What would give you that idea? He's a politician who's job is to read and enact bills in the Senate, right? For this role, he's given perks and priviledges that very few in our society are able to obtain. Since his tenure in the US Senate, Sen. Obama managed to vote 20 times out of a possible 100 voting opportuntities between 4/28/08 and 10/28/08
130 times as a Senator for Illinois, he chose not to vote 'for' or 'against', but rather to simply declare that he was 'present' for the vote nearly 130 times.
His cabinet is full of DC lifers, he has never championed 'change' either as a state senator, nor as a US Senator; what makes you believe that he is capable of preserving anything?
His resume' is pretty unimpressive - but that really doesn't matter does it? He's the 'messiah'.
Whether it's been for the better or not, I don't know. I want to comment on your last remark, though, "We are all expendable..."
My response? Well duhhhh...
It appears you have bought into the mindset that individuals have no significance in a company, which is relatively sad. Without good people, a company isn't anything more than concrete walls and an asphalt roof. Name any successful company, and that company will proudly point to their early employees. You'll see the founding owners, surrounded by their workers - the boss's proud of their workers, and the workers are proud to be a part of a collective effort. They are the one's who worked to create their product, they are the one's that got the company started. Even Mikey Dell has a listing of 1,000 of his original employees who require his personal approval for them to be fired. That is the only kind thing I can say about that man, is that he recognizes his wealth is due to the work of people - not cogs.
In any start up, or privately held company you will find an attitude of "We need you, no one here knows how to do 'x' as well as you - you are the expert in your field and we will all suffer if you should leave". A company grooms their employees to become vital staff, the experienced mentor the fresh hires. You are treated like you have value, which in turn makes it difficult for one to entertain leaving that job to go elsewhere.
Consider the Hershey Company. The Hershey company built a town for their workers, then started a college and schools so their worker's families could be garranteed an education. People worked their entire life at Hershey, and Hershey prospered. You can go almost anywhere in the world and find Hershey bars. The Hershey company even went so far as to build an amusement park (and college, hospital, library) for their employees to use. Who wouldn't be proud to work at a company that treats their employees like they matter? Today, Hershey is still union free, families still work at the various plants, and attend the Hershey college tuition-free, as well as free admittance into the Hershey Park to ride the rollercoasters and other assorted rides.
That was the attitude that made America great. Attract the best employees you can, pay them an honest wage, and do everything in your power to make them want to stay. If you love your employer, chances are that you'll work harder and stick around. If you hate your employer (like many of these companies fostering) you will do what is required to keep your job, and be looking to leave as soon as you have another employer willing to pay x% more.
I've done the Dollar Dance before. You end up losing, and losing big.
Work for company 'x' for 10 years. Get rewards, bonus's and patents. Leverage to get a 50% raise at company 'y'. But wait, company 'y' expects you to single-handedly pull them out of years worth of poor investments and bad managment decisions. A year later the plant closes. Now you and 5,000 of your fellow workers (all skilled) are competing for limited job opportunties in the area. This translates to a glut of houses on the market at the same time, as you have to move to find work. Sell your home for a loss (what color Lexus do you want me to buy you?)and move somewhere else to try to recover. But wait, this company is underfunded and goes down too. Hmmm, I've almost doubled my income in 3 years, moved 2x and am out several tens of thousands of dollars because I had to pay to buy and sell multiple homes - each one at a loss.
Do this for 10 years, and watch your retirement approach depletion. When you find a stable job, that pays a fair salary - you will give very SERIOUS thought before you consider jumping ship for a job that may pay more in the short term, but may mean you are on the job market involuntarily in a year or two. "Slow and steady wins the race" is a very wise saying. I was unwise in that I chose to ignore it.
Jack Welch, when he took over GE started the whole 10% of your under-achiever hog-wash.
Now, if you have poor achievers in your company, who have been there for decades - as GE had - perhaps a 1 time 'cleansing' is necessary. But, if you are doing your interviewing competently, and are teaching and mentoring your new hires - to continuously 'fire' 10% of the workforce is not only stupid, it's counter productive.
Consider, how long does it take a person to learn his job function and all the nuances that take it from being merely fulfilled, but where he can then magnify it? Given the proper motivation, a below average performer can become a top-performer. If a person knows what's expected, is shown how to do this, and is encouraged - he will either refuse to conform (termination case) or he will improve. I've seen this, I've done this and it works.
Other employees see this, and morale improves. People do not want to leave that group/company. Motorola USED to be like this. When Samsung came into town, they had to offer 20%+ salary bumps to attract Motorola employees to leave. Why? Because the people at Motorola knew that they were 'safe', that they had a career and a future with the company. Then Hector Ruiz came along and killed Motorola, before moving on to AMD and killing them.
I do not subscribe to the 10% cull; because you very quickly come to the point that you are cutting good people, and replacing them with good people who you will fire in a year or so. This creates a hostile work environment (why should I welcome you, help you or agree to work with you - if I'm competing against you to keep my job?), slows projects down (people shift departments constantly, at the slightest rumor of a reduction in headcount in a particular division), and you spend a great deal of your time where 90% of your employees are waiting for 10% of the team to come up to speed with their job requirements.
Show me a company that embraces the 10% cull, and I'll show you a company that is on the way down the tubes. Companies that terminate the poor performers, not due to some obscure quota, but do to performance - tend to retain their employees for the long haul. IBM used to be famous for this, and they rose to world domination. Motorola used to embrace this, and they used to have a world-class semiconductor market, communications division, automotive parts, space, micro-controllers and cell phone groups. The people make a company great - not the managment. Management has never made a company great, but poor managment has certainly killed more than a few.
Once upon a time, a company had loyalty to it's people, and the worker's were expected to have some loyalty to the company. If the company had a rough quarter or a poor year, people pulled together and worked harder. A company USED to do layoffs to avoid going bankrupt. Workers viewed each other as extended family members - it was common for workers to get together at each other's homes on weekends and holidays. Families got to know each other, work was done in a 'team' enviroment; and if you pulled your weight and did your job - you could expect to retire with the company you worked for. 20 years of service was celebrated, opportunties for promotion were biased such that someone who had shown loyalty to the company had first dibs, over someone coming in from the outside.
