MGB: Shakey side, Gary

Gary, Did you feel the shake from Seattle today? If so I hope you weren't 'way up on an extention ladder. We won't hear the end of that here near the New Madrid Fault for a month. Every time there's a big stateside quake our news people carry on about our next REALLY BIG one; the last one was in 1812. People are predicting it daily but some scientests say that because of the type fault it is, it could be another 400 years. Ours is a straight up and down verticle fault with no plate movement involved.

Yes John I did and I was!! I wasn't that far up the ladder (maybe 12') and it shook to the other side of the post I was on, and I just about dropped my paint can. I thought it was kinda weird, but never worried about it, then I listened to the radio and it was pretty serious!! A lot of damage in Seattle!! I was thinking that if it was a 3rd world country, there would be thousands killed!! Jeeze, was I ever glad I wasn't up the Space Needle!! Did you see the footage of the Bill Gates seminar???

I saw the Gates footage. That shook them up more than that $hithead government debacle to sue him just because he's got the geedus. Wasn't that a trumped up crock? Our last shake was about 9 or 10 years ago and everybody was scared $hitless that it precluded the big one. It wasn't even the New Madrid Fault, It was the Ozark Uplift settling. We've got about six faults running North and South all around here, but the only one anybody knows about is the NM crack because our local yocal newspeople keep harping about it about it and the dumbasses don't even know what type of fault it is. I'm about as worried about it as Pete is about that puney penis called Florida falling off into the Atlantic.

You mean America's "wang"

Yeah! and it's full of "wangers". Oh! Except Pete of course.

If Florida is the tiny penis of America, does that make Texasss, the a--------e?? By the way, what does that make George W. Bush??

Texas is the CAJONIES, and George is THE MAN! It will take a while for this to proove out, but I've been waiting for a president, who doesn't think he's everybody's daddy for a while now. A hell of a lot of us have, and a hell of a lot more will realize they have too in a couple of years. His old man didn't take his second election seriously and lost out. If G. W. can accomplish what he wants to the doomsayers are in for a surprize and he's in for an 8 year ride.

You are probaly right! Iwas just jokin' around. He did bomb Iraq.

I'm just waiting for the dems to blame the earthquake on him. Somehow he had to be behind it! If Fla is the wang of the country then what is cal-the hemeriod?

amen, brutha! Bush's first 8 weeks have been a lot more encouraging than the last 8 yrs! He just visited our city (Omaha) yesterday, & got a rousing welcome. What's not to love about a tax cut?!

The only thing with tax cuts is there is always a backside to them, and they are always so small. The first things all governments shhould do is cut down on the beaurocratic BS, and spend more money on healthcare and education! Just my opinion.

It was a doozie. I happened to be sitting in a car in Rainier Valley so I didn't get the full effect. Later I got back to my office downtown and the building was closed so I had no choice but to go home and work on my '77 B :) They inspected the building overnight and have deemed it safe so once again here I sit... My office has a little plaster damage, but nothing serious. It's just a good reminder of how little we really are on the face of the earth. I am thankful that it wasn't worse.

I agree, Gary....I am giving GW the benefit of the doubt; I nver vote by party but by the person. But, 43% of this tax cut goes to the richest 1% of the country...and if you look around, the wealthy ain't exactly hurtin'. And remember when Reagan tried to build the military and cut taxes, he rang up the deficit higher than all the other previous presidents COMBINED. I don't think anyone wants that kind of bad check writing again on the country's account. The govt. is full of waste, full of redtape, full of corporate and agricultural welfare, and that is where the belt tightening needs to come. I'm glad the Arkansas Horn-Dog is gone, but Bush is making me a leetle nervous...

Just my $.02

"Arkansas Horn-Dog"....I love it! Sounds like a "Weimerism" to me.

43% of this tax cut goes to the richest 1%. Is it not fair that the people who pay more taxes get the same break as those who pay next to none? I never could understand what people were talking about when they make that comment. If I pay $28000 a year in taxes a 1% tax cut would save me more than someone who pays only $2000 a year. What's wrong with that?

You'll never see this on national news, but there are people, (call them disadvantaged), who pay no taxes at all that qualify for a refund. Go figure. Fox News is the only TV network where you will always get the complete and straight story. The same coverage from the big three, where most people get most of their information, is so slanted and biased it's hardly recognizable.

1% of $28,000. isn't very much! if it was 10% it would be worth talking about! We go thru this BS in Canada all the time too, but I just wish they would figger out how to cut out the beaurocratic BS and use our tax dollars for something worthwhile. Politicians go to any means to buy votes, but you always pay for it somehow!!

We end up paying for it because it's money they took out of OUR pockets through excessive taxes for their own use. Now that we have someone in office that would like to return some of OUR money a lot of people are confused and the big three tv networks are going to do all they can to keep them confused.

Yeah. As an educator, I don't like this accountability talk. In Oregon, a leader in ed reform, it is projected that over half the ed budget will be spent on documenting and testing by 2010. The effects we have already noted is an increasing dropout rate (which boosts the accountability numbers by high school and provides a greater minimum wage pool of workers to draw on), increasing burn out rate in high quality teachers that would rather quit than put up with the increasing gov't BS and politics, and a decreasing number of people who are stupid enough to get into teaching in the first place.
Have you noticed the gradual but consistent decline in the stock market since GW opened his mouth and spoke to the people?

You've got the straight skinny on the education problems Chris. The stock market went into a slide before Bush started talking, but it moves like someone in a panic all the time anyway. It overreacts to any condition all the time. My stocks all took the plunge about a year ago and I'm just riding out the slump. The economy has been in a tailspin for even longer and the big three media was lying to us faster than a dog can trot. Even last Summer, for every dollar of GNP there were four and a half dollars of mortgage, auto loan, and credit card debt. The economy has been based on personal debt for quite a while, but while nearly everybody was believing the rosy reports on the evening news, some of us were using alternate sources of information and knew the real story. President Bush was the first one to open up and tell it like it is, and nobody liked that, we're not used to the truth.

Gary...your argument would make sense if all Americans were taxed the same way across the board, but that's not the way it works. The reason Dubbya's plan mostly benefits the super rich is because most of it comes in the form of eliminating estate taxes, which benefits the wealthy (in my family, for example, there is no "estate"), and capital gains taxes, which is mostly money that comes from the wealthy playing--gambling excess funds on the market. The relief of actual income tax benefits them too, but it's not much of the total package. Dubbya is being good to eliminate the marriage penalty--that truly does help middle America. But regular Joe-Bobs like me and you really get hit on SS taxes, which isn't being touched. Also, the ultra-wealthy usually have a series of tax sheltering schemes (legal) in other countries, and thus are NOT, as you say, "paying more taxes." Where this REALLY gets ugly is with corporations, who are allowed to move American jobs to Third WOrld nations, pay slave wages, and reap the benefits of thousands of pages of tax code full of swiss-cheese loopholes.

If I'm elected? (Ha ha....WAYYYY too many skeletons in THIS closet) I would propose eliminating all of it in favor of a national sales tax. Those who want to live frugally and invest instead of spend spend, buy buy can also save on their tax bill, at any income level.

Thanks for the good debate guys...it's a pleasure.

Chris...I don't like it either. And I think most people don't realize how teachers get pressured into "teaching to the test," so that kids end up learning how to take and answer the test in a disposable way, but don't learn much in the way of creativity and critical thinking. You might not agree, but I think we have to loosen the chokehold that the Education Schools have on the Education System....bureaucratic accountability doesn't mean a damn thing...

I totally agree! Guess i wasn't clear.

Glad you added that. Thanks