ariscus99

Tax cuts must be working, the jobless rate has fallen to 8.9%.

Pretty exciting post season this year. All the underdogs won the first game, but the big boys are coming back. I've been an LA fan all my life, because I have an uncle who's had season tickets since the 80's so I went to lots of games. My pick for the finals is LA Lakers and Chicago Bulls, LA winning in 6 games! Who's everyone else got?

My dr recommended flintstones complete, I take 2 a day, along with a viactive, and a sublingual b-6, folic acid, b-12 from trader joes. They all taste great, are cheap, and easily available.

I will say it's interesting to see where fat accumulates on different people. I've seen people with basically my same body type, height weight, etc. that have absolutely no moobs whatsoever, I've seen some that for some reason look like they weigh 100 pounds more than me but often don't. And the most common with me is that no one thinks I weigh what I do/did. Even at my heaviest people were always about 50-75#'s off what I really weighed. I like to think a lot of that had to do with me being very active usually, playing every sport I could since I was 4 years old, and still being able to get around with little to no problem. But I do definitely get a bit jealous when I see people that are close to the same size or even bigger with no moobs, or very small moobs, mostly because it's always been the #1 thing to have people make fun of. I'm down around 80#'s so far and they've gotten smaller but not as small as I hoped especially since I'm over halfway to my goal weight, I think I wanted them down even more. It has taken the wind out of my sails a bit. Oh well.

My dream classic car would be a 63 or 64 corvette, my dad had both, the 64 was a split window stingray. But I must say, I have a huge soft spot in my heart for mopars like bigdaddy. The first brand new car my paternal grandfather ever bought was a 1956 Plymouth Golden Fury. My dad's first car ever was a 48 Plymouth Coupe Special deluxe, which also happens to be my father-in-laws, first car, but with a fun twist. The father-in-laws plymouth has been in the family since it was brand new, bought by his grandfather and passed down, he and his 3 brothers all shared it, and now he is the owner, and we're about 25% through a complete frame off restoration of it. We got lucky too as his father was a bit of pack rat and has boxes full of brand new parts for the car from the 50's, original spark plugs, belts, a carb rebuild kit, 2 radio's, two of those sweet a/c units you hang from the window and put ice in, along with tons of other things. This car has been a blast to work on, it's kind of bogged down, since my wife and I moved to so cal, but every trip north we work on it. My only beef with Mopar, is no fault of the cars themselves, it's just that they are so dang expensive, I'd love to buy an old cuda, challenger, or charger, but just the shells of those cars have gotten so expensive it's crazy, and to try and find an original Hemi? Forget about it.

First of all, should I take the time to go back through all of your posts and critique the grammar of all of them(I don't have to go far, take a look at the bolded part of your last post, what is that supposed to say?)? No, that would be ridiculous, I'm not writing a paper for a class here I'm posting while doing other things so sometimes it may not be 100%, guess what, no one cares. I try not to go anywhere near the huffpost, I don't have an ATV, and if you've read through my post history as you claim you have you would see that I have indeed posted in many other area's on this board. You've been a member for 2 months, I've been here over 3 years, I've posted, PMed, and even become personal friends with multiple people on this site. You only show your ignorance to claim otherwise. Sarah Palin has a BS in Communications Journalism with a minor in Poli-Sci. And Michelle Bachmann has a bachelors degree as well as a Masters of Law along with a JD. Definitely sounds like some community college girls who did nothing right? You don't seem to comprehend much, as I've stated ad nauseam that I have no affiliation with GOP or republicans, and as I've stated before I've watched about 12 Glen Beck episodes dating back to when he was on HLN. You'd know that had you actually read my post's though. So if he has gone somewhere, you're obviously more aware of it than I am. As for your message about past and present tense. If your comprehension skills were up to par you would see that I was pointing out in the bolded part that you were attempting to hammer me for assuming to know your political affiliation's, and how you assumed I got mad about it, then you turn and start making all kinds of assumptions about what I think real Americans are etc. It wasn't to say that you can't then tell me what you are, it was merely pointing out your hypocrisy.