Today, despite record profits, companies close plants and terminate people - so the few executives can reap huge bonus's. Getting laid off by a plant closing, business downturn, or poor managment decisions punishes employees who were powerless to avoid the mistake - but end up taking full responsibility in that they have to sell their homes, and re-locate to find work elsewhere. With the cost of housing - this means that the 401K money must be robbed today, so they can continue to make mortgage payments while they try to sell their home, and have money to bring to closing when their home sells for less than what they paid for it.
I've been there, I've had my retirment almost depleted because companies transferred jobs to India, a plant closing, terminating a project I was involved with, a company purchased and moved overseas, and a company that failed due to poor managment. Now after 20 years, I finally have solid career.
When did all this change? Why did this change? It certainly hasn't been for the better - for the USA used to lead the world in production, in technology and development. People used to matter, now each of us is just a cog in the company machine. We are all expendable, and will be dropped on a whim. I wonder why.
I'm a bit more blunt than you. I'd ask myself "What makes me believe that Doug will not stab me in the back? He betrays his co-workers, he betrays his staff - why wouldn't he use the same technique to my boss, and take my job? Then, I'd fire Doug.
A smart manager surrounds himself with smart, people he can trust, and who trust him. This is called a 'team', Doug's group is little more than a 'mob'.
Given the lack of perceiveable performance improvements over the past several years, there really isn't a need to upgrade your home PC. Back before the XBox (BX?) the PC was still a considerable factor in gaming. Today, the cost of a single video card almost justifies the cost of an XBox by itself. The internet connectivity on the gaming consoles, the video and audio streaming and the game selection/quality means that the 'need' for a gaming PC ($$$) is reduced, because the XBox or PS3 can do the same or better for less money.
To the best of my knowledge, aside from the MS Flight Simulator X program - is there a 'killer app' that will drive PC sales? The only reason I caveat MS Flight Simulator X as a PC game "Killer App" is because hours spent playing this game can be applied toward actual Flight School (under specific guidelines, planes and conditions).
"If this can save so much money why isn't the health care industry already doing it?"
Who is going to define the format? The medical industry is in this for medical reasons, not software. The medical groups each have whatever format they 'liked' in place. There has been no overwhelming reason for them to create a standardized form, because it has not been in their fiscal interest to do so.
This is not to say that there isn't a good reason - we would all profit by having some 'universal' format that all hospitals and MD's could access. But, why would you, as an independant hospital or clinic develope this? Conversely, there is a flourishing industry of Medical Transcriptionists that make a living by transferring this information into a program like "Medi-soft" for insurance billing. If you create a digital standard for your medical information, then you have to make sure that every clinic and hospital can import/export this new format into their existing billing and insurance software. Too bad the Medical industry doesn't have a IT steering committee like most other technical groups.
Palestine and Israel. Modern day Syria and Jordan are occupying over 70% of 'Palestine'. Yet, the Muslums rain down hatred on the smaller Israel and proclaim how everything is the fault of the Jew. The Palestines rain down rockets and mortors with the intent to inflict massive civilian death, while Israel uses tactical weapons to minimize civilian death. Israel telephones targets, sends out flyers and detonates 'Sound Bombs' to warn civilians that a military target situated in a populated area is about to be hit. Hamas then forces women and children into these buildings, then parades the bodies around when the cameras come by. Heck, they've been caught robbing graveyards of 3 day old children, so they could have a body to parade around. Then they claim the moral high ground. When was the last time a Jewish suicide bomber attacked a school bus, pizzeria, hospital or marketplace?
Muslum insurgency in the Philipines has Muslims killing anyone who opposed being subject to Sharia law. Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
India and Pakistan - the Muslums have been declaring war on the Hindu inhabitants of India for nearly a hundred years. Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
How about the Chechen Rebels in Russia, attacking a high school? Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
How about the Taliban in Afghanistan? Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
So many comments, so many people who have not tried this feature.
When the XBox 360 update came out, I was one of the first to download it. After the download, I saw the Netflix feature and decided to try the free 30 day offer. I opened my account on my PC, selected a host of movies to stream (Heros seasons 1-3, The Office seasons 1-4, Logans Run, Kelly's Heroes, ect.) and finished the setup with my XBox.
There is some buffering done, I don't know how much is buffered whether it's 3 seconds or 10 minutes - don't know. I do know that my cable ISP had my limit set at 4 Mbps, so almost every time I would watch 2 minutes, then be alerted that my cable speed had 'slowed' so the download was changing to support my lower cable speed. Usually, this wasn't really visually obvious (I have a 120" HD 1080p projector) - the picture quality was what one would expect on an over-the-air antenna. Not great, but certainly watchable.
I later upgraded to a 6 Mbps internet package, and the picture improvement did improve. Sometimes I'd say that it was comparable to a DVD, other times more like a good VHS tape. All in all, viewable by any person who doesn't want to whine about non-Blu-Ray quality.
On my screen, the picture was perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't keep Netflix around if it weren't for the streaming video. I get UNLIMITED streaming with the lowest package they offer (~$8/month). The movie selection on streaming is extensive enough that when there isn't anything to watch on my Dish - I keep myself perfectly content watching something from the 10,000 movie selection. The contents do change every couple of months - so there is always a variety of stuff to stream.
Is it better than owning the DVD? yes and no. No, the quality isn't always as good as a DVD. But, yes in that a great deal of what I watch are movies I wouldn't be interested in buying and storing. Some movies are watched simply because they are 'classics' and you need not own them. Like "Logan's Run", "Clockwork Orange", the original "Omega Man" - for me, watching them once every 'x' years is often enough.
I subscribe to the cheapest program they have, I get 1 DVD at a time - which with several Redbox units nearby, is really not that big of a deal.
However, I can que up 50 or so movies from my account that I 'might' want to watch on my XBox. Like, seasons 1-4 of The Office. I watch each episode when I want, no rental, no return, no hassles. The quality was about the same as watching a VHS tape player when I had 4 Mbps internet service, and improved remarkabaly when I upgraded to 6Mbsp cable.
Is it blue ray? Nope. Is it as good as DVD? Depends - some yes, most no. Typically, it's about the same quality as over the air programming - but it's a listing of what I care to watch, when I care to watch it.
If it weren't for this feature, I'd drop Netflix. Streaming movies is so much more convenient than adding movies to my already obscene collection. Some movies you may want to watch 1 or 2x and are not worth buying - this fits this niche perfectly.
