JayB

rental properties have lots of costs they take on, and pass on to you, but you don't have to spend your time on addressing them either (maintenance, meeting fire codes, etc.) Time translates to money as well. if you want to reap the benefits of these tax deductions, buy. if not, quit whining about it. until you have run your own household, and seen what it takes (a hell of a lot more cost and work than renting), you'll never know. I definitely sympathize with and applaud the efforts of anyone trying to keep his or her family housed and fed these days, but that's true whether they own their shelter or rent it.

Because we only believe in free markets when we want to? Also known as "the only subsidies I don't like are the ones I can't get" Pointing out the absurdity of a situation where homeowners enjoy subsidies and renters do not isn't the same as arguing for subsidies for renters. Neither renting nor owning should be subsidized in any fashion IMO. I'd favor a wholesale shift away from annual on taxes on property to taxes on either profits realized by the occupants of the land (corporations/famers/car-dealerships, etc) or income (individuals), coupled with taxes on the capital gains realized on the sale of property that are consistent other asset classes. For one thing, this would keep old people from being taxed out of their homes.

"Of course, no landlord would include the costs of their mortgage and property taxes in the rent they charge. They just eat that cost." Hey - someone stole my reply. It's also conceivable that the difference between the value of the interest-subsidy exceeds the value of property taxes in the majority of the cases, in which case you still have a net subsidy for homeowners relative to renters, even if you don't factor the payment of property taxes through rent into the equation.

I like Bug, but disagree with the majority of the statements included in the post, starting with the following: "Their views on things mountainous and/or spiritual are quite different from our western way of percieving our world. Science is a great thing but to set it in opposition to religion or spirituality is as ignorant as setting religion or spirituality in oposition to science." If religion makes statements that are demonstrably false, attempts to influence anything that falls outside the proper bounds of its authority on the basis of such claims, etc - then science and religion are in direct conflict and pretending otherwise seems immeasurably more foolish to me. If your Church doctrine states that the world is 6000 years old, or that your ancestors materialized out of the mud in the midst of the lands that your tribe currently occupies, or that HIV is caused by demonic possession - then the moment that your religion/spirituality/whatever enters the realm of public debate, or attempts to influence public policy, then at that point it's claims enjoy no special exemption from analysis or scrutiny, and any state of affairs in which they do enjoy such exemptions is one that any reasonable person - religious or not - should dread.

Any reason why homeowners with children should be more heavily subsidized than renters with children?

This is an interesting idea, certainly the size home one owns has an impact just as the size and efficiency of one's car. Neither of these choices, however, has anywhere near the environmental impact as having children. If the US was serious about limiting environmental impact we would eliminate tax breaks for having children, or better yet implement tax penalties for having children. Another heartless right-winger attacking welfare. Shameful.

I've been constantly amazed that large homes haven't come under the same level of enviro-scrutiny that large cars have, and it will be interesting to see what kind of response this proposed legislation gets before its inevitable demise. I am sort of surprised that it's taken Dingell this long to come up with a way to extend the costs of addressing climate change beyond Detroit. I'd like to see the end of the mortgage interest deduction anyway, seeing as it can't be defended on economic or social grounds, as well as the elimination of the capital gains exemptions on profits from the sale of homes - but that's another topic. "WASHINGTON -- To add to mortgage meltdown miseries, the credit panic, plunging home sales and rising foreclosures, here's a new worry: a proposed cutoff of mortgage-interest tax deductions for all houses larger than 3,000 square feet. One of Capitol Hill's most experienced and powerful legislators is drafting a "carbon tax" bill that would do precisely that. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, expects to introduce comprehensive climate change reform legislation once Congress returns next month. Besides imposing hefty new federal taxes on gasoline, the forthcoming bill will, in Dingell's words, seek to "remove the mortgage-interest deduction on McMansions -- homes over 3,000 square feet." Dingell said he recognized that proposals such as these would be controversial, but that he believed they were essential to reducing carbon emissions by 60% to 80% by the year 2050. "In order to address the issue of climate change, we must address the issue of consumption," Dingell said in talking points prepared for town hall discussions of the legislation. "We do that by making consumption more expensive." Houses, like autos, long have been known to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions through heating, cooling, electrical usage and building materials, plus the highways and roads needed to make far-flung subdivisions accessible to buyers.