Here is that article I was talking about Birinak: Talks about how the House of Saudi has been protected and allowed to do what they please because of their power in the form oil, and about what will likely happen if the house of Saudi falls. For full disclosure, the author does make a pitch at a gold company that he is an investor of.

I'm only going to address this part for now because it made me laugh a lot reading through it. The bolded part is especially funny when you read the rest of this paragraph. I never mentioned my affiliation, and I never got offended and didn't really overreact. But, if we read the rest of this paragraph, we see your overreaction. I never mentioned rednecks, working mothers, or NASCAR(which I also hate btw), but you tear off on some tangent about it all. IMO what makes a person more of an American than someone else has nothing to do with what generation they are(I'm only 2nd gen American), I think a person who gets their citizenship today can be much more of an American than someone who's family came over on the mayflower. It has to do with beliefs. It has to do with upholding and promoting the American dream and forwarding the American experiment. So yeah I'd say someone is less American if they don't believe and try to uphold the founding father's beliefs, than a person who does do that. I don't care much about political viewpoints if you read my post's there are a number of things that I'm on both sides of the aisle about, I don't affiliate with any one political party and think the retarded two party system we have is one of the biggest problems facing our nation. I also never brought up religion, I don't feel religion has any part in what makes a person more American than anyone else. I know devout atheists who want nothing more than to live word for by the constitution, some of the most libertarian people I know are atheist. I know it's 1930 anymore and many mothers aren't stay at home moms, nor do they need to be, I'm not a dr.laura fan. My mom has throughout my life and even today worked on average 50+ hours a week, and that number only climbed after my dad died, and she was promoted to VP of the bank she's at, now it's closer to 70 hours a week, and most weekends. Guns would be a whole other argument, but feel free to not own any, it means I can own more, and if the SEHTF, I'll be able to hunt for food and protect my family, and you'll need to find a different means of which to survive. No big deal, and no sweat off my brow. I will say though, on the topic of gun control, I own many firearms and definitely do fear that the government might decide to take them someday, especially since I live in CA, of the more than 40 I own about 6 are registered(most were purchased by my father before you had to register firearms), and those six will be reported stolen the day any such legislation passes. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, I think it's funny you say that about them, on the psychological level definitely shows a bit of jealousy towards their physical appearance, and you can rebut that all you want, but pretty much anyone would agree. They are both educated women, who believe they are doing what is best for their country, and if it helps their pocket book thats fine too, no different than anyone else. I always think it's funny how so many women out there belittle these two, and most other women on the right, like because they are conservative they must be less of a women and therefore not worthy of the women's rights movement. You objectify them, but probably get mad when people talk about how ugly Pelosi or Hilary are. You've come out as quite the hypocrite here already, and in just a couple of post's.

You're absolutely right that America needs to become energy independent. However where I disagree with you, is how we do that. Of course we need to be investing in new methods of energy, but for right now, very few are effective, and most are very expensive for what we get out of it. I live very near a wind farm in So Cal. They take up miles of area, are unsightly, and only don't even create enough power to supply all of Palm Springs, which is not a large city, in addition, they cause several dozen, up about 150 fires a year, that get billed to the power company and then passed on to the residents every year, fighting those fires is not cheap easy or safe. IMO we need to be drilling more at home, we have many reserves that can and IMO should be tapped, ANWR, the east side of the rockies we just learned contains what may be one of the largest oil reserves in the world. We also are allowing foreign countries to drill in our waters to take oil back to their countries, instead of using it for us. Additionally a little known fact is that we are one of the top 10 largest exporters of oil in the world, lets keep that at home. Lets get nuclear power going, it's clean and it's much safer than any other type of power we have right now. People can talk about Chernobyl, 3 mile island, even Japan recently, however all of those combined, haven't taken the lives in the same amount of time that coal has, even oil has taken many lives, we have the ability to make much safer reactors than what have failed in the past. As for Saudi Arabia, I just read a very interesting article about how the west won't allow the House of Saudi to fall, because of what would happen to our way of life. So they basically get a pass because we don't want to see $300 a barrel oil. I think it's outrageous, but it seems there is nothing going to change any time soon. If we were independent of foreign oil, maybe we could do something about it. Trump wants to do something about, according to him he'd like to see a regime change there and again, we take our oil to pay us back, so there is no skyrocket in the price of oil.

