We flipped before 2, but I'm not sure if it was an age thing. It may have been at a given weight/height benchmark. Now I'd love to flip him back so he won't criticize my driving.
I know it's wrong, but man, do I hate car seats and am i happy my kids are past them. They make it insanely difficult to take anyone else's kids anywhere unless you have a ridiculously huge car.
2: I heard you. My wife must read the same blogs as Heebie. I want to dump the car seat and move to a booster now that we've hit the legal weight.
Go with 1. Height/weight are what's important; age is just a proxy.
Our kids are both relatively small, so our first flipped at two and our second may not even flip then.
All that said, all the evidence seems to be that rear-facing-as-long-as-possible really is safest. From a pure safety perspective, leaving them rear-facing until their at the rear-facing height/weight max is your best bet.
But it's inconvenient, I agree.
If you embed the kid in a solid block of styrofoam you can just stick 'em in the trunk.
You can get a teddy bear with a mirror for a belly. That sometimes help them amuse themselves. Or reflects the sun right into their eyes. Whichever.
You can get a teddy bear with a mirror for a belly.
Yeah, we've got one of these, which is nice because I can also see from my rearview to her mirror to her.
8: Star Wars was huge in Germany.
I can forward you several very long articles on this topic as I recently had a case on this issue.
Child safety people say: Keep them facing backwards as long as possible.
God, I hate the entire car seat thing. Apparently you're now supposed to keep a kid in a booster seat until they are 80 pounds, which is just absurd. The average kid doesn't break that weight until puberty. Hell, my grandmother only weighs ninety pounds.
You know what I remember fondly from my pre-80lb days? Riding down the interstate unsecured in the bed of a pickup truck.
12.2: My dad always tied us to the truck bed so we couldn't get into the cooler with the beer.
I get nervous when I see people and pets in the back of pick-up trucks, flying down the highway.
But that nervousness long predates being a parent. I've just got mega vehicle safety fear.
12: That and airbags meaning a kid can't ride in the front seat. When Sally hit 100 lbs, suddenly our car became much much bigger and more useful.
The idea is to make parents agonize over this enough, so that they won't ever forget their kids are there.
I do not have access to the full study but I am annoyed by the trumpeting of the "5x" safer claim. Here is what the abstract says:
Children in FFCSs were significantly more likely to be seriously injured than children restrained in RFCSs in all crash types (OR = 1.76, 95% CI 1.40 to 2.20). When considering frontal crashes alone, children in FFCSs were more likely to be seriously injured (OR = 1.23), although this finding was not statistically significant (95% CI 0.95 to 1.59). In side crashes, however, children in FFCSs were much more likely to be injured (OR = 5.53, 95% CI 3.74 to 8.18).
I've never actually ridden in the bed of a truck on the interstate. That would have terrified even my dad. One time, I stopped for a family stranded on the interstate. When I offered them a ride, they hopped in the back of my pick-up (which did have a topper) right away. I'm not sure if they didn't get in the cab because they were afraid I was a serial killer or afraid I might worry they were serial kills or just because of all the fast food wrappers on the floor.
18: So yes, it looks safer backwards, but I'd love to see the actual data.
In side crashes, however, children in FFCSs were much more likely to be injured (OR = 5.53, 95% CI 3.74 to 8.18).
It's weird that there would be a difference in side crashes.
And remember parents, if you don't the newest, latest safest things for your kids it means you don't love them.
Also agree with 1. We actually switched to front-facing shortly before one year, which I don't think was legal in our jurisdiction regardless of the child's size. But the kid was 95th percentile in height and weight, and switching definitely reduced her risk of death from extreme outrage and frustration.
21: I wonder if they controlled for the type of car? I could see a coupe being both less side in a side impact (no central pillar) and more likely to have forward-facing seats (because of the extra reach required to get the kid back there).
"less side in a side impact" s/b "less safe in a side impact"
Apparently you're now supposed to keep a kid in a booster seat until they are 80 pounds
They appear to not be accounting for the fatality rate among eighth-graders who commit suicide out of embarrassment from having to ride in a goddamn booster seat.
British guidelines on front/rear facing seem to be based on weight, not age, which seems sensible. 9kg. is the flipping point.
27 et al,
I don't think anyone is really arguing that age is the most important factor, (although it is illegal to turn your kid around before 12 months.)
The debate is to turn your kid around at 20 lbs (or whatever the legal limit is) or to keep them facing backwards as long as possible, until they outgrow the upper bound on your carseat.
9kg. is the flipping point.
Which is the legal flipping point in the US, too.
Legally, your kid must be both over 1 and over 20 lbs. I feel like those last two comments were incoherent. I'm just saying that focusing on the age is a red herring to the actual debate.
You can put a red herring in a forward facing seat regardless of age.
12
God, I hate the entire car seat thing. Apparently you're now supposed to keep a kid in a booster seat until they are 80 pounds, which is just absurd. The average kid doesn't break that weight until puberty.
IANAParent, but surely that only applies if they are in the front seat, right? Which still might be annoying, to have the kids in back away from your watchful eye and where they're more likely to get motion sick and god knows what else, but at least you don't have to carry a booster seat around with you wherever you go.
IANAParent, but surely that only applies if they are in the front seat, right?
No.
Apparently you're now supposed to keep a kid in a booster seat until they are 80 pounds
My otherwise mild-mannered son revolted at this after 5th grade, when he weighed in at about 65 pounds, and ms bill and I caved. But we kept both kids in rear-facing car seats as infants per the prescribed height/weight/age, and I have the tweaked back to remember it by.
On the one hand, I agree with everyone else that all of this is crazy. (And my wife reads the same blogs as Heebie, so she becomes irate when I so much as suggest that keeping our kids in booster seats until they've lost their virginity might be somewhat excesive, since that apparently means I have no regard for their safety.)
On the other hand, driving around really is pretty much the only statistically pretty damn dangerous thing that we do more or less all the time, and for little kids the rate of automotive serious injuries and deaths dwarfs pretty much all other serious injuries and deaths. So taking precautions to lower that risk, even if that means doing things we're used to doing (which is always the case, if we're changing behavior to reduce risk), doesn't seem like a bad idea.
32: They aren't supposed to be in the front seat until they're 100 pounds. By the time my youngest kids enter junior high school, the law probably won't allow them to ride in cars at all.
I'm pretty sure we should start putting big spaceballs helmets on them in the car, just to be safe, until they are 200 lbs.
35 s.b "doing things we're *not* used to doing".
And all the other errors should be fixed as well.
until they are 200 lbs
Sweet. I can take mine off.
Maybe this is the real explanation of the childhood obesity epidemic -- parents systematically fattening their kids so they're front-seat eligible.