Maybe Ted Haggard should move to Idaho run for the Senate seat in order to restore the dignity of the office....

Fight the power.

The combination of the speeds and the quality of the photos is what continually amazes me.

So vis-a-vis Donny Baker - is this life imitating art or the other way around?

Bountiful BC....

"Global Inbreeding Researchers who study inbreeding track consanguineous marriages—those between second cousins or closer. In green countries, at least 20 percent and, in some cases, more than 50 percent of marriages fall into this category. Pink countries report 1 to 10 percent consanguinity; peach-colored countries, less than 1 percent. Data is unavailable for white countries."

Let's get to the incident which prompted this post. Which mixed martial artist touched you inappropriately Dru? XOVS_SYyXe8

Ur. ---->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur Seriously. Ur welcome.

My point is and has been that a disinclination to participate in a particular conversation about a particular topic at a particular time - with anything approaching complete candor isn't necessarily the result of a failure of conviction, education, or upbringing. There are quite a few other reasons why someone might decline to engage in a conversation. There are often times when I conclude that I just don't care that the person addressing me thinks, and/or find that they are too ill informed about the subject at hand or too unintelligent to merit any serious conversation on my part.

If you are having a discussion, then you are abiding by a set of rules and courtesies that isn't entirely consistent with an interaction in which you say what you want "regardless of what the opposing views" are. Discovering that someone takes solace in the notion that their dead child is waiting for him or her in heaven, and then politely but insistently recounting the arguments that call such an outcome into question would be consistent with an obstinate refusal to anyone else's viewpoints into account - but pardon me if I doubt that you were part of a family that valued candor above decency or sensitivity to such a degree, or that any hypothetical family that did so would be a model worthy of praise or emulation. Yes - there are many strategies by which you can have a discussion with people that you disagree with, but in the real world, candor and civility become mutually exclusive at some point - normally when the truth or falsity of someone's most closely held convictions comes into play and the emotional or political stakes are high enough. If someone is a guest at my house and I discover that they are a creationist, the nature of our verbal interactions would be much different than if I found myself on the opposite podium at a school-board meeting while they argued that creationism should be presented in the same manner as evolution in biology class.

Well said! I grew up in a family where discussion over a variety of topics was encouraged - and nourished - regardless of what the opposing views were. Sunday dinner growing up meant dinner, dessert and then evolution, politics and religion. Some of the best trips I've been on include sitting in a tent discussing events; nothing makes you forget about a raging storm like arguing about God and Bush! What exactly do you mean when you say "regardless of what the opposing views were?" The opposing views of whom? Opposing viewpoints held by persons who were not present at the table? Back-and-forth between parents and kids as the kids start to think for themselves is part of the process by which any sensible parent prepares their children to evaluate ideas in a manner that will enable them to function in the world. Children in a family disagreeing with one another, or their parents, or their parents with them is par for the course in just about every family - although I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule. Spouses disagreeing with one another about some particular topic is also commonplace, but in a healthy relationship the boundaries for these discussions have largely been established, and the parameters in which they occur are limited by affection and/or prudence - so I have a hard time believing that the debates between Mom and Dad were quite as freewheeling as you suggest. I have a hard time believing that you were raised in a household in which part of your family's hospitality included subjecting the beliefs of adult guests that were invited to join you at the dinner table to a merciless cross examination, regardless of the topic or the kind of emotional response this would induce in them. Sounds like a typical family, rather than any kind of unique incubator of the Socratic method.

