is, you reduce your emissions by 1lb/smog or whatever per year for $5 for a car, but that same 1/lb reduction could be achieved on a ship for $1. Eventually, if emissions reduction was actually enacted sensibly, it would get to the point where the marginal cost to reduce emissions by 1 lb/year would eventually be the same throughout all sectors because they were reduced as efficiently as possible.

Look, as long as you turn off the ignition, i dont care how much leaking fuel there is, there will be no ignition spark to set it off unless the electrical system is really hosed... or unlesss it gets to another car.

I do not find how this fits into the sanctions of the law. 1) you are NEVER to touch an injured person if you don't know what your doing UNLESS they are in dire and immediate danger (as in must be rectified before EMTs get there) 2) according to the story it did not seem as though the persons life was in dire danger. 3) the persons actions ended up causing harm (violated statement 1) which caused damages that are NOT protected under good Samaritan laws because statement 1 was not followed thereby making it negligence imo.

You think Obama would do more? What do you want him to do? Nationalize the companies?

Wow, a band-aid for a deep cut. How effective. I would rather have seen an organized bankruptcy.

Those companies would be foolish not to play up some part of this. This is excellent marketing fodder for those companies. Hell if i ran their PR divisions i would make sure something like this was here. If i was Ford, since people seem to think Ford is in a better spot, i might mention something to the same extent too! Complaining about this is like complaining that people are allowed to say negative things about other people. That being said, i as a person hate these new ads from Honda

Sell it off. Focus on core brands. Build those back into powerhouses before you screw around with niche stuff.