I just sew little fishing weights into all the hems of her clothes.
Like my parents did with their orange tree, to keep the oranges from growing out of easy reach.
If you used magnets instead, you could just stick her to the hood.
45: I should probably use red herrings.
Now that I think of it, I have a vague recollection that they now make steel weights (for the sake of ducks).
I may have that backwards and they stopped people from shooting at ducks with lead to save the fish. Its been years since I did any outdoor animal killing.
21: It's weird that there would be a difference in side crashes.
Yes, since the explanations given are related to frontal crashes: That's because the extreme forces in some frontal crashes can jerk the heads of forward-facing children away from their immature bodies, creating a risk of spinal cord injuries. Rear-facing children are safer because their entire backs absorb the force of the crash.
Also the reporting and the poorly written abstract to the article (anyone have access to the full?) are pissing me off. Everyone picks up on the 5x and the abstract does indeed say, When 1 year olds were analyzed separately, these children were also more likely to be seriously injured when restrained in FFCSs (OR = 5.32, 95% CI 3.43 to 8.24), but that sentence immediately follows the one on side collisions being 5x so it is unclear whether it is applies to just the 1-year olds in the side-crash subset or all one-year olds (I'm going to bet that it is the former).
48: I kill a lot of animals with my car these days since I face backwards when I drive for my safety.
Sometimes I have dreams that I'm trying to drive from the backseat, without a driver's seat in the way. I'm just very, very far away from the controls. I doubt it means anything.
49: I can't get to it: "Most recent three years not available."
51: I've had that dream several times, but there is a driver's seat in the way in my version. It's an unpleasant and panicky sensation, followed by deep confusion about why I was trying to drive in the back seat to begin with.
Idea: build and market a car where the entire back seat faces to the rear.
How about rear facing until age 5:
58: Thanks.
56: I had a Ford Taurus station wagon years ago that had a seat like that which the kids loved.
My dream is either driving from the back seat, but more commonly driving in reverse wildly out-of-control often on mountainous roads. One of the rare unpleasant dreams I have, but very acutely unpleasant when i do have it.
Why is the weight at which the seats top out supposed to be indicative of anything except how much weight the seats can bear?
61: I don't see where anybody said it indicates anything else. It's just that you usually don't get to that top weight before something else intervenes (i.e. complaining, little legs not having enough room).
little legs not having enough room
This has already become an issue with both of my little ones (in both my small Saturn and our Jetta station wagon), and neither one is anywhere close to 80 pounds. I suppose it's no problem for SUVs and minivans.
63: I was thinking more of the rear-facing seat. At least with ours, well before he hit the maximum weight for the rear-facing mode, he started to fuss because he couldn't extend his legs.
I think, for safety's sake, everyone in the car should be rear facing. Including the driver.
In our experience, the real shift in car comfort comes when the little critter starts to talk, and you can actually have little conversations as you drive. It takes the stress of both of you.
In general, I've been moving to a more risk-friendly parenting attidute. Yesterday my almost 5 year old climbed really high in a tall tree, higher than he had ever been in that tree, a fact that he was quite proud of. He had his weight between two branches, one of which was quite thin. He then started entertaining himself by breaking other small branches near him. Every time I heard a branch snap, I looked over in panic.
Still I had to let him stay up there. I mean, if an almost five year old can't climb way high up in trees, what is the world coming too?
I never realized the car seat rules were so overbearing. I have no memories of riding in a car seat. Feeling a little more sympathy for people who buy giant minivans since it must seem like those are the only cars that can hold two giant car seats.
51, 53, 60: Wow, I've had that dream too. I had no idea it was a common dream. In most of my vesions of it, I am trying to drive a bus or an absurdly long Cadillac.
Good lord, where is teofilo with the link.
Jimmy Pongo has it covered in 54. This is a robust blog, with enough redundancy that we don't need every commenter to be on alert at all times. Just like a good ecosystem, there's some overlapping functions.
I missed that. I'm going to go extinct, aren't I.
23 was us too. We turned the kid around as soon as he hit the minimum weight for front-facing because otherwise he fussed way the hell too much. Maybe eight or ten months? We'll no doubt go to hell for that, but the kid is fine.
No no. You're way too domesticated to go extinct. I myself will probably plant six or seven eggplant plants this summer, just for me.
Thank goodness. I'll take a life of domestic servitude. I hear Avocado's doing well for itself.
My version of the dream is that the steering column is weirdly disconnected. It's a higher stress version of the one where I'm trying to shoot baskets, but the instant the ball leaves my hand it veers off. Fortunately, I have awesome dunking powers.
No time to read the whole thread, but 72 was what I did too -- turn around at about 11 months. Definitely the reduction in fuss (avoiding a crash) was way safer than whatever crash-protective benefits were present in rear-facing. It made a huge difference in everyone's quality of life.
When I was 8, I was doing things like riding in the back of a pickup. Goddamn nanny state.
Back to the OPP, we found these things very helpful for the sun issue. (I don't think we have that brand, but we have basically the same product.)
The only driving stress dream I remember involved the steering wheel coming off and my (then not yet) ex insisting that I take just a minute to focus on some trivial thing she wanted to talk about, while I tried to get her to grab the reserve steering wheel (the one that pops out on the passenger side if the main one falls off). There is no symbolic content to this dream whatsoever, so don't even bother, OK?
I never did do this, but I'd heard that if you take the strike anywhere matches and put a bunch of them in an apple (fire-end out) and pitched it from the back of a moving pick-up, it was a very satisfying visual scene. It would also make your mom, NHTSA, Smokey the Bear, and whoever was behind you cry.
Moby, just the thought of that makes my heart race. Does your state not go up in flames for eight months a year?
79: Not that I've noticed. Long ago, in another state, my brother and I once started a hay field on fire without knowing about it until later and without adult knowing about it at all.
I think I read somewhere that starting fires doesn't mean you are going to become a serial killer unless you also either wet the bed or enjoy cruelty to animals. So we were fine.
81: No. We set-off bottle rockets and then went inside. A friend of ours came to the door about a half hour later all excited because he'd had to stomp out the fire. It didn't get much bigger than a couple of square yards.
82: Well, it is still an open question, isn't it?
I have never been to my brother's basement.
84: Should no man be called a serial killer while he lives?
Of course, planting eggplants is suspicious enough. They aren't edible in any but the technical sense. Is it just to cover-up digging undertaken for other reasons?
Back to the OPP, we found these things very helpful for the sun issue. (I don't think we have that brand, but we have basically the same product.)
On ours, the suction cups will not stay fixed. I just went and bought a clingy tinted roll of something similar, though.
Does your state not go up in flames for eight months a year?
No fire season at all down here, a little because of all the rain and humidity, but mostly because we had the good sense to build our state entirely out of asbestos.