It seems the only person calling the MSU policy 'unconstitutional' is you. This us usually a matter determined by the courts, so it appears you are being a bit presumptuous.
Courts have already determined that Universities are responsible for the internet traffic that flows across their networks, whether the University approves, or disapproves of the content. (You may analyze as many RIAA cases as you deem necessary)
When you own a system, granting others use to that system is a courtesy. When you are cautioned that you are abusing a system (maintained, owned and operated by another party) and you insist on continuing to abuse the system; one should expect consequences.
This is akin to grabbing a microphone at the Student Commons and demanding that you be allowed to exercise your 'Free Speech' for as long as you care to talk. This is a case where one person has decided that her personal rights trump the rights of everyone else around her.
If you send out emails to ~300 people, after being told to cease and desist, yet continue to abuse the system, MSU has a choice. Either MSU enforces their policies on each infraction, or abandons control of the email system that they own.
You have the right to talk, but you do not have the right to demand that everyone else listen.
So, if I don't clearly make my stick-figure adult sized, is this kiddie porn?
When a goverment makes laws that can not be enforced, people lose respect for not only the law, but the goverment itself.
This means that any figure, that some judge deems is drawn to represent a person under the age of 21, must be considered juvinile. Therefore, if this drawing is doing something that may be construed as 'adult' in nature, the drawing is now up to the judge's intrepretation as to the age and content of the drawing.
And people are supposed to sagely nod their heads and say "ye wise man, thou knowest my inner-most thoughts and thy punishment is just".
As a note to myself, henceforth all my stick figures will sport mustaches (yes, both male and female stick figures). The beard on the females will indicate that they are post-menopause - just to be safe.
Appeal to your customer. For example, McDonalds has brightly colored tables. The bright colors appeal to children, but are mildly bothersome to adults. Thus, the kids want Mom and Dad to take them to McDonalds to eat. The parents go, but want to leave as soon as possible - result? High rate of table turn-over. Limited seating capacity rarely impacts how many meals they can serve. People are in, eat and are gone in an average of 15 minutes.
Non-smoking section. Sure, you may lose a minority of smoking customers - but you may more than make up for any loss of those customers by attracting MORE non-smoking customers.
High frequency buzzing noise. You drive away young customers with little or no buying power; enabling and actually encouraging older customers who cannot hear the noise the opportunity to shop without being distracted by 'nuisance' customers. More money income means more profits. More profits mean the company grows, people have jobs and the owners can invest in other pursuits. Sure, you may affect more than a the targeted demographic, but the end result is higher profits. And profit is the entire point of this exercise.
I'm in the US. Can't say that I'm aware of this sort of problem in my area; but then again I'm an old geek and probably wouldn't go to the 'pub' in the evening - because it's well past my bed time.
From the property-owner's perspective; one would ask "Why would you install a device that causes younger customers to flee?" Well, if the young customer has little or no disposable income, buys nothing, and prevents an older customer from spending money, then the young customer is an inconvenience to business. Business is the engine that pays for the store/theater/mall/arcade/pub and allows the owners to make a living, hire staff and pay bills. If the younger customer causes damage, and prevents one from making a living - then the younger customer is not an aid to commerce, but a parasite that is feeding off of the efforts of the businessman. Parasites, as a rule, are something that have little or no value.
Thus, as legal recourses in this matter are limited; the logical thing to do is to create an atmosphere that discriminates against the parasite. Polka, waltz, opera and country music may irritate the parasite, but they also detract from the attractiveness of the area for the customer. Thus, the mosquito truly appears to be the best possible solution.
I find it interesting that those with *no* vested interest; want to stand up for the irritant. This makes as much logical sense as my arguing the 'rights' of a sliver of glass to be in embedded in your index finger.
Sell the OS for $19.99. Then build a dozen or so add-ons that users can bolt on to create the task-oriented OS they want: writing, music, video creation, art work, accounting and business, and so on."
This is really KEY in my opinion. At home, I run games, taxes, Quicken, web surf and do email. I'll pay another $20 for CD burning and music creation (or let iTunes do it for me). I'll pay $20 to incrementally boost my PC's capabilities. I don't need, or want everything built into Windows for home use.
At work, I don't need music editing or games - I need OpenGL for Autocad, PSpice, OrCAD and the typical Office suite.
Let me econimically customize my OS for the specific needs I have. Don't charge me $400 for Office so I can write letters at home. I won't pay it. I'll use a copy of Office 97 I have lying around (gift from a previous employer).
While I may not agree with everything the author said, I do think he has many valid points.
As it takes a super majority of Congress to do this - good luck. The founding fathers put it in the Constitution for a reason. We are a Republic not a Democracy. If people knew what a Democracy 'really is' and what it 'really means'; one would not bandy the 'Democracy' term about as it has been used. Let's say that it's not very flattering.
The Electoral College, for it's faults - is a key point in our Gov't and has been for 200 years. I see no reason to abandon it, simply because an Electron did not go the way the majority vote may have gone.
I give you 10,000 ballots and a pen. I challenge you to make a hanging chad, a pregnant chad, or a chad with 1, 2 or 3 corners torn.
Now, despite the FACT that ballots clearly state that a mangled or ballot in which the punch is not clearly made is invalid and will be trashed - one political party DEMANDED that they be counted. Further, in cases where no clear vote was made, one political party DEMANDED that they could 'read the unconscious intention of the voters'. Wow. One political party told the world that not only were Florida voters too stupid to know who to vote for, but they could 'psychically read the intentions of the voter'.
Now, I can make hanging chads, a pregnant chads, or chads with 1, 2 or 3 corners torn. Simply stack them on top of each other, take a punch and a hammer and stike a blow for tyranny.
Funny, there were a lot of these hanging chads, a pregnant chads, or chads with 1, 2 or 3 corners torn for one of the political parties. I'll give you a little hint. It wasn't the winner.
treason Pronunciation Key -[tree-zuhn] -noun 1. the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign. 2. a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state. 3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
Perhaps if some investigations were done; and if rumors are shown to be true, and one can show and prove that tampering did occur; we should begin charging people for doing this. When someone takes it upon themselves to subvert the rights of the people to instill leadership - there should be a price to pay.
In my opinion, Corporations have 2 entities we need to evaluate; the Trademark and the Copyright.
