crazyeddie740

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Due to a grammar mistake in one Missouri law, all sex acts were outlawed. Including normal, missionary style, hetrosexual sex between married couples. The law enforcement community basically laughed and said they wouldn't enforce it.

Basically stupid laws happen. Then nobody bothers to change them. (This one they eventually did- they were trying to loosen up the law and it just came out wrong.) It doesn't matter because it never comes up unless you really pissed off a lawyer or a police man.

Criminal cases here in the States go "The People vs So-and-So" so that much is the same. (Of course, you probably know that from the same crime shows I got it from.)

I think if you kill a Fed, that's a federal offense, but if you kill a civilian, that's state. Then again, read the sig. (God, the sig was a good idea, that's the third time in as many days i've said that...) If you kill someone and then run across state lines, that's a federal offense.

If it were done with some progressive tax (the rich pay more) and there wasn't that nasty sales tax, that "get a free house" deal would be a good way to redistribute wealth. The unemployed would sell the house after ten years, they'd get a nice check, you'd get a nice house. There's a charity in the states that does something similar - builds a house with volunteer labor, sells it to the needy with a low- or no- interest loan. Since they now live in a decent neighborhood, they can get a job and pay off the loan.

Of course, giving someone a house just for staying in it for 10 years seems a bit much....

crazyeddie740

Oh, while I have some Englanders on the line:

Somebody saw this one sign in England while on vacation. I've been scratching my head about it ever since:

"No Tipping Off The Tarmac"

WTF does this mean?!!

schatoor

Holy smokes!! And here I taught the taliban were conservative. .... just kidding of course.

bigjohn

Erm, I can only think that it would have been contextural. I.E. If you have something to "tip" from the back of a lorry/truck, then it must be tipped on the tarmac/metalled surface.

If it was in a waste site, or maybe somewhere that aggregates are handled, then, well, don't tip it off of the tarmac.

It could also have been in some road works, and that'd be simply make sure whatever you have to tip, then don't tip it off the edge of the road (or something like that).

Just for the historical note, one of the bitumen (or possibly asphalt) and aggregate/gravel product's first invented for the road building, was developed by a man called MacAdam. First it was known as Tarmacadam, then just "Tarmac" - and since then I understand that it's actually been developed into a tradename/brand, now owned (I believe) by Hanson Plc.

Maybe that help's some (or maybe someone else could refine the explaination further?)

regards

John

Looking_Lost

Going back to the housing thing - in the UK we have a thing called "right to buy" which dates back to the Thatcher years. If you live in a council/local authority house after a certain amount of time, forget exactly how many years, you have the right to buy your house off the local authority at a discount, the size of the discount depending on how long you've lived there. Using that my parents and countless other's managed to by their three bedroom house for the awesome sum of 5000 pounds, about the same as a decent second hand car. Not only that but the councils were barred from investing the money raised from these sales into building new affordable public housing stock, thus wiping out vast swathes of afforable rent housing. Private rent up here now, is unbelieveably expense as is to buy - all things being relative the wages being lower than the south of england up here.

As for work - well I've just finished a 6 month contract and now I am starting working in a fast food joint (I ain't no teenager either I can't afford to sit around and wait till the next low paid contract comes up, might aswell take the first low paid job I can get)- at least, until I get enough money to get me out of this country and try my luck overseas.

crazyeddie740

I think it was the "tipping" off part that was confusing me. It's like the American "dropping off", only not... (two nations seperated by a common language, yada yada yada) So it could mean "Only drop things off on the pavement" or "Don't drop off asphalt". I suppose I can live with that. For a while we were wondering if it meant "No Shoulder". Or possibly "No Littering".

crazyeddie740

On the housing thing, I'm like most Americans. (In case you don't know, both major parties would be classified as Conservative over in Britain and Europe.) Basically, my point of view is that the best thing the government can do for the economy is to get out of the way, with a few exceptions. Of course, I'm not a citizen of your country, so feel free to ignore me as I lecture away.

If the reason that the rent is so high is because of the cost of land and construction is high, that's one thing. If the government is making things worse that's another. That sales tax/value added tax on housing sounds like a bad thing, ought to be replaced by raising taxes in some area that doesn't hurt the economy so bad: like property taxes or a progressive income tax. The historical list is good in the long run, from a purely economic point of view, it's good for the tourism trade. If it really is that much of a bother, maybe the bar for what is historical or not should be raised?

That right-to-buy thing sounds like a good idea- gets those houses back in the market. If the city council *really* wants to keep building houses, I guess they still could, just use funds from some other area. But those funds could probably be better used elsewhere, like, say, lowering the taxes that you say are too high. I know housing for the poor is important, but it might be better handled by a private charity, like that Habitat for Humanity I mentioned in an earlier post. Or the government(s) could go in for quantity over quality, but having seen how that goes, you're probably better off with crumby housing built for profit.