Which is good, because of all of the cheerfully lit smokes tossed from moving cars.
Indeed. If there was anything remotely like a burn season down here, the entire southeast would have been reduced to a pile of ash decades ago.
Who would want to live in a place that isn't constantly beset by forest fires, mudslides and earthquakes? It just doesn't make sense.
I myself was more responsible. I only threw light cigarettes out of the car if I was driving through Chapel Hill. I figured they had better insurance.
91: Climate change: the General Sherman of the 21st century.
All men should be called serial killers while they live. If they die without having killed serially, the history books will sort it out.
95: Moves a lot more slowly, though.
94 was mean, Moby. Although it made me laugh aloud.
Over the course of his career, Sherman injured waaaaaay more red people than white ones.
100: This surprises me. Spent more time in combat with Native Americans than with Confederates, sure (that is, I don't know, but sounds reasonable. Somehow I associate Sheridan with Native Americans rather than Sherman, but I don't actually remember much solid), but were casualty numbers really high enough to add up to the kind of casualties in the Civil War, even over a longer time?
I've had the dream in 51, 53, 60 and 68 as well.
101: I don't know numbers, but this doesn't sound good.
102: Me too. I wonder what was the pre-automobile equivalent, if any.
103: Yeah, I've been googling since I posted 100 -- I'm mostly quibbling about "waaaaaaay more", when "lots" is clearly true. I can't find a lot of hard casualty numbers for the Indian Wars -- it just seems implausible that they were anywhere near as efficient at killing people as the Civil War.
Also, the Welsh look suits you.
104: Suddenly you realize the reins are just tied to the dashboard, not to the horses?
Also, the Welsh look suits you.
Sort of a Welsh/Flemish cross.
I'm walking, but I appear not to be in control of my shoes. Aagh!
I don't think Sherman was in charge of the Civil War in the same way he was in charge of the Indian Wars, but my historical knowledge here is a little shaky. Maybe the ari batsignal should be lit up. Anyhow, as I understand it, the March to the Sea was far more destructive to property than people.
Pounding with rock, but rock not in hand!
109: The March to the Sea wasn't terribly bloody, but there was a whole lot more combat he was involved in during the Civil War. Not that I know casualty counts broken down by general.
But I guess I wasn't allowing for "Commanding General of the Army" making all casualties during his tenure his problem, while just being one of many generals in the Civil War lessens his personal responsibility.
The real question is how many individuals did Sherman personally eat?
Man, it's depressing rooting for anyone in the 19th C. I have Sherman mentally filed as one of the good guys, and of course that doesn't work in any context other than the actual Civil War. (Not that wanting to root for Sherman was why I was quibbling. I was mostly just stuck on thinking that the Indian wars didn't have the sort of giant meatgrinder battles the Civil War had.)
I have Sherman mentally filed as one of the good guys, and of course that doesn't work in any context other than the actual Civil War.
This is baffling to me, since I think if him as one of the original architects of modern "total war", war against civilian populations as a political tactic, and a host of other atrocities. But you're a Yankee, I guess.
That link in 103 is a neo-confederate attack on a pro-union, pro-Sherman piece written by Victor Hanson. It's got all of my heuristics crossed up -- I glanced at it and thought "yeah, of course, VDH is a moron who is wrong about everything . . . Wait a minute, war of aggression against the southern people what?"
it's depressing rooting for anyone in the 19th C.
Honestly, it's hard to root for the American military at any point in history, except during brief interludes where we became the good guys only by virtue of the overwhelming nastiness of the other side (see also: Stalin during WWII).
115: I would not be surprised to learn that many (even most) of the people who criticize Sherman for his Indian war shootings are really white southerners who are mostly pissed that he burnt Atlanta or something. The number of people who care about the Civil War simply staggers the number of people who care about anything else from the 19th Century.
My best friend is a descendant of Sherman, and his cousin is actually named William Tecumseh Sherman F--, which is kind of awkward to have on your driver's license if you get pulled over in the South.
Not written by Hanson, but the rest of 117 is correct.
119 was pnwed by 117. Which doesn't bother me this time as I thought the piece in 103 was really strange also, but I wasn't confident enough of my history to call it neo-confederate.
115: Coates.
(McMegan, alas, is still a jackass.)
Yeah, I almost didn't link to it for that very reason, but honestly I just didn't want to waste time finding another link.
120:
"Do you know how fast you were going, son?"
"Not half as fast as my great-great-granddaddy went through this shithole."
And 121 is wrong because I misread 117. Pay me no mind, please.
Also, is "Brock Llaanders" related to "Btock"? If so, a bit early in the day, isn't it?
But you're a Yankee, I guess.
Ayup.
I knew I could count on you, Moby.
My best friend is a descendant of Sherman, and his cousin is actually named William Tecumseh Sherman F--, which is kind of awkward to have on your driver's license if you get pulled over in the South.
Especially the surname F#*$.
116: My understanding is that the demonization of Sherman's march was in large part done retrospectively as part of the neo-Confederate movement. Sure, shades of "total war" (as if it had never been practiced before), but the real goal was to get quickly to the coast (and then north into South Carolina) which included outstripping the supply chain (so yeah, foraging necessary) and destroying the key infrastructure but not a real scorched earth policy.
A Yankee here as well.
My first ancestor in the U.S. got his farm* for service in the Civil War. A bunch of the Irish got killed, but I think it help many of those who got through.
* no mule.
IMO, Sherman is a progenitor of "total war" only if by that phrase you mean "property destruction and massive freeing of slaves.". I think attempts to link him to total warfare in the WWII sense are basically a neoconfederate canard -- and in any case "total war" usually refers to a country's internal organization, not its actions in foreign theaters. But Sherman very clearly didn't think that mass killings of southern civilians was necessary.
And I'm perfectly fine with the US army in the revolutionary, civil, and two world wars. Even in more questionable situations, on a comparative basis to other world armies the US army looks pretty good.
I doubt that Sherman was worse than his contemporaries vis a vis the Indians, but I don't really know enough to back up that point.
Especially the surname F#*$.
Like this guy.
132: My understanding as well. Also, for those who haven't read all the archives, my father on the subject.
I'm aware that a lot of the demonizing of Sherman is neo-confederate b.s., but I do think the defenses of him are pretty weak. I've read enough to convince me he was no angel. He was on the right side, I guess, so that counts for something.
included outstripping the supply chain (so yeah, foraging necessary)
And simultaneously destroying the confederate supply chain, which was civilians' stuff.
138: I love that story and have passed it on several times.
141.1 seems to imply that somebody whose job involves wholesale destruction and slaughter is by definition not an angel, which definition does not seem well supported by the old testament.