McDonalds has the Golden Arches, Disney has Mickey Mouse, Coke has their bottle design, Warner Brothers has Bugs Bunny and Maytag has the Repair man. I see no reason why these companies cannot keep their respective trademarks indefinitely. No one is suffering because they can't use Mickey Mouse on a non-Disney authorized product. These companies have substantial investments in their trademarks, and continue to use and invest in that Trademark in marketing. Conversely, I can see that these companies could be hurt by taking their Trademark away from them after some arbitrary point in time. An X-rated movie featuring Mickey Mouse (or his image) would damage the 'family-friendly' theme park revenues. Trademarks need to be protected - but also limited. For example, for Disney to claim that all of the Muppets, Disney Charcters and Hanna-Barbera characters are all Trademarks would be an abuse. Mickey Mouse may be a Trade Mark for Disney; but Barney Rubble, Miss Piggy and George Jetson are not.
However, Copyrights are something entirely different. The reason we saw so many old novels come to film recently is due to 2 Hollywood problems. First, the total and utter lack of imagination rampant in Hollywood; and secondly the fact that the copyright on many of these movies has expired, so they can make a movie and do not have to pay royalty fees. 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' compromised many such novel heroes, all of which are now public domain. Make a movie from those characters, and neither the creator, nor his estate will see a dime. Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray, the Invisible Man, Mina Harker, Dr. Jeckle/Mr. Hyde are all expired copyrighted characters. Do what you will with these characters - they are public domain.
Ah, but when the same law is inconvenient for these same people, they seek to change the rules for their personal needs. That is wrong (obviously).
When it comes to music, one can be fairly certain that the Beatles White Album has certainly paid itself off. Yet, as I write this I see a list price of $34.98 and an Amazon.com price of $24.97. This album was released November 22, 1968 - so it has had nearly 40 years on the market; yet still commands this price. Why? Has the RIAA not yet made a profit on the Beatles?
Now we hear that making a copy of the CD I bought, is illegal. If I buy cake mix, and use the cake mix to make brownies - have I violated some copyright? The RIAA is losing customers, and the more it sues and makes demands from their customers - the faster and more vigorously these same customers will do whatever they can to hurt the RIAA. Personally, I cannot see the strategy. If I ran a business, I would want my customers to like me.
Replace the word 'laser' with the word 'gun'. What comes out the other end of that tube is going to be affected, treat that unit like you would a weapon.
Would you shoot your laser into your eye? How about your wife's? No? Why not? Oh, because it says right on the laser that the beam is incredibly powerful and will cause permanent eye damage if it hits you in the eye, right? Now, I can't speak for you, but if I saw what it did at a distance, I'd take special care not to accidentally hit myself in the eye.
Resisting the temptation to "want to shine this at flying objects." is called Personal Responsibility.
Would you consider taking that laser and going to a playground and hitting children going down a slide? No? Why would children playing be any more or less immune from common sense than a pilot, driver/passenger in a car, or a pedestrian walking down the street?
I have no more sympathy for this couple, than I would for a couple that took turns firing a rifle at a helicopter. They willingly did to a complete stranger something they would never do to each other. I'll bet that they were surprised that they were caught. I wonder how many parents driving their families down the road got 'targeted' by idiots such as these? When my wife and I moved ourselves cross-country for a job change, we had a Mayflower Moving truck hit us in the eyes with a red laser, using the rear view mirrors to bound the light into our eyes at night. It hurt, it temporarily blinded us. We were able to pull over to the side of the road without driving into the ditch. I called 911 immediately, the cop caught the people in the truck and got the laser. I then followed up with Mayflower to find that this team got fired for this stunt. I doubt I was the first one, I'm positive I won't be the last. Does someone have to get killed before someone realizes that lasers are not toys?
Would you intentionally point the laser at your own eye? How about just for a second? What? You mean you don't want to risk doing damage to your eye? Well, how about pointing a laser at someone else's eye? How about a helicopter? Does it matter what your background, culture, education, sex, creed, economic or racial background it? I think not.
Did the person intend to cause the helicopter to crash? Maybe yes, maybe no. I will bet that he/she thought they could do this and get away with doing this with no one else being the wiser. I'll bet that they were shocked as heck when they got busted.
Would you shoot a rifle at an aircraft, just to see what would happen if you hit it? What would your defense be? I didn't intend to kill the pilot, break a window, take out an engine, cause a fire? I wondered what would happen? I wondered if I could hit an aircraft a mile away, moving at a high rate of speed with my rifle? Again, does the intent matter? As long as it can be shown that intent to fire was made - the consequences fall upon the shooter.
For some things, why you did something inherently stupid isn't as important as the fact that you did it. This person knew the laser is bright - or else he would have looked at the beam directly just to see how bright it really is. He was unwilling to risk his eyesight; but was more than happy to experiment with someone else's.
20 years is a good start. Time to reflect on past mistakes, and serve as a warning to others who think this kind of thing is 'cool'.
To make a High Definition movie, you do not need to add pixels or bits. They are already there. If the movie wasn't recorded in High Definition, it's a waste of money to pay for 'artifical bits'. This is a laborous and pretty poor way to do things.
But, if a DVD is the movie - with extra data compressed or removed to fit the DVD.
Thus, the acutal production cost differnce between a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is pretty much only the materials cost, plus whatever (if any) extra material the production company chooses to include.
So, why not price the High Defintion movies at $2 more than a standard DVD format?
All other factors being near equal, price will be the deciding factor.
If I steal a bunch of candy bars at a store, and get caught, I get arrested. Then I chose to go to trail, and plead innocent. Things are going just swell, until the store camera's video and several eye-witnesses come forward and my actions are shown to the jurors. Once I am found guilty, I pay the price.
Now, in this case, let's say that I have been found guilty of stealing a bunch of candy bars. I had my day in court, I took a couple of days away from the lives of 12+ jurors to hear my side of the story - and I lied my butt off. I'm found guilty. Do I now get to decide that my punishment is only the cost of the candy bars? No, the chances are that my punishment will be 'orders of magnitude' greater than the cost of the candy bars. I would expect some jail time, legal costs and fines.
She's got a disease. She can't help having this disease, you know, you too can get a disease - then how would you feel? So, we go on, making the accused out to be a victim, and no matter what they did - the fact that they have a disease becomes the parmount fact. Attention is shifted from the alledged crime, into a pity party. The accused becomes the victim, and what hard-hearted person would convict a victim?