<br><br>You obviously don't pay much attention, to compare anyone from the US to an uneducated tribe like person from north Africa is so out there it doesn't even really deserve a response, but I'll humor you. It's funny thats the thing democrats/liberals always bring up, why do they vote for people who aren't helping them. Here's the simple answer; real Americans, who believe in the American way of life, as was dreamt by the founding fathers, don't want more help from the Government. The government over reaches on an astounding level already. Many Americans realize that suffering is part of life, that not everything will always be great, and that you have to persevere through the hard times to get to the better, on their own, not by taking the handouts of the government, but by hard work and sacrifice. I realize this is a hard concept for those on the left to grasp, but it really is what many want. <div><br></div><div>It isn't different with any politician, it hasn't been different with obama, it won't be different with whomever we get next, unless we get lucky enough to get someone who isn't a career politician. Which is one of the reason's Trump is appealing to many people. He's no nonsense, he wants to close tax loopholes he wants to invest in domestic oil, and thinks, as I said before, that we should be repaid by many of the middle eastern nations we've helped and invest billions of dollar's in, by them giving us oil. He wants to stop the Chinese from playing the games with their monetary system that they do which messes with the rest of the world and makes it cheaper to send jobs there than elsewhere. He wants to bring back jobs to the US, by making it more expensive to do business overseas, and by lowering what is, the HIGHEST corporate tax rate in the world, making it more appealing to do work here, couple that with removing the tax loopholes many businesses use to get out of paying taxes and we should have revenues never seen before. Those are some reason's I like him, but I need to learn more before I'd consider voting for him. It was nice of you to show you liberal elitism by assuming anyone who watches Beck or Oreilly, or listens to Rush, must be uneducated and takes everything at face value. Even though they tell people multiple times throughout their show's NOT to take anything at face value and to do their own homework. But if your not a democrat your too dumb to actually do that I'm sure.</div>

Your asking people to do due diligence, which you wont get from most people here, or anywhere else. Assumptions always have and always will, be made about people based on what is seen. And again, I stand by what I said, what we see(mostly because of the media bias), is the violence and radicalism of the middle east and north Africa. Many(not all!) of the people of those regions are uneducated, and quite literally don't know what is best for them(not that we do either), they cheer and praise each new dictator thinking it will be different and better this time, and it never is. America is responsible for much of what happens, as we help put many of these people in power, ignorantly thinking the same as the natives, that it will be different, but it never is. Look at the history of those helped into power by the US and what has happened with them; Hitler, Bin Laden, Hussien, etc. etc. And Libya is no different right now, we're helping the rebels(Muslim brotherhood, the most extreme of the muslims) push out a known dictator, Qaddaffi, but who will replace him? Another crazy Islamic extremist? Probably, and he will more than likely turn on us once things improve, as history has proven time and again. However to say that people don't do the same with America is equally ignorant, you may not, but a vast majority does. I don't know what anybody said about nuking the middle east, but I wouldn't have said it, and I would have had I seen it, said something against it. I am however not against the idea of the taking some of what we've protected. Much the was Donald Trump has said he would like to do. Spoils of war. We have invested billions, if not trillions into many nations in the middle east and receive nothing in return for our money and the lives of men and women. I would advocate for taking the sum of the what we've invested in them in oil back to us. It's like we're paying twice for much of this, because if it weren't for us, and the money we've invested, they wouldn't be able to sell the oil they do, back to us. It's all very silly IMO. The stories of your family are of course both sad and yet inspirational, however, very unknown to much of the world, which unfortunately diminishes them to many.

Unfortunately North Africa and the Middle East have done little in modern history to make people think differently than what LB has said. While I certainly believe there are many more good then bad people, and smart more than dumb in the area. However, as with other area's of the world, the smart common sense people all are more often than not the one's who are quiet and go about their lives with stirring the pot, leading many to believe the fringe loons are the majority.