He was on the right side, I guess, so that counts for something.
In war "on the right side" is pretty much everything.
141: You're aware that war is often hard on civilian populations?
143: Excellent point! Turns out that Sherman was positively angelic!
141.1 seems to imply that somebody whose job involves wholesale destruction and slaughter is by definition not an angel, which definition does not seem well supported by the old testament.
No, being an angel requires engaging in no more wholesale destruction and slaughter than the interests of justice strictly require. Angels in the old testament were good at getting this exactly right; Sherman was not.
I do think the defenses of him are pretty weak
Especially during the Indian Wars, where he essentially ordered the extermination of any Indians that wouldn't allow themselves to be rounded up and shipped to a reservation.
perfectly fine with the US army in the revolutionary, civil, and two world wars
I'm not fine with the firebombing of civilian populations or the instant destruction of entire cities with nukes, but I understand that people disagree about that.
144: So, we'd say Sherman was on the "right side" against the South, but the "wrong side" against the Indians.
Is there some formula we should use to calculate his moral worth?
The first step is converting everything to mouse orgasms.
149: The formula would probably have to involve calculus. I can never remember how to do that.
No, being an angel requires engaging in no more wholesale destruction and slaughter than the interests of justice strictly require. Angels in the old testament were good at getting this exactly right; Sherman was not.
The children that lived in Sodom were really very naughty!
On the boring original subject, our rear-facing seat seems to top out at 22 lbs, which I guess pretty much nullifies the issue. (J. is pretty shrimpy, so I bet she'll be well over 1 before she weighs 22 pounds, too.) Hmm, of course we could get a convertible variety with a higher weight capacity when it's time to switch, and go on using it in rear-facing mode. Dang.
No, being an angel requires engaging in no more wholesale destruction and slaughter than the interests of justice strictly require.
Then again, the rise of the neo-Confederate movement suggests that perhaps Sherman's total war wasn't total enough.
Just wrap the kid in at least five layers of bubble wrap until she's 25. Reduces injury in car crashes AND prevents STDs!
Best yet, adopt a 20-year-old with his or her own apartment.
I'm not gonna defend Sherman during the Indian Wars, because I don't know enough to do so. I do think that 141 and 147 are fairly ridiculously narrow constructions of what it means to be "at war," and particularly silly as applied to Sherman, whose strategy involved enabling his army to move quickly and to cut off the confederate supply chain.
I think the issues raised in 148 are tough calls. My short answer is: firebombing of Tokyo and many German cities probably OK, Dresden no, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no, at least not without a more serious run at obtaining peaceful (but unconditional) surrender first. But I view those all as tough questions and find it hard to contemplate the mentality of actually commanding an army through a real world war.
155: OK, McConnell, last chance: get with the program or we go all Sir Arthur Harris on your ass.
My dismissive tone in "he was on the right side, I guess, so that counts for something" was intended to suggest that he shouldn't get much credit for it--at a first approxmiation, I'd say each mouse orgasm should be divided by four. He just happened to be fighting for the side that was morally in the right. It's not as if it were a moral imperative for him.
The children that lived in Sodom were really very naughty!
147: What's the basis for saying that Sherman engaged in more "wholesale destruction and slaughter" than was necessary? I'm not aware of a major civilian death toll (in the Civil War) to be laid at his feet, and this:
And simultaneously destroying the confederate supply chain, which was civilians' stuff.
seems really weak. If it's stuff that's going to be used to support an army, destroying it is legitimate (and, to the extent that it brings a quicker end to the war, possibly merciful).
What's the basis for saying that Sherman engaged in more "wholesale destruction and slaughter" than was necessary?
I don't want to rehash conversations we've had before--suffice to say that you and I have sharply differing views on the necessity of the civil war.
163: Right, I'd forgotten. But that's any Civil War general, then, not anything peculiar to Sherman.
163 really kicks things up a notch.
Also, by 1863-1864-1865 (the relevant years if we're talking about Sherman) the war was not only "necessary" but very much underway. It was a good idea to win it.
The tactic of increasing cavalry mobility by expropriating the property of civilians ("living off the land") was pioneered by the CSA
O RLY?
165: any Union general, you mean.
Sherman's major innovation in this regard was a technique for twisting the rails so they couldn't be repaired
And, simultaneously inventing the roller coaster.
169: Because the Southern generals were mostly sticking daisies in Union rifle barrels?
169: If there was a moral obligation not to fight the Civil War, because the underlying issues weren't worth it, wouldn't it apply to both sides? If I put my head on one side and squint, I can get to a pacifist-esque position that says that there are no justified wars. But I can't see any position other than a pro-secession one that makes the Union unjustified and the South justified.
I can't agree with that. I really like eggplant, and eat it all sorts of ways. Roasted with a pesto-ish topping is particularly good.
Or what NPH said, more succinctly.
172: I don't agree with either component, but I can see such a position: National sovereignty is inviolable by other sovereigns and U.S. States are sovereign entities.
149:So, we'd say Sherman was on the "right side" against the South, but the "wrong side" against the Indians.
This formulation inspires me to rethink the "War of Northern Aggression" just a little. Not enough to join any revisionists or fly Stars & Bars, but maybe to just step back a little into objectivity from the comfortable position of identification with the "liberators"..
That is to consider the competition between economic visions of competing imperialists a major factor in the Civil War. And the withdrawal of the Gov't from reconstruction in the mid-70s to be more explicable because the conditions of Southern Negroes had never been more than a minor issue for the North compared to control of the resources and development of the West.
Maybe there never were any "good guys" including the tall bearded one. Just another hostile takeover for America Inc.
I thought the last time we had this argument, both Brock and I were advocating a pacifist position. Brock may not have been as specific about it, but I know that's where I was coming from. I've said before that I recognize the Civil War and WWII are hard case for my viewpoint and that I will probably never have the historical knowledge to justify my belief here.
That said, I don't know how anyone could endorse the behavior of any army in WWI, or even the existence of that war. I think of that one as the easy case.
If there was a moral obligation not to fight the Civil War, because the underlying issues weren't worth it, wouldn't it apply to both sides?
That doesn't make any sense--try making the same statement but subbing in "Iraq War", or "Vietnam War".
177: Maybe, just possibly, people kind of suck. And yet here we are.
Could you spell out explicitly what makes it not make sense to you (that is, the obvious difference between the moral obligations of the North and the South in terms of not fighting), and how that applies to, say, the Vietnam war?
. . . And Brock really does go for the full-throated War o Northern Aggression belief.
Unfogged: More pro-Confederacy than I would have thought.
Both world wars were atrocityfests on all sides.