This approach works on drunks accused of driving and killing families, an ex-president accused of molesting and raping women, drug addicts who kill, and car vandals who get caught and claim that ADD somehow contributed to the spray paint they used to 'tag' a car. It's really a very versatile excuse. "It's not my fault, because......"
Personally, I'm inclined to throw the book at any idiot who uses this pathetic excuse. I think a reasonable person doesn't care what childhood experiences, social or economic background, race, creed, religion, sex or sexual orientation the accused has - we just want to know if they are guilty of the crime or not. I don't care if he's sick, poor, previously abused in a prior life, or wears elf shoes while doing Scottish dances. Do the crime, do the time.
Slashdot Mirror
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/votes/
130 times as a Senator for Illinois, he chose not to vote 'for' or 'against', but rather to simply declare that he was 'present' for the vote nearly 130 times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20obama.html
His cabinet is full of DC lifers, he has never championed 'change' either as a state senator, nor as a US Senator; what makes you believe that he is capable of preserving anything? His resume' is pretty unimpressive - but that really doesn't matter does it? He's the 'messiah'.
My response? Well duhhhh...
It appears you have bought into the mindset that individuals have no significance in a company, which is relatively sad. Without good people, a company isn't anything more than concrete walls and an asphalt roof. Name any successful company, and that company will proudly point to their early employees. You'll see the founding owners, surrounded by their workers - the boss's proud of their workers, and the workers are proud to be a part of a collective effort. They are the one's who worked to create their product, they are the one's that got the company started. Even Mikey Dell has a listing of 1,000 of his original employees who require his personal approval for them to be fired. That is the only kind thing I can say about that man, is that he recognizes his wealth is due to the work of people - not cogs.
In any start up, or privately held company you will find an attitude of "We need you, no one here knows how to do 'x' as well as you - you are the expert in your field and we will all suffer if you should leave". A company grooms their employees to become vital staff, the experienced mentor the fresh hires. You are treated like you have value, which in turn makes it difficult for one to entertain leaving that job to go elsewhere.
Consider the Hershey Company. The Hershey company built a town for their workers, then started a college and schools so their worker's families could be garranteed an education. People worked their entire life at Hershey, and Hershey prospered. You can go almost anywhere in the world and find Hershey bars. The Hershey company even went so far as to build an amusement park (and college, hospital, library) for their employees to use. Who wouldn't be proud to work at a company that treats their employees like they matter? Today, Hershey is still union free, families still work at the various plants, and attend the Hershey college tuition-free, as well as free admittance into the Hershey Park to ride the rollercoasters and other assorted rides.
That was the attitude that made America great. Attract the best employees you can, pay them an honest wage, and do everything in your power to make them want to stay. If you love your employer, chances are that you'll work harder and stick around. If you hate your employer (like many of these companies fostering) you will do what is required to keep your job, and be looking to leave as soon as you have another employer willing to pay x% more.
I've done the Dollar Dance before. You end up losing, and losing big.
Work for company 'x' for 10 years. Get rewards, bonus's and patents. Leverage to get a 50% raise at company 'y'. But wait, company 'y' expects you to single-handedly pull them out of years worth of poor investments and bad managment decisions. A year later the plant closes. Now you and 5,000 of your fellow workers (all skilled) are competing for limited job opportunties in the area. This translates to a glut of houses on the market at the same time, as you have to move to find work. Sell your home for a loss (what color Lexus do you want me to buy you?)and move somewhere else to try to recover. But wait, this company is underfunded and goes down too. Hmmm, I've almost doubled my income in 3 years, moved 2x and am out several tens of thousands of dollars because I had to pay to buy and sell multiple homes - each one at a loss.
Do this for 10 years, and watch your retirement approach depletion. When you find a stable job, that pays a fair salary - you will give very SERIOUS thought before you consider jumping ship for a job that may pay more in the short term, but may mean you are on the job market involuntarily in a year or two. "Slow and steady wins the race" is a very wise saying. I was unwise in that I chose to ignore it.
Jack Welch, when he took over GE started the whole 10% of your under-achiever hog-wash.
Now, if you have poor achievers in your company, who have been there for decades - as GE had - perhaps a 1 time 'cleansing' is necessary. But, if you are doing your interviewing competently, and are teaching and mentoring your new hires - to continuously 'fire' 10% of the workforce is not only stupid, it's counter productive.
Consider, how long does it take a person to learn his job function and all the nuances that take it from being merely fulfilled, but where he can then magnify it? Given the proper motivation, a below average performer can become a top-performer. If a person knows what's expected, is shown how to do this, and is encouraged - he will either refuse to conform (termination case) or he will improve. I've seen this, I've done this and it works.
Other employees see this, and morale improves. People do not want to leave that group/company. Motorola USED to be like this. When Samsung came into town, they had to offer 20%+ salary bumps to attract Motorola employees to leave. Why? Because the people at Motorola knew that they were 'safe', that they had a career and a future with the company. Then Hector Ruiz came along and killed Motorola, before moving on to AMD and killing them.
I do not subscribe to the 10% cull; because you very quickly come to the point that you are cutting good people, and replacing them with good people who you will fire in a year or so. This creates a hostile work environment (why should I welcome you, help you or agree to work with you - if I'm competing against you to keep my job?), slows projects down (people shift departments constantly, at the slightest rumor of a reduction in headcount in a particular division), and you spend a great deal of your time where 90% of your employees are waiting for 10% of the team to come up to speed with their job requirements.
Show me a company that embraces the 10% cull, and I'll show you a company that is on the way down the tubes. Companies that terminate the poor performers, not due to some obscure quota, but do to performance - tend to retain their employees for the long haul. IBM used to be famous for this, and they rose to world domination. Motorola used to embrace this, and they used to have a world-class semiconductor market, communications division, automotive parts, space, micro-controllers and cell phone groups. The people make a company great - not the managment. Management has never made a company great, but poor managment has certainly killed more than a few.
Once upon a time, a company had loyalty to it's people, and the worker's were expected to have some loyalty to the company. If the company had a rough quarter or a poor year, people pulled together and worked harder. A company USED to do layoffs to avoid going bankrupt. Workers viewed each other as extended family members - it was common for workers to get together at each other's homes on weekends and holidays. Families got to know each other, work was done in a 'team' enviroment; and if you pulled your weight and did your job - you could expect to retire with the company you worked for. 20 years of service was celebrated, opportunties for promotion were biased such that someone who had shown loyalty to the company had first dibs, over someone coming in from the outside.
