Hixter

I wasn't impressed with the Magic Hat offerings the first year, but there wasn't much to complain about last year. I'll probably schedule another trip to Vermont to pick up some Heady Topper, Lawson's Finest Liquids and Hill Farmstead offerings.

Thanks for the info; I'm looking forward to the show. I think my friend was at that Ryan Adams concert. Are there any decent beer bars in the area? My only experience in downtown Houston was an Aston Villa football match last summer and we wound up at the Flying Saucer. Looking at the map, I guess it's not too far to walk if there's nothing closer/better.

Any idea of what the seating is like at that venue? I got Section 102, Row B. I guess it sounds like the second row, but is there a standing/GA area in front?

Yes, if you lump in all the "good" social programs like education, unemployment, welfare, Social Security, etc., you'll find that they dwarf defense spending. Our nation spends only about 1/8 of its tax money on defense. It's a large figure dollar-wise, but it's only a fraction of our nation's budget.

It's all tax money that our government collects from the citizens. When discussing what the country spends on something, I expect it to mean the nation as a whole, not only the federal government. I doubt anyone who dislikes large amounts of money being spent on national defense would change their opinion if the source of funding was property or state income taxes. The fact remains that our nation's government spends far more money on social programs, healthcare and education than it does on defense. I was talking about the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and I was correct in say

No, if you go back and look at spending over the last decade or more you'll find that it hasn't changed that much, we still spend about 2/3 of our budget on health care and social programs and about 1/6 of it on the military. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to cost the nation $4 trillion for their 13+ years. Do the division and you'll see that we spent more on welfare every year than we did on warfare. I was too old for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I have at least a dozen friends who served in both places and none of them regret their service, nor were any of them

No, we spend more on all of those things than we do on the military.

We don't spend as much on defense as you think we do: I was neither poor nor tricked, but I can honestly say that enlisting in the military was the best life decision I ever made. Probably 50% of my friends are veterans and I don't think any of them would say that they were tricked into joining. They enjoyed their service, they are proud of their service and they benefited from their service.

Spends more than what?

Looks like there's a hostage situation in Sydney, Australia. Many hostages, 2 gunmen and an ISIS banner hanging in the window. Hopefully the authorities can end it without any hostages injured.

Obtaining reliable intelligence from inside secretive regimes is very, very difficult, and it's not easy distinguishing between legitimate sources of intel and those who have an ulterior motive. Add in the cover-your-ass aspect of working for a government agency that demands that every tidbit be reported, with little chance of substantiation, and you have the makings of a potential disaster. From what I've read, analysts working on bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan were anywhere from 100% to less than 50% certain of his location. It's a tough call for a president to make when the intelligence is

The chairman of the intelligence committee -- the author of the report -- says differently in his op-ed: Some choice wording from that report:

I somewhat agree, but there are a few notable differences between Iraq and Benghazi, the main one being that the president responsible for Iraq has been out of office for 6 years, while the responsibilities for Benghazi fall with the sitting president and the person who is considered a frontrunner for the next presidency. If Obama and Hillary were already out of politics for good, I wouldn't want to see much effort wasted on the Benghazi incident.

No, the invasion of Iraq was predicated by poor intelligence, not a lie. And the same can be said for pretty much every military misjudgment of the last 50 years, from Kennedy's assumption that Cubans would rise up against Castro after the Bay of Pigs invasion, to Bush the First's bombing of a civilian shelter in Iraq, to Clinton's bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, to Obama's errant drone strikes against wedding parties in Pakistan. Amen. It would get very uncomfortable for a lot of politicians who aren't Republicans, too, so it's unlikely to ever happen.

Very much so. I'm not sure that I can think of a single American president in my lifetime who didn't tangentially participate in the deaths of other human beings. A few off the top of my head: Kennedy: Bay of Pigs Johnson: Vietnam Nixon: Cambodia Ford: Mayaguez Carter: Iran hostage rescue Reagan: Libya bombing Bush the First: Panama Clinton: Afghanistan & Sudan Bush the Second: Iraq Obama: drone strikes (against American citizens, even) And then there are the leaders of many of our closest allies ... we may need to build more prisons and gallows.

Yep.

He shot a man in the face, but I can't remember him murdering anyone.

You also failed to mention that Austin has a Democratic congressman, so it's not as if they are only represented by Republicans. And, as you've said, the south is a diverse place and it's not as if there aren't any conservatives in the Austin area. I'm no fan of gerrymandering by either party, so it would be fine if Austinites were to challenge it in court and get their very own Democratic congressman. The original discussion was about the lack of Democrats in the senate and governors' mansions in the south, so there can't be any complaints about gerrymandering in those statewide elections.

Democrats in the south were represented properly and were not excluded from the process, they merely lost the election. All elections have a winner and a loser. It sounds like sour grapes to me, since I don't recall any of the Dem leadership lamenting the plight of the nation's Republicans after President Obama won the election with barely 51% of the vote. Half the country didn't support Obamacare, but the administration rammed it through after having to bribe a couple of its own party members. Let's face it: the Democratic party was dominant in the south for decades, but their words, polic

Nels and the Deerhoof folks have been playing together for more than 15 years. Here are his liner notes for Deerhoof's Apple O' album:

The Democratic party is a little sore over the latest loss at the polls (no more Democrat senators from the deep south, most governors are Republicans) so now there's a "let's just forget about the south" attitude. Doesn't really bother me any.

Does it really matter whether a state derives most of its tax revenue from property taxes or income tax? Or Sales tax, for that matter? Six other states also have no state income tax, yet they all seem to be doing fairly well. Washington state springs to mind. Texas has one of the lowest tax burdens of any state, yet our schools routinely perform better than highly taxed California. People and jobs are flocking to the state, so it's hard to see it as a failed "experiment" at this time.

Nope, California leads the way. (I was one of them.)

An experiment? As far as I know, Texas has never had a state income tax.They must be doing something right, because millions of people are flocking here from other states and the last time I checked the state had a multibillion dollar surplus. (Frack, baby, frack.) As I've said more than once now, I have no problem with paying taxes for schools. I certainly haven't yelled about anything and I've also said more than once that the whole mention of school taxes was a mere aside, an off-the-cuff remark in a post about involuntary annexations. Our district is one of the best in the state and

Because it's the truth, first of all, and also because it would sound ridiculous if I were to say they were making out like bandits if I had children who were utilizing the services and facilities that my tax dollars were paying for. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that someone can gripe about the cost of something without being accused of being anti-that-thing. If someone here were to lament the size of their federal tax bill, my first response wouldn't be to say, "So you want to take away Social Security so that the elderly and disabled starve and freeze to death?" They're using my tax