158: Dresden no,
Turns out even this one is a bit more complicated than I was led to believe growing up. Goebbels got the ball rolling at the time, then *David Irving* reinforced it in his 1963 book The Destruction of Dresden which Kurt Vonnegut relied on for the "facts" in Slaughterhouse Five beyond what he witnessed himself. Not that it was not very, very bad, but does not necessarily stand out compared to Hamburg etc. in terms of deaths and lack of strategic importance.
I'm coming to believe that one should always oppose war because (1) it's extremely difficult to sort out the merits of any contemplated war from the cheap seats; (2) many people will always find reasons to support war, which adds excitement to their drab, wretched lives; and therefore (3) while the consistent pacifist will occasionally be wrong, that won't prevent the occasional "good war" from being waged, and it may occasionally head off a dumb war.
186: The downside is that a consistently pacifist position may be respected in the abstract, but isn't going to convince many people. If you want to convince people not to support a particular war, you need reasons why that specific war is a bad idea.
In 1860, Sherman was professor of engineering at the predecessor of LSU. Legend has that he was annoyed at a tenure decision and then...
That said, I don't know how anyone could endorse the behavior of any army in WWI, or even the existence of that war. I think of that one as the easy case.
What do you mean by "the behavior of any army"? And if you really want to argue it, I'll probably be willing to defend the existence of the war, too. (IMO responsibility for the war lies pretty heavily on the German side, and if they hadn't gotten the particular war they ended up with, they would have gotten another one, later and even more deadly.)
After the long course of my life in history, I no longer find any personal comfort at all in opposing war.
189 and 190 are awesome.
There's a big difference between "should this war happen at all" and "now that it's happening, should we fight and win it."
192: Cheering for blood in the streets, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have lost its charms.
187: Agreed. 186 is more about evaluating which side one takes than how one defends that side.
191:I blame Hungary.
Look to the East for the causes of WWI. Austria-Hungary could no longer be maintained, and Russia, Italy, the Ottomans, even Poland were looking at the fall of A-H as an opportunity.
Given the Eastern War, France also had an opportunity.
Everybody had alliances. God only knows why GB jumped in.
196: In much the same way that the Prussian victory in 1870 didn't prevent WWI, it's not clear to me that a German victory on the Marne would have actually prevented a later and even more catastrophic war.
194:I simply said I find no personal comfort in any level of pacifism. Arthritis has ended my self back-patting.
It is kinda the difference between complaining about the daily weather (war) and trying to affect long-term climate (socialism).
Oops! Analogy. I ban myself.
I've gone back and forth for years on whether I agree with thoughts like 196 concerning WWI.
My current view: it would almost certainly have been worth quickly appeasing Austria and throwing Serbia and Russia under the bus, to gamble for a few more years of peace during which Germany could get less crazy. A quick German victory in 1914 might not have been too bad. After 1915 or so, however, it really was worth digging in and fighting for the allies, because Germany was getting worse in a war climate and a German victory really would have created a dangerous, tyrannical power that needed to be resisted by the democracies.
a German victory really would have created a dangerous, tyrannical power that needed to be resisted by the democracies.
Well that was certainly a bullet dodged.
We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then.
201 -- Well, yeah, but that was really a question of losing the peace. It doesn't really answer the question "would we have been better off if the allies had been beaten in 1915."
I guess you could say that WWI created a Germany deluded enough to invade Russia, and a Russian strong enough to not only supplement the weather, but go all the way to the Elbe.
I think I'd probably read a new and well done bio of Nelson Miles.
For nearly 20 years, I went by Phil Sheridan's statue nearly every day. I'm as pro-Union as anyone you're likely to meet, but most days I would glare at him a moment, and recall his contribution to the rhetoric of 'total war' -- "nits make lice."
And apparently I was doing him wrong nearly every day. I'm not sorry -- his sentiments weren't any different, even if he never said those words.
Sheridan ally did say "If I owned Texas and Hell, I'd rent Texas and live in hell" which, you know.
Sheridan really did say "If I owned Texas and Hell, I'd rent Texas and live in hell" which, you know.
War: What is it good for?
[Sir John Keegan, mainly.]
Could you spell out explicitly what makes it not make sense to you (that is, the obvious difference between the moral obligations of the North and the South in terms of not fighting), and how that applies to, say, the Vietnam war?
I don't have time to rehash all this now--we really did cover it about as well as we're likely to be able to before, IIRC. But we should remember to talk about it again at some point, on a slow day.
My short answer is basically self-determinism. The North believed its right to keep the nation together was more important than the South's right to continue slavery, and decided to enforce that belief with warfare. The same can't be said of the South--if it had been allowed to secede peacefully, it would have. (There would have been inevitable clashes at some point--likely imminently--over territories in the West, but that's different.)
it's not clear to me that a German victory on the Marne would have actually prevented a later and even more catastrophic war.
Being a counterfactual, it's inherently unknowable. I'm just saying it's not obvious that it would have been worse if Germany had swept to Paris in 1914/15. Particularly when you consider the possibility that Czarist Russia might have collapsed a little less catastrophically and the Ottoman empire might not have been partitioned in such an unstable fashion.
Also might have been better for portions of francophone Africa to have been administered by Germany rather than France prior to independence.
So, I see from the last comment that somehow the Civil War is being refought (I have not caught up with the thread), but I really, really want to tell my story that relates back to like, 77, so I'm going to do it anyway.
I too have the dreams about having to drive from the backseat, and one about having to operate the pedals with my hands (with obvious problems). But this one:
The only driving stress dream I remember involved the steering wheel coming off
reminds me of something that actually did happen to me. As a new driver, I was driving my mother's car, a manual transmission. I stalled as I attempted to take off at a stoplight, a fact that went unnoticed by the person behind me. They hit me from behind as I was in the act of turning the key to restart the car, with the result that the key broke off in my hand. I had this complete and utter moment of panic as I tried to figure out how the fuck I was supposed to proceed. (Turned out there was enough of a nubbin on the broken off key that I could turn it and restart the car, so totally anti-climatic.) But the immediate and complete moment of confusion was priceless.
It just occured to me that I no longer have the driving-from-the-backseat dream, presumably because I barely ever drive anymore. It has not to this point been replaced by a biking-while-astride-the-rear-wheel dream.
166.3 No, "living off the land" was stanndard procedure for all of the years before canning. But the Sherman bow tie was great--a combination of long prybars and building a fire out of the railroad ties. The bending action and the heat ruined the rails so they could not be laid straight again.
211: I don't disagree with anything written here (other than that my reading of the facts is "obtuse"). Again, we went through all this at length before. Fort Sumter is in the south. It's not as if the Confederates marched on Baltimore, nor is there reason to believe they would have.