I'm 100% for a flat tax for everyone, all businesses included. No deductions, no loopholes, flat tax, then everyone pays their share. On a side note I find it interesting that the person who criticized me for starting a thread about the texas house passing a bill has nothing to say about this not being the place to post stuff. Maybe that person was a dem who didn't wanna hear bad things.

I don't have any of those, and this area has been the home to many a debate about multiple topics, hence the debate, in the name of the sub forum. Also I know a lot of people who post here are from texas so this would be a natural topic for many of them to discuss.

I think this makes sense and from what I understand it's already in use in a few places. The democrats are arguing that it's an attack on the poor and minorities, but I did a little search on the net and found Mexico, said the bill "just makes common sense" and that electoral shenanigans are real in the South Texas district he represents. "Americans expect it. Americans want it," he said. "They want to believe their voting system is at least as safe as renting a movie at Blockbuster." Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said the bill would undermine the civil rights that minorities gained after years of voter suppression. "People are willing to turn back the clock ... just so they can win close elections," Veasey said. "If you don't have these forms of identification, your vote is going to be thrown in the garbage." The legislation, as currently drafted, would require voters to present a valid form of state or federally issued photo identification. A driver's license, personal ID card, military ID, passport or concealed handgun permit would be accepted. Voters who don't have an ID could get one for free from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Voters who could prove they had been victims of identify fraud could would be exempt from the new rules.

Rants and Raves, Off Topic Debate Area? Where should it be?

Sad stuff going on over there, my oldest sister lives in Okinawa in the Marine housing there, she and her husband and son are doing fine, but they're really shook up about it. We're from northern California, so earthquakes aren't really anything we're used too(I've gotten used to them living in southern California the last 5 years though), she said it felt like it lasted forever.Soup kitchens able to feed and care for thousands of people. There is a story about Brookings Oregon getting hit pretty hard, sweeping many commercial fishing boats out to sea, and sinking dozen's of others, one person is known dead, and 5 were swept out to sea, all were rescued and all but 1 have been released from the hospital. That hits home with me as well, my family owns a house on the beach in the next town north Gold Beach Oregon, which is only about 25 minutes north on the 101, and we spend a lot of time there. My mom hasn't heard if the house is okay or not yet she's going to drive up tonight when she gets off work to check on everything.

What a bunch of great people over there in Japan. 3 days in and still no reports of looting, price gouging, all the typical bs that happens here. Just images of them all standing in line waiting patiently and peacefully for there supplies. Big THUMBS UP to the Japanese for their resilience through these tough times, we could learn A LOT from them.

Thanks! My younger brother did three years in Minot ND in the USAF, he didn't love it to say the least. But I would much rather have a good pounding of snow over a 8.9 magnitude quake any day of the week as well!