Today, despite record profits, companies close plants and terminate people - so the few executives can reap huge bonus's. Getting laid off by a plant closing, business downturn, or poor managment decisions punishes employees who were powerless to avoid the mistake - but end up taking full responsibility in that they have to sell their homes, and re-locate to find work elsewhere. With the cost of housing - this means that the 401K money must be robbed today, so they can continue to make mortgage payments while they try to sell their home, and have money to bring to closing when their home sells for less than what they paid for it.
I've been there, I've had my retirment almost depleted because companies transferred jobs to India, a plant closing, terminating a project I was involved with, a company purchased and moved overseas, and a company that failed due to poor managment. Now after 20 years, I finally have solid career.
When did all this change? Why did this change? It certainly hasn't been for the better - for the USA used to lead the world in production, in technology and development. People used to matter, now each of us is just a cog in the company machine. We are all expendable, and will be dropped on a whim. I wonder why.
I'm a bit more blunt than you. I'd ask myself "What makes me believe that Doug will not stab me in the back? He betrays his co-workers, he betrays his staff - why wouldn't he use the same technique to my boss, and take my job? Then, I'd fire Doug.
A smart manager surrounds himself with smart, people he can trust, and who trust him. This is called a 'team', Doug's group is little more than a 'mob'.
Given the lack of perceiveable performance improvements over the past several years, there really isn't a need to upgrade your home PC. Back before the XBox (BX?) the PC was still a considerable factor in gaming. Today, the cost of a single video card almost justifies the cost of an XBox by itself. The internet connectivity on the gaming consoles, the video and audio streaming and the game selection/quality means that the 'need' for a gaming PC ($$$) is reduced, because the XBox or PS3 can do the same or better for less money.
To the best of my knowledge, aside from the MS Flight Simulator X program - is there a 'killer app' that will drive PC sales? The only reason I caveat MS Flight Simulator X as a PC game "Killer App" is because hours spent playing this game can be applied toward actual Flight School (under specific guidelines, planes and conditions).
Who is going to define the format? The medical industry is in this for medical reasons, not software. The medical groups each have whatever format they 'liked' in place. There has been no overwhelming reason for them to create a standardized form, because it has not been in their fiscal interest to do so.
This is not to say that there isn't a good reason - we would all profit by having some 'universal' format that all hospitals and MD's could access. But, why would you, as an independant hospital or clinic develope this? Conversely, there is a flourishing industry of Medical Transcriptionists that make a living by transferring this information into a program like "Medi-soft" for insurance billing. If you create a digital standard for your medical information, then you have to make sure that every clinic and hospital can import/export this new format into their existing billing and insurance software. Too bad the Medical industry doesn't have a IT steering committee like most other technical groups.
Palestine and Israel. Modern day Syria and Jordan are occupying over 70% of 'Palestine'. Yet, the Muslums rain down hatred on the smaller Israel and proclaim how everything is the fault of the Jew. The Palestines rain down rockets and mortors with the intent to inflict massive civilian death, while Israel uses tactical weapons to minimize civilian death. Israel telephones targets, sends out flyers and detonates 'Sound Bombs' to warn civilians that a military target situated in a populated area is about to be hit. Hamas then forces women and children into these buildings, then parades the bodies around when the cameras come by. Heck, they've been caught robbing graveyards of 3 day old children, so they could have a body to parade around. Then they claim the moral high ground. When was the last time a Jewish suicide bomber attacked a school bus, pizzeria, hospital or marketplace?
Muslum insurgency in the Philipines has Muslims killing anyone who opposed being subject to Sharia law. Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
India and Pakistan - the Muslums have been declaring war on the Hindu inhabitants of India for nearly a hundred years. Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
How about the Chechen Rebels in Russia, attacking a high school? Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
How about the Taliban in Afghanistan? Do you think they give a rip about Palestine and Israel?
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_in_the_Muslim_world#Current_conflicts
So many comments, so many people who have not tried this feature.
When the XBox 360 update came out, I was one of the first to download it. After the download, I saw the Netflix feature and decided to try the free 30 day offer. I opened my account on my PC, selected a host of movies to stream (Heros seasons 1-3, The Office seasons 1-4, Logans Run, Kelly's Heroes, ect.) and finished the setup with my XBox.
There is some buffering done, I don't know how much is buffered whether it's 3 seconds or 10 minutes - don't know. I do know that my cable ISP had my limit set at 4 Mbps, so almost every time I would watch 2 minutes, then be alerted that my cable speed had 'slowed' so the download was changing to support my lower cable speed. Usually, this wasn't really visually obvious (I have a 120" HD 1080p projector) - the picture quality was what one would expect on an over-the-air antenna. Not great, but certainly watchable.
I later upgraded to a 6 Mbps internet package, and the picture improvement did improve. Sometimes I'd say that it was comparable to a DVD, other times more like a good VHS tape. All in all, viewable by any person who doesn't want to whine about non-Blu-Ray quality.
On my screen, the picture was perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't keep Netflix around if it weren't for the streaming video. I get UNLIMITED streaming with the lowest package they offer (~$8/month). The movie selection on streaming is extensive enough that when there isn't anything to watch on my Dish - I keep myself perfectly content watching something from the 10,000 movie selection. The contents do change every couple of months - so there is always a variety of stuff to stream.
Is it better than owning the DVD? yes and no. No, the quality isn't always as good as a DVD. But, yes in that a great deal of what I watch are movies I wouldn't be interested in buying and storing. Some movies are watched simply because they are 'classics' and you need not own them. Like "Logan's Run", "Clockwork Orange", the original "Omega Man" - for me, watching them once every 'x' years is often enough.
I use this service, and I love it.
I subscribe to the cheapest program they have, I get 1 DVD at a time - which with several Redbox units nearby, is really not that big of a deal.
However, I can que up 50 or so movies from my account that I 'might' want to watch on my XBox. Like, seasons 1-4 of The Office. I watch each episode when I want, no rental, no return, no hassles. The quality was about the same as watching a VHS tape player when I had 4 Mbps internet service, and improved remarkabaly when I upgraded to 6Mbsp cable.
Is it blue ray? Nope. Is it as good as DVD? Depends - some yes, most no. Typically, it's about the same quality as over the air programming - but it's a listing of what I care to watch, when I care to watch it.