I've had the driving-from-the-backseat dream many times. As a kid, I had a recurring nightmare that whichever adult who was in the car driving fell out and I had to drive -- but not from the back seat. I had that dream basically all my life until I got my drivers license.
I dreamed that I was driving from the backseat in my underwear and I was late to school for the final exam in the course I'd forgotten I signed up for.
"Nits make lice" is most commonly associated with Chivington, on the eve of Sand Creek, rather than Sheridan, isn't it? And I think that Knecht is mostly right above, but Lincoln was intent, in the run-up to Sumter, on forcing the South either to capitulate or to fire the first shot of the war. Which is to say, by spring 1861 Lincoln wasn't really trying to avoid a fight so much as to make sure that one started on the terms of his choosing: with the Confederacy appearing belligerent, leaving the Union free to court the border states and the states of the upper South.
As a kid, the uncontrollable cars in my dreams would also eventually shrink until they could fit under others' wheels.
215's invocation of Baltimore is somewhat ironic, given that Confederates did in fact kill a bunch of Union men there in one of the first skirmishes of the war.
That's where the famous case Ex parte Merryman got its start.
Why am I doing this? I couldn't really say.
220: you are referring to this? If so, the choice of Baltimore wasn't ironic--it was made for that very reason. If you're referring to something else, I'm not remembering it.
I wasn't attempting to attribute greater bellicosity to the North in 209. The parenthetical in 209.last was a nod in that direction, and to be more clear: I think those inevitable clashes over territories in the West would very likely have been imminent and very likely at the provocation of the South. Better?
I've had the driving-from-the-backseat dream many times.
Me too! Also one where I am driving but cannot see.
Brock, how can you be so right in 35.2, and so wrong on the Civil War?
When you asked how I could have thought for a moment that you were serious in the abusive-priests thread the other day, this kind of comment is why. Even sorta-kinda defending the South's version of the Civil War is far enough from my worldview that it shakes my confidence in someones's reality-based perspective.
Eh, but I should respect the fact that you've said repeatedly in this thread that you don't want to rehash earlier discussions. Mea culpa.
I thought it was pretty clear the Civil War was the fault of gypsies?
Roma, Sifu, Roma. Don't you know anything?
Did I say gypsies? I meant lobsterbacks.
232: The Civil War was started by teh Tomato.
Even sorta-kinda defending the South's version of the Civil War
I really don't think I'm doing that--what I'm doing is refusing to endorse the North's version of the Civil War. It's been thrown around here (and elsewhere) as an example--alongside WWII--of a "necessary" war, and I just don't believe that's the case. I'll grant there were some good outcomes, but a hell of a lot of people died.
236: It was a completely unnecessary war. The South should not have started it.
229: No worries. My suggestion in the first instance was that Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot -- again, with an eye on the border states and the states of the upper South, neither of which had yet seceded -- not that Lincoln or very many other people in the North wanted or pushed for war. Which is to say, I was making an interstitial point, not arguing anything of great consequence.
but a hell of a lot of people died.
Well, sure. War is awful. Which is why I'm one of those tiresome pacifist types.
But (and I totally shouldn't be saying this on a night when I am exhausted and still have to do my local taxes) -- I don't understand the distinction you're making between not endorsing the North's version, and yet also not endorsing the South's. In my layperson Yankee experience, the major points of dispute are:
1. Slavery would have ended without a war
2. The South had legitimate grievances that were worth going to war over
Is there a non-Northern position on these issues that doesn't end up defending the traitors Confederates?
I totally shouldn't be saying this on a night when I am exhausted and still have to do my local taxes
I finished mine about a half hour ago.
I don't think you need to choose between "traitors" and "Confederates", Witt.
I was being snarky, Sifu.
I finished mine about a half hour ago.
Show-off.
Snarky, yet literally true. A rare treat.
In my layperson Yankee experience, the major points of dispute are:
1. Slavery would have ended without a war
2. The South had legitimate grievances that were worth going to war over
That's indeed very Yankee framing, but if it makes you feel better I can answer unequivocally:
1. No, at least not any time in the short run. By now? Who knows.
2. No.
I'm still trying to summon the will to do my federal taxes tonight rather than extending and maybe getting them done this weekend. State taxes aren't due until the 20th, and there's no reason to rush when the governor has already decreed that refunds will be delayed until the next fiscal year starts in July.
I have had my Pittsburgh income taxes come back with an error 4 our of seven years I've filed one. My federal, 1 out of a very, very many.
244: So what about the Confederacy is it that you're defending?
224: I'm confused now. Wasn't your point that the Confederacy wasn't really so belligerent as all that? That it wasn't like Southerners were invading Baltimore or anything? Because the Baltimore riots suggest that the city was actually teeming with Confederate sympathizers, rebels who were willing to kill at the slightest provocation. But maybe I misunderstood your point above.
the city was actually teeming with Confederate sympathizers, rebels who were willing to kill at the slightest provocation
True, and yet, I don't think* you'd have seen an unprovoked march on Baltimore by a Confederate army. Was my point.
*Counterfactual history is alwys full of uncertainties, of course.
250: 3% off the top (no deductions).
Plus a tip if your street needs paved.
The tip is less if you ask in Pittsburghese, is it , Moby?
You have to pay municipal taxes?
Yes, and the sole reason I have not done them yet is irritability. My state and federal taxes were done weeks ago, but I bristle at the fact that I not only have to pay a 4% wage tax, I have to file a second set of forms for my home municipality so that they can take back 1% (or something) from the municipality where I work. The whole thing is racist* and annoying and totally typical of the the uber-parochial state. And I say that as someone who was born and raised and loves it here.
*It is probably impossible to fully grasp the visceral level of Philadelphia-hatred that the suburbs can express without sitting through a number of local public meetings.
OP: We purchased the Britax Marathon, which can be both forward and backward-facing up to 65 pounds. So we're going to have these for a while.
On the downside, they're pricey (~200) and YOOOGE. Like, buy a bigger car (okay, bigger than a Hyundai Accent) huge.
Witt, the rest of the states hates Philly just as bad your own suburbs.
If I understand you correctly, you pay most of the local tax in Philly because you work there even though you live in a suburb? Because Pittsburgh would be nearly not quite broke if we could get anything more than $52/year and a parking tax from people who only work in the city.
256:
'rest of the states' s/b 'rest of the state'.
Just to be clearly, I don't think there is any specific complain about Philly. I can't help but notice PA is not a friendly state.
OP: We purchased the Britax Marathon, which can be both forward and backward-facing up to 65 pounds. So we're going to have these for a while.
I understood the question in the OP basically to be: when should you turn them around?
I know what would make Moby and Witt feel better: you guys should go to the supermarket and get a six-pack.
260: I was working on that joke, but yours is better as well as quicker.