Vermont. Took the tour of the wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever, Inc in Waterbury on the way home. The irony was at least as delicious as the product they manufacture there.

I'd say the shrill-factor depends on the person more than anything else, but most people who hold minority viewpoints have to temper the shrillness quite a bit if they want to avoid compromising their casual social relationships, or workplace relationships by presenting contrary viewpoints every time the opportunity to do so arises. Anyone who doesn't want to retreat into a compound or needlessly alienate people that they might otherwise get along with is going to have to learn how to deal in one way or another, and I think more what you are likely to see is a certain sense of relief in the company of the odd kindred spirit, more than any open hostility in the presence of those who share the sentiments of the majority.

Well for me it's not my own touchiness about my own political views that's at work - it's other people's reactions to them. Having lived and socialized in settings where my opinions on a number of topics are in the minority, and where people hold contrary opinions with a certain zeal, and respond to dissent from them with a certain degree of indignation (which seems to be more common amongst folks who live in an environment where the broad majority shares their views) - discretion is the better part of valor, IMO. I was less inclined to hoist the agnostic flag with folks that I met in Colorado Springs when I was living there, than I would be in the neighborhoods that I spend most of my time in here in Boston, ditto for various economic topics in Boston than in Colorado Springs. If you happen to be a fairly ardent Christian in Colorado Springs, or someone who is convinced that trade in the absence of subsidies and tariffs is mutually detrimental to any parties which choose to engage in it in Boston - then you're much less likely to have to introduce as much discretion into your discussion of these topics. If I want contentious discussions, want to invoke negative responses from those in whatever group I happen to be surrounded by - I have no doubt that I'll have plenty of opportunities to do so at times or places of my choosing, if the setting was appropriate or the stakes were high enough. Someone who espouses Creationism at a dinner party will get a much different response from me than someone arguing for the inclusion of creationism into the local curriculum at a school board meeting.

Do you really think that it's an incapacity to discuss these things, rather than a disinclination to do so in a particular setting? For my part, I'm certainly not worried that I lack the rhetorical tools, the conviction, or the knowledge necessary to debate the guy next to me into the ground if I chose to - that's just not the kind of interaction that I'm looking for when I'm pursuing a hobby in the outdoors - or at the Thanksgiving table, etc. I think another variable that I factor into which topics I'll engage in serious discussion about involves the frequency with which that I am likely to see someone and the nature of our relationship in the future. If I know I'm going to see someone quite a bit, and will establish a relationship that's significant enough to overcome whatever feelings might arise during some kind of ideological or political disagreement, then I'd be more likely to participate that kind of a conversation. If it's someone that I'm only likely to see a couple of times a year at most, or if I have no idea when I'll see them again - then it would be silly to introduce that kind of a challenge into the relationship that has such a slim basis to begin with, and which won't be remedied or rendered insignificant by more regular contact that doesn't involve disagreeing about religion or politics.

I'd say the observation that most climbers align more closely with the Left than the right is reasonably accurate whatever the local politics happen to be, and the reasons for that might make for an interesting thread. As interested as I am in political topics, and as willing as I am to share my views in certain settings, I have little or no interest in engaging in political conversations when I'm out climbing, boating, skiing - any more than I have an interest in debating my in-law's religious viewpoints at the Thanksgiving table. There's a time and a place, and for me - when I'm out to enjoy myself in the outdoors with other people who share my enthusiasm for climbing, hiking, fishing, boating, etc - just isn't it. If it was, I think I'd have missed out on some great trips and times with people who I really like, but with whom I'll never agree with when it comes to religion and or politics. This has involved everyone from un-reformed Marxists to Creationists and everyone in between. It has been kind of interesting for me to be a sort of ideological fly-on the wall on various outings, and listen to the political banter that's passing back and forth amongst folks who are operating under the assumption that everyone in the group is part of the same political Tribe.

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Someone buy the guy a pint for me.