Just my two cents, feel free to ignore.

No shame in working a fast food job. My dad did that once between "real" jobs. Good luck in finding more work!

bigjohn

Oh goody, a soapbox subject.

In it's present form, this is FUD. If it said "inside the M25", then I wouldn't doubt it at all.

Most job's "down here", i.e. outside the M25 (London orbital for those outside the UK), pay (largely) the same as elsewhere in the UK. Yes there are exceptions to this, but that's usually down to supply and demand.

It's often down to corporate management, getting by paying as little as they can get away with. My "erstwhile" employer, pay's nearly 20% higher for those inside the M25, but because down here, there's never been a tradition of "union activity". So whenever my colleagues moan about money, I just love to remind them that it's in their hands, and if they're not prepared to do anything about it, then to shut the f**k up.

Because of media hype, the rest of the country seem to be under the impression that we're all "baron's". well, the fact that the majority of the nation's wealth is resident in the south east, doesn't mean that most of us are part of the "RTB" clique (rich tory bastard's). Most of us i.e. about 95% just happen to have the mis-fortune to have been born here. The other 5% are those who have jumped on the band wagon, and decided that they "NEED" to have access to "the city". All this really mean's is that most of us "down here" enjoy the priviledge of paying between 10 and 50% more for our home's, for pretty much the same kind of money, while still having to pay the inflated cost's associated with living in the South East. Hence, "your" money, probably goes considerably further

Personally, I'd prefer "them" to be publicly flayed for being bloody greedy.

'Nuff said.

</soapbox>

regards

John

p.s. Oh and just for info, it now seems that the only thing that "Londoner's" pay more for, than the rest of "us" in the South East, is property. You go try to see what you'll get for £50 in your local tesco's, it's near enough the same inside the M25 as it is in the rest of the SE

p.p.s. @crazyeddie740 - yes it would be a language thing. You might "drop off" boxes or parcel's but you'd "tip" sand/ballast/aggregates etc + it's common truckers parlance to "tip" the wagon. I do between 3 and 8 "tip's" per night and it certainly isn't sand or ballast (milk). Oh and yes, if the service is good in the restraunt, then i'd still leave a tip!

crazyeddie740

So which ones are the tories again? That's the Conservatives, right? Does that make Labour the whigs?

davholla

Crazy Eddie, yes the tories are the conservatives (it means I think Cattle Thieves in Irish). The Liberal were the whigs but not any more really as they changed so much.

You might think that rigth to buy is fair. However what you must remember is :-
a) Many council house tenants pay very low rents and to then have a discount on top of that is not very fair from the private tenant's point of view who not only pays more but can not buy the house.
b) The discount you get depends on the number of years you have been living there. You still get the discount if the goverment was paying the rent !! Now it is one thing for people who can not afford the rent to get it but then get a discount from the goverment when the goverment paid the rent !

crazyeddie740

I didn't say it was *fair*, I said it was a good idea. If the renters can buy, that means they can sell, and get a kink out of the economy. With housing prices so high, they'll sell the houses and bring the prices down. The entire idea of low-cost housing for the poor is a redistribution of wealth, which is inherently unfair. Charity in general is unfair.

Anyway, the sole reason I know about tories vs whigs: In American history, Tories were the people who fought on the British side during the American Revolution. The Whigs were a political party that was against "King" Andrew Jackson's Democrat Party.

Anyway, what's the current party lineup in Britain these days? There's still just two major parties, right?

davholla

However it is not a good idea that people get a better house from not working. In theory someone who never worked could end with a nicer house than someone who has spent all their life working.

We have 3 or possibly 4 parties Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. If the UKIP (an anti EU party) do well in the European Elections on Thursday we could have 4 parties.
Sadly like the US we do not have PR for elections so we have an unrepresentative party.

crazyeddie740

Damage is already done. They're already living in the good houses, this just lets those houses get back on the market.

PR? Public Relations? Or do you mean Primaries?

davholla

PR = proportional representation ie a system of voting where the more votes you get the more MP/members of congress you get. The same system the US and UK put in Germany but decided that we did not want the same system. Did you know that under the French system Al Gore would have won ? (And possibly George Bush senior might have done so as well). Both the US and UK have a system similar to the one used here 400 years ago when the electorate was a small % of a much smaller population.

Regarding the damage done, I think giving people a house worth eg £160 K for £80K causes even more damage. I have my 15 year old niece living with me and I would like to tell her 'study hard so you can live in a nice house when you are older' but sadly it is not true. I would not be as bad if I could so 'study hard so you can own a nice house when you are older' but even that is not true. BTW I am only talking about London.

Looking_Lost

The Scottish Parliament uses a hybrid form of Proportional Representation as does the Welsh Assembly I think, while as you say when it comes to UK elections it's first past the post.

European Parliament elections tomorrow isn't it? I don't even know what system that uses