TURN THE SEAT AROUND
LOVE TODDLER SKULL CRUSHIN'
TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN
I WOULD ENJOY A MUFFIN
256: Right. And yes, believe me, I am very very aware that Berks and Lehigh and so on hate Philadelphia much more than the closer-in suburban counties. But they don't have a lot of residents working in Phila, so they can't display their hatred via wage-tax proxy fights.
I like how the Massachusetts guys are the ones making fun of us. Pot, meet kettle.
And anyway, you are clearly not up on the local news.
258: We have that model also. It seems good enough right through 40 pounds. I don't know about past that.
265: They can still laugh at me. There are a couple of grocery stores that sell beer in the area, but none by me.
Don't make me go to the superarket down the street and buy beer on sunday just to prove a point.
Wait, what am I saying? Go ahead and make me do that.
It's going to be a rude awakening when I have to pay not just federal tax but also state and local, after my income changes from "stipend" to "wages". It's going to mean I end up with less than a 50% raise from my current income D-:
270. If you'd end your sentences with aperiod instead of a colon, maybe you wouldn't get a 'D-' and you could get a better job.
Up to $18 for a glass of wine at Whole Foods? None of the listed wines is worth anything near that. Appalling.
273: All the wine sold in PA is over-priced by 25% or more. Death to the PLCB.
268: "Beer" s/b "tequila".
264: I still can't believe Philly gets to tax its suburbs. We don't even get potholes fixed or streets plowed and we get nothing from all of the suburbanites who get in my way.
But we do still have pretty strict blue laws around here: we can't buy tequila at the grocery store between 2 and 6 am.
I still can't believe Philly gets to tax its suburbs.
And I can't believe you live in this state and have never heard the long, sustained whine coming from the eastern end. Seriously, I don't like the wage tax and I think it does drive jobs away from the city, but from the way people carry on you'd think they have a personal right to enjoy all of the fruits of the city without contributing in return.
I recently discovered that my new favorite liquor store is open Sundays. I didn't think that was even allowed. Now it's my double-favorite liquor store.
I once tried to make myself feel better by thinking that at least I'm buying liquor and wine* from a union worker and support state government. It didn't work. Cheap and convenient drinking is too high in my preference ordering.
*beer is different monopoly.
279 and previous: Wait. Forgive me, but I'm confused. I'm assuming that it's not Philly taxing its suburbs, exactly, but taxing those who work within the borders of the city, i.e. who earn a wage in the city and therefore make regular use of its byways. This drives jobs away from the city? Of course I don't know the figures that are undoubtedly available on this, but ...
oh wait, you have to pay income taxes in both the county (outside the city) and within the city? Double taxes? Ah.
On the other hand. There's an ongoing phenomenon here in Baltimore, for example, whereby people intentionally move out of the city while continuing to commute daily into it, thereby withdrawing their local taxes from the city, and the city suffers financially from this urban flight. (These people not infrequently then complain that streetcleaning is dreadful in the city, say.)
Suffice it to say that this doesn't seem straightforward. I realize that details do matter, however.
A third reread of 279 tells me that Witt and I are roughly in agreement, actually.
And with Moby, too. Sorry, guys, I was just so wowed by this municipal wage tax concept that it took a while to sink in.
I pay taxes to the city of Philadelphia. One last time, anyway.
263 is dead to me. I did not need that song stuck in my head. My sainted mother loves Gloria Estefan to a degree unimagined by other humans. AAAAAAAHHHHH!
Oh man, now I'm hearing the Show Choir version done when I played drums for Show Choir in high school. I really, really loathe you, comment #263.
288: Whaa?!?!?! Dood. You've really never heard of Gloria Estefan?!?!
Here's the song in question, but wow. I'm surprised that you managed to avoid her music.
289: Ha, gotcha. Nah, I've heard of her, heard her name. Can't say I know any songs enough for them to become an earworm.
289: Dude, oldsters like parsimon and me know that song from the Vicki Sue Robinson original. And I don't know that I've ever heard Gloria Estefan. Now beat it, kid.
291: I think of Gloria Estefan as oldster music, is the thing. I guess my mom's hipper than you.
Plus, Stanley, if my sainted mother could lurve Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash and (gulp) Rod Stewart*, your mum can go for Gloria with your full blessing. Just smile and nod!
* Seriously. I was stunned to hear that she'd secured tickets to see him 5 or 10 years ago. Really, mom? Rod ... really?
It'd be an interesting sub-thread to hear what people's parents' favorite music is/was. Outside of Estefan, I can't say for Mom, but for my dad it's probably:
-Three Dog Night
-Traveling Wilburys/Elvis tie
-Green Day*
*No, really. Fucking loves 'em. Bad Religion's a close fourth for Pops.
On the OP. Thanks to Jimmy Pongo (JP solidarity!) I read the study and I am not sure I would change my behavior based just on that piece of work (and also found it available for free here).
I should say that for me it's not really about oldster or youngster music per se: Gloria Estefan is kind of poppy, right? I didn't listen to a lot of pop music, or pop radio, by the late 80s.
What are you talking about? Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, and (early) Rod Stewart are great. 263 made me laugh harder than anything I've seen here in a while.
Brock is nuts (nttawwt) but then I recalled some conversation here in which he argued that the Brits should have let Hitler take Poland, so I guess he's just super committed to very dubious pro-appeasement arguments.
282.2: Wait, I don't know anything about this issue, but I'm pretty sure that the county and city of Philadelphia are coterminous and have the same government, like SF.
297: Oh, my mom and I went to see Johnny together -- 2nd row seats! Early Rod Stewart was okay, but it was a little surprising to discover that my mom knew of and liked him, much less decided to see him. Neil Diamond, no, I just don't get The Jazz Singer.
No worries, it's not like it was Lawrence Welk -- which was my grandmother's favorite. The family took her and my godmother to see him. They had a ball, which was the whole point.
298. I don't know. 256.2 and 264 gave me the vague idea that living in the suburbs meant being in a different county hence different tax area ... or something. But yeah, it's unclear, and there's language in 256 that suggests something different. It's probably not double taxes, though, as I suggested in my initial attempt to get what the situation was.
Huh. I managed to do what all the best authorities recommend and ended up owing a little bit, but not enough to trigger a penalty. Why am I not happy?
Somewhere up thread:
Any commander on either side in the 30 Years War would have called Sherman a total pussy. Context, context.
Everybody had alliances. God only knows why GB jumped in.
It had alliances, you fool.
The first three or four Rod Stewart solo albums are really great. Down-hill pretty rapidly thereafter, though. There's a really good 3-CD Mercury compilation of the early stuff.
The first three or four Rod Stewart solo albums are really great.