If it weren't for this feature, I'd drop Netflix. Streaming movies is so much more convenient than adding movies to my already obscene collection. Some movies you may want to watch 1 or 2x and are not worth buying - this fits this niche perfectly.
Courts have already determined that Universities are responsible for the internet traffic that flows across their networks, whether the University approves, or disapproves of the content. (You may analyze as many RIAA cases as you deem necessary)
When you own a system, granting others use to that system is a courtesy. When you are cautioned that you are abusing a system (maintained, owned and operated by another party) and you insist on continuing to abuse the system; one should expect consequences.
This is akin to grabbing a microphone at the Student Commons and demanding that you be allowed to exercise your 'Free Speech' for as long as you care to talk. This is a case where one person has decided that her personal rights trump the rights of everyone else around her.
If you send out emails to ~300 people, after being told to cease and desist, yet continue to abuse the system, MSU has a choice. Either MSU enforces their policies on each infraction, or abandons control of the email system that they own.
You have the right to talk, but you do not have the right to demand that everyone else listen.
When a goverment makes laws that can not be enforced, people lose respect for not only the law, but the goverment itself.
This means that any figure, that some judge deems is drawn to represent a person under the age of 21, must be considered juvinile. Therefore, if this drawing is doing something that may be construed as 'adult' in nature, the drawing is now up to the judge's intrepretation as to the age and content of the drawing.
And people are supposed to sagely nod their heads and say "ye wise man, thou knowest my inner-most thoughts and thy punishment is just".
As a note to myself, henceforth all my stick figures will sport mustaches (yes, both male and female stick figures). The beard on the females will indicate that they are post-menopause - just to be safe.
Capitolism 101.
Appeal to your customer. For example, McDonalds has brightly colored tables. The bright colors appeal to children, but are mildly bothersome to adults. Thus, the kids want Mom and Dad to take them to McDonalds to eat. The parents go, but want to leave as soon as possible - result? High rate of table turn-over. Limited seating capacity rarely impacts how many meals they can serve. People are in, eat and are gone in an average of 15 minutes.
Non-smoking section. Sure, you may lose a minority of smoking customers - but you may more than make up for any loss of those customers by attracting MORE non-smoking customers.
High frequency buzzing noise. You drive away young customers with little or no buying power; enabling and actually encouraging older customers who cannot hear the noise the opportunity to shop without being distracted by 'nuisance' customers. More money income means more profits. More profits mean the company grows, people have jobs and the owners can invest in other pursuits. Sure, you may affect more than a the targeted demographic, but the end result is higher profits. And profit is the entire point of this exercise.
I'm in the US. Can't say that I'm aware of this sort of problem in my area; but then again I'm an old geek and probably wouldn't go to the 'pub' in the evening - because it's well past my bed time.
From the property-owner's perspective; one would ask "Why would you install a device that causes younger customers to flee?" Well, if the young customer has little or no disposable income, buys nothing, and prevents an older customer from spending money, then the young customer is an inconvenience to business. Business is the engine that pays for the store/theater/mall/arcade/pub and allows the owners to make a living, hire staff and pay bills. If the younger customer causes damage, and prevents one from making a living - then the younger customer is not an aid to commerce, but a parasite that is feeding off of the efforts of the businessman. Parasites, as a rule, are something that have little or no value.
Thus, as legal recourses in this matter are limited; the logical thing to do is to create an atmosphere that discriminates against the parasite. Polka, waltz, opera and country music may irritate the parasite, but they also detract from the attractiveness of the area for the customer. Thus, the mosquito truly appears to be the best possible solution.
I find it interesting that those with *no* vested interest; want to stand up for the irritant. This makes as much logical sense as my arguing the 'rights' of a sliver of glass to be in embedded in your index finger.
This is really KEY in my opinion. At home, I run games, taxes, Quicken, web surf and do email. I'll pay another $20 for CD burning and music creation (or let iTunes do it for me). I'll pay $20 to incrementally boost my PC's capabilities. I don't need, or want everything built into Windows for home use.
At work, I don't need music editing or games - I need OpenGL for Autocad, PSpice, OrCAD and the typical Office suite.
Let me econimically customize my OS for the specific needs I have. Don't charge me $400 for Office so I can write letters at home. I won't pay it. I'll use a copy of Office 97 I have lying around (gift from a previous employer).
While I may not agree with everything the author said, I do think he has many valid points.
As it takes a super majority of Congress to do this - good luck. The founding fathers put it in the Constitution for a reason. We are a Republic not a Democracy. If people knew what a Democracy 'really is' and what it 'really means'; one would not bandy the 'Democracy' term about as it has been used. Let's say that it's not very flattering.
The Electoral College, for it's faults - is a key point in our Gov't and has been for 200 years. I see no reason to abandon it, simply because an Electron did not go the way the majority vote may have gone.
Just an observation.
I give you 10,000 ballots and a pen. I challenge you to make a hanging chad, a pregnant chad, or a chad with 1, 2 or 3 corners torn.
Now, despite the FACT that ballots clearly state that a mangled or ballot in which the punch is not clearly made is invalid and will be trashed - one political party DEMANDED that they be counted. Further, in cases where no clear vote was made, one political party DEMANDED that they could 'read the unconscious intention of the voters'. Wow. One political party told the world that not only were Florida voters too stupid to know who to vote for, but they could 'psychically read the intentions of the voter'.
Now, I can make hanging chads, a pregnant chads, or chads with 1, 2 or 3 corners torn. Simply stack them on top of each other, take a punch and a hammer and stike a blow for tyranny.
Funny, there were a lot of these hanging chads, a pregnant chads, or chads with 1, 2 or 3 corners torn for one of the political parties. I'll give you a little hint. It wasn't the winner.
treason Pronunciation Key -[tree-zuhn] -noun
1. the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2. a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
Perhaps if some investigations were done; and if rumors are shown to be true, and one can show and prove that tampering did occur; we should begin charging people for doing this. When someone takes it upon themselves to subvert the rights of the people to instill leadership - there should be a price to pay.
In my opinion, Corporations have 2 entities we need to evaluate; the Trademark and the Copyright.