Contrary to what some people who frequent this section of LBT will have you believe, I agree wall street is destructive, especially with this oil situation that is going on, oil futures are outrageous, and while I'm in favor of minimal government(which again contrary to what certain posters say doesn't mean NO government it means limited to certain areas) there are certain aspects that need oversight, and obviously oil futures, which HUGELY affect the whole country, should be one these aspects. Their greed with oil could single handedly put us back in a recession. Oil directly affects the price of everything, food, clothes, luxury items etc. etc. So IMO this is an area that could use some oversight. Or they could just do what they did in '08 and make the price of trading futures too expensive to be profitable, that was the reason for the oil price crash then. CA may have had "Republican" governor, but only in the sense that he had an R next to his name. For Christ's sake he's married to a Kennedy(technically a Shriver, but it's the same thing). And we are overwhelmed with democrat senators, and they fully back all the EPA mandates that have put a strangle hold on business in this state. As well as like I said before the sky high corporate taxes here. For example, the state just voted in a law that mandated all commercial diesel engine's be fitted with a special filtration system that costs around $20k per vehicle to retrofit, it has already put several trucking companies out of business and many more are struggling and will probably fail before it's all said and done because of this mandate, which now we have learned that the scientist behind it has phony credentials, and the "peer review" process was him and his partner reading each other's studies. And once all this was proved, the state decided they didn't care that the guy wasn't really a scientist, and that the papers weren't peer reviewed, it was still good enough, all the while "middle class" people are losing their jobs and their lively hoods thanks to democrats. Unions in CA have also forced many businesses out. My uncle's pipe fitting company was one of them. His family had owned a pipe fitting company since the 70's and during the 90's decided to allow the employees to unionize. Well your a plumber so you know what prevailing wage is, and having to pay prevailing wage to all these guys left almost 0 profit at the end of the day and my uncle finally shut down the business in 2005 because he was making no money. And the kicker to it all was the union told him if he fired everyone they would sue him, so he just quit taking jobs, and eventually everyone quit and he was able to close down the business without being sued by the union. A family business that had been around for 40 years, forced out of business by unions. That's looking out for middle class America isn't it? I did hear about the fire in PA, very sad, I don't really know the details though, I've ben to my fair share of fires where children have died, and it's the worst thing I've ever experienced. To be perfectly honest I could see a guy with that many kids and a hectic farm waiting for him at home stopping on the side of the road for some quite time though. I guess time will tell, they said on the news the family used a propane heater inside the house sometimes, I've also been to plenty of fire's that started like that. Also my father was from Pottstown PA, and I spent a lot of time in my childhood out there so I'm familiar with the landscape. To be honest though, my father grew up on a farm, and my uncle lives somewhere in Lancaster County between two amish farms lol, but I am familiar with the none farm areas of PA as well.

I suppose he could just be a good solid responsible person, and has an emergency fund set aside in case of a situation like this that allows him to live without working for several months. Or he could some AFLAC and be getting money that way. You assume that no one is responsible, but for all you know, this 28 year old could have a good head on his shoulders and is prepared. You know, responsible, and accountable. Just a thought.

Wow, that's almost completely incoherent. But I'll try. When have I ever said anything about not liking bo because he's black? The black card is played by one side, and one side only, the left. No one on the right cares(no one credible anyways, there are always loons out there) that he is black, hell, he's as much white as he is black. Your generalizations show your bias, as I don't hate everything the dems have to say, though I don't agree with much of it. And the topic of this thread is about the economy doing better, so I don't know what that whole last paragraph you wrote is about. As for California being broke. It has much more to do with us having the largest illegal immigrant population of any state, and all the democrats in this state giving everything to them for free, than it has to do with fire and police, who work very hard for the money they make. And by the way, my department is the 4th lowest paid department in the state, and that is only because when the SPB looked at it, they included the extra day a week we work that no other department in the state works, and they added a day of voluntary overtime, just to meet what other's make on straight time alone, and we're still 4TH LOWEST overall. What do you think firefighters should make? I think we are paid decently, considering I never know if I'll ever get to see my wife and family again every day I go to work. I lay my life on the line for complete strangers every day, to me, that's worth a good salary. And I rarely here people complain about our salaries. Our benefits and retirement? That's another question altogether. And another reason CA is going broke. They can't afford to pay our inflated pensions that the unions decided we need. So I guess the real answer as to why CA is broke is a combination of unions, illegals, and high corporate tax rates that have chased billions of dollars in tax revenue out of the state. Also fwiw I only post on my computer after 5p.m. or on my days off.

I didn't report anything. However you may notice many of the threads you post in in the off topic section get closed, often because when people don't buy into your view of how you believe the world should work you get angry and start calling people names and claiming they aren't as intelligent as you are. It's a very typical liberal mindset, people who don't see your way just plain aren't smart enough to know what's best for them. That's called elitism. And it's an epidemic of the liberal and democrats of this country. Nancy Pelosi is a great example of an elitist who thinks the masses are too dumb to know what's best for them, so she must tell us what is best, even if we don't want it.

IF? You insulted me personally on the the WI thread, and then the mods shut it down. So yeah I'm talking to you. As to the subject of your post's it makes for a much cleaner forum if we all try to stay on topic, so just start a new thread. It's not that hard.

If you must post, stay on topic, and keep the personal insults to yourself so the moderators don't have to close another thread. Thank you.