But arguably not as good as his earlier stuff with Jeff Beck.
re: 304
Maybe, although I like the folkier/soulier elements and slightly more restrained sound of the early solo albums, and probably slightly prefer it over the more overtly rock sound of the Jeff Beck group. Which is still good, of course.
I'm pretty sure that the county and city of Philadelphia are coterminous
Correct.
To 282, the issue is that everybody who works in Philadelphia pays a wage tax. If you both live *and* work in the city, you pay something like 4.2%. If you just work in the city, and you live outside its boundaries, you pay just under 4%.
There are no county-level taxes that I'm aware of outside the city, but many smaller municipalities (remember that in PA you can have lots of little townships and boroughs in one county) *also* tax the "earned income" of their residents. Therefore, you have to file papers proving that you've already paid your pound of flesh to Philadelphia, and then let your local township fight with the city to take back its 1% or whatever.
The city wage tax causes a lot of very loud "Well, we just won't HAVE our office in the city then," posturing by businesses, some of which is even true. It also causes a jobseeker to do mental gymnastics trying to compare net salaries if you are lucky enough to get offers in both the city and suburbs.
It *also* causes a lot of rather baroque arrangements, such as if you are hired by an entity that has offices on either side of the city line, if you begin work on the city side and are later transferred to the suburban side, and then go back to the city side, the company either pays extra to you to make up the salary difference that you lost by moving back over the line, or if they're big enough, negotiates a deal with the city that their workers who have moved offsite don't have to pay the wage tax if they come back.
Very high salaried people who travel a lot (like lawyers, ahem) often find it worth it to go through the mess of proving which days they worked in the city versus not -- so they might only have to pay the wage tax for 140 working days rather than the whole year, or something.
Anyone who actually knows anything about municipal tax policy is MORE than welcome to jump in, here. I'm off to work.
There are no county-level taxes that I'm aware of outside the city, but many smaller municipalities (remember that in PA you can have lots of little townships and boroughs in one county) *also* tax the "earned income" of their residents.
I don't think I had ever heard of a system like this before. All of our county and local money comes from sales taxes and out of the state's budget. I only file a federal and a state tax return.
306: And Pittsburgh is very much not coterminous with Allegheny County. We're below a quarter of the population of the county. The usual story is that the fight to swallow the city of Allegheny (now Pittsburgh's North Side) was so ugly that we haven't expanded since. That was over 100 years ago, so I'm not sure I buy the story completely. The city is small, geographically, and you can have a very quick commute while living in other city. I live about as far from downtown as you can and still live in the city and I'm only six miles from downtown.
Also, you pay your local taxes* based on where you live. Where you work does not matter. Hence Pittsburgh is in Act 47 Status (we're broke and that state has a commission that has to approve our expenditures). This doesn't bother me hugely (we have a very stupid mayor), except that the commission is only watching to see that we don't go into actual bankruptcy, not that we actually get on sound footing.
* There is a $52/year tax that you pay for working in the city and a small payroll tax (1%) paid by your employer. Except that non-profit employers are exempt from this and all of the big employers are non-profit in the technical sense.
Therefore, you have to file papers proving that you've already paid your pound of flesh to Philadelphia, and then let your local township fight with the city to take back its 1% or whatever.
Yes and I messed-up my first year here. I could not get them to acknowledge that I earned most of my money in Ohio because I checked the 'full year resident' box. I paid hundreds extra because I couldn't get anybody to answer my phone calls or letters trying to fix it. I assumed I'd have to get a lawyer to fix it and I wouldn't have saved enough to pay the lawyer.
But, all I really want is to be able to buy wine and beer at the grocery store and bourbon in vending machines located in elementary school lobbies.
I'm only six miles from downtown.
To MH's point, I am about the same distance from downtown as MH, yet live in an unincorporated township. (And on my usual route to downtown, I do not enter the city limits until I am ~2 miles out.) I also just made the hypothetical transition Witt describes, moving from a suburban to city office (but within the old city limits of the annexed and tragically victimized Allegheny) at my firm. Feel free to judge harshly.
I pay city income tax in New Yyork, but it's handled through the state return. We used to have a commuter tax. (Totes unfair, right? It's not as though NYC is any kind of economic engine for the region.) Unfortunately, about 10 years ago the Democratic speaker of the house, whose district is actually in NYC, agreed to eliminate it, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue for the city. In order to try to help a the Democrats win a single special election for a state senate seat. Which they lost anyway.
Which they lost anyway.
Hey, at least they tried; that's what counts.
Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash, and (early) Rod Stewart are great.
Yes, exactly.
Who the hell do you like, parsimon?
In the UK I pay income tax, national insurance, and a local tax. Both of the former, as a salaried employee, get deducted at source by my employer and I never have to worry about them. The local tax is nominally based on the value (circa 1991) of the property in which you live and is usually paid monthly by direct debit.
The local tax is nominally based on the value (circa 1991) of the property in which you live and is usually paid monthly by direct debit.
We're doing a reassessment because of people in neighborhoods with crashing property values were upset about paying the same property taxes as people in areas with rising values. It wasn't set back as far as 1991, but I don't think they done a complete re-valuation in a very long time. The county executive (as this is a county level tax) managed to defy court orders just long enough that he can run for governor without having dealt with the issue. I'm not sure what will happen out of that.
Whoops I forgot property taxes which come out of the escrow account for my mortgage so I don't really file anything for those either.
re: 315
The council tax is really a local levy. It has a tenuous connection with property values but only because the Tories attempt at introducing a local flat charge went very badly wrong. It's really the bastard offspring of local authority rates [a property tax], and the Poll Tax [aka Community Charge].
In a fairer world it'd be income based, with some sort of punitive element [possibly involving heavy sticks, or something] for people who make their money from capital gains or something other than salaried income.
I'm not paying Philly based on having worked there -- although I might have done so for a few days. As a (former) part owner of a pass-through, I pay taxes in each state where we have an office. Some geniuses allocate the total revenue by state -- I'm not sure exactly how, whether the location of the lawyer who billed the hours, or of the lawyer who sent the bills -- but it doesn't matter what I personally did, I still have to pay taxes in Michigan, Delaware, Massachusetts, California, etc, and I pay Pennsylvania more than everywhere else combined.
As I said on the other thread, I'm very happy that 2009 is the last tax year of this foolishness.
And no, I'm not done yet. I'll be getting extensions today.
And yes, I think it would have been very nice if Pennsylvania had seen fit to treat my daughter as a resident when she went to Temple.
318: You could have put 'Apportioned' on your business card the way interstate haulers have it on their trucks' tags.
If I had a license in Pennsylvania!
(I'm glad I don't owe the City of Pittsburgh anything. Hell, I've never even been to the office there.)
313: Who the hell do you like, parsimon?
Abba.