McDonalds has the Golden Arches, Disney has Mickey Mouse, Coke has their bottle design, Warner Brothers has Bugs Bunny and Maytag has the Repair man. I see no reason why these companies cannot keep their respective trademarks indefinitely. No one is suffering because they can't use Mickey Mouse on a non-Disney authorized product. These companies have substantial investments in their trademarks, and continue to use and invest in that Trademark in marketing. Conversely, I can see that these companies could be hurt by taking their Trademark away from them after some arbitrary point in time. An X-rated movie featuring Mickey Mouse (or his image) would damage the 'family-friendly' theme park revenues. Trademarks need to be protected - but also limited. For example, for Disney to claim that all of the Muppets, Disney Charcters and Hanna-Barbera characters are all Trademarks would be an abuse. Mickey Mouse may be a Trade Mark for Disney; but Barney Rubble, Miss Piggy and George Jetson are not.
However, Copyrights are something entirely different. The reason we saw so many old novels come to film recently is due to 2 Hollywood problems. First, the total and utter lack of imagination rampant in Hollywood; and secondly the fact that the copyright on many of these movies has expired, so they can make a movie and do not have to pay royalty fees. 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' compromised many such novel heroes, all of which are now public domain. Make a movie from those characters, and neither the creator, nor his estate will see a dime. Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray, the Invisible Man, Mina Harker, Dr. Jeckle/Mr. Hyde are all expired copyrighted characters. Do what you will with these characters - they are public domain.
Ah, but when the same law is inconvenient for these same people, they seek to change the rules for their personal needs. That is wrong (obviously).
When it comes to music, one can be fairly certain that the Beatles White Album has certainly paid itself off. Yet, as I write this I see a list price of $34.98 and an Amazon.com price of $24.97. This album was released November 22, 1968 - so it has had nearly 40 years on the market; yet still commands this price. Why? Has the RIAA not yet made a profit on the Beatles?
Now we hear that making a copy of the CD I bought, is illegal. If I buy cake mix, and use the cake mix to make brownies - have I violated some copyright? The RIAA is losing customers, and the more it sues and makes demands from their customers - the faster and more vigorously these same customers will do whatever they can to hurt the RIAA. Personally, I cannot see the strategy. If I ran a business, I would want my customers to like me.
Would you shoot your laser into your eye? How about your wife's? No? Why not? Oh, because it says right on the laser that the beam is incredibly powerful and will cause permanent eye damage if it hits you in the eye, right? Now, I can't speak for you, but if I saw what it did at a distance, I'd take special care not to accidentally hit myself in the eye.
Resisting the temptation to "want to shine this at flying objects." is called Personal Responsibility.
Would you consider taking that laser and going to a playground and hitting children going down a slide? No? Why would children playing be any more or less immune from common sense than a pilot, driver/passenger in a car, or a pedestrian walking down the street?
I have no more sympathy for this couple, than I would for a couple that took turns firing a rifle at a helicopter. They willingly did to a complete stranger something they would never do to each other. I'll bet that they were surprised that they were caught. I wonder how many parents driving their families down the road got 'targeted' by idiots such as these? When my wife and I moved ourselves cross-country for a job change, we had a Mayflower Moving truck hit us in the eyes with a red laser, using the rear view mirrors to bound the light into our eyes at night. It hurt, it temporarily blinded us. We were able to pull over to the side of the road without driving into the ditch. I called 911 immediately, the cop caught the people in the truck and got the laser. I then followed up with Mayflower to find that this team got fired for this stunt. I doubt I was the first one, I'm positive I won't be the last. Does someone have to get killed before someone realizes that lasers are not toys?
Did the person intend to cause the helicopter to crash? Maybe yes, maybe no. I will bet that he/she thought they could do this and get away with doing this with no one else being the wiser. I'll bet that they were shocked as heck when they got busted.
Would you shoot a rifle at an aircraft, just to see what would happen if you hit it? What would your defense be? I didn't intend to kill the pilot, break a window, take out an engine, cause a fire? I wondered what would happen? I wondered if I could hit an aircraft a mile away, moving at a high rate of speed with my rifle? Again, does the intent matter? As long as it can be shown that intent to fire was made - the consequences fall upon the shooter.
For some things, why you did something inherently stupid isn't as important as the fact that you did it. This person knew the laser is bright - or else he would have looked at the beam directly just to see how bright it really is. He was unwilling to risk his eyesight; but was more than happy to experiment with someone else's.
20 years is a good start. Time to reflect on past mistakes, and serve as a warning to others who think this kind of thing is 'cool'.
To make a High Definition movie, you do not need to add pixels or bits. They are already there. If the movie wasn't recorded in High Definition, it's a waste of money to pay for 'artifical bits'. This is a laborous and pretty poor way to do things. But, if a DVD is the movie - with extra data compressed or removed to fit the DVD. Thus, the acutal production cost differnce between a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is pretty much only the materials cost, plus whatever (if any) extra material the production company chooses to include. So, why not price the High Defintion movies at $2 more than a standard DVD format? All other factors being near equal, price will be the deciding factor.
Now, in this case, let's say that I have been found guilty of stealing a bunch of candy bars. I had my day in court, I took a couple of days away from the lives of 12+ jurors to hear my side of the story - and I lied my butt off. I'm found guilty. Do I now get to decide that my punishment is only the cost of the candy bars? No, the chances are that my punishment will be 'orders of magnitude' greater than the cost of the candy bars. I would expect some jail time, legal costs and fines.
Why should this person be treated any different?
Oh, you don't understand.
......"
She's got a disease. She can't help having this disease, you know, you too can get a disease - then how would you feel? So, we go on, making the accused out to be a victim, and no matter what they did - the fact that they have a disease becomes the parmount fact. Attention is shifted from the alledged crime, into a pity party. The accused becomes the victim, and what hard-hearted person would convict a victim?
This approach works on drunks accused of driving and killing families, an ex-president accused of molesting and raping women, drug addicts who kill, and car vandals who get caught and claim that ADD somehow contributed to the spray paint they used to 'tag' a car. It's really a very versatile excuse. "It's not my fault, because
Personally, I'm inclined to throw the book at any idiot who uses this pathetic excuse. I think a reasonable person doesn't care what childhood experiences, social or economic background, race, creed, religion, sex or sexual orientation the accused has - we just want to know if they are guilty of the crime or not. I don't care if he's sick, poor, previously abused in a prior life, or wears elf shoes while doing Scottish dances. Do the crime, do the time.
I doubt I'm alone on this one.