Well... most slave descendants in this country have some amount of European ancestry. I guess the white nationalists hate blacks because they're still ashamed that their slave owning ancestors had jungle fever.
Because there's no such thing as a "white" racial group. You genetic tests may be able to tell if you have more English ancestry than German. The reason these tests bring up the Ashkenazi Jewish percentage is because many customers are interested in such details.
Individual states may have their own rules. But in California we have our ballots in multiple languages, it does not cause any problems. I believe that English is required for some purposes, such as an ingredient list on food, but that does not forbid the use of other languagues as well.
I don't really see the use of both French and English on Canadian *products* to be a problem; the French/English divide in Canada comes more from Quebec attitudes that everyone needs to be bilingual except them.
Lingua Franca does not mean "French". It originally was used to refer to a pidjin language in common use in the eastern Mediterranean area from 11th century, which probably was more Italian based than French.
America was a backwards country for a very long time. It wasn't until WWI that the US was really taken seriously on the world stage. Muc of the early immigration came from countries that were just as civilized as the US, the immigrants were showing up because their home country had famines, economic slump, or they were from a group discriminated against at home. Outside of former British colonies, It wasn't until the economic boom in the US in the twentieth century that English become more popular.
And what's wrong with that? San Diego was originally founded by the Spanish conquistidors and later was a part of Mexico. El Paso used to be a city that straddled the border and the citizens freely walked back and forth until the border patrol beefed up its presence.
What is so special about American culture anway? And why is a homogenous culture even remotely important?
Virtually everyone in America has ancestors that came from somewhere else, and a very large number of US citizens were born in different cities or states than they were born in. If you aren't native American you really shouldn't be griping about other cultures showing up uninvited.
Why does it even matter if English isn't the dominant language anyway? It's not like all the English speakers here are natives anyway. And not even all of the original 13 colonies were English speaking or founded by the English. They spoke Spanish in Southwest before English speakers showed up. Texas used to be a part of Mexico until the upstart gringos got pissed that they couldn't own slaves. The only American "culture" we have is what we've stolen and modified from other countries. If English declines in usage over time, it's no big deal.
Some countries have multiple official languages as well... Also note that making an official language only means that official documents are in that language, not that people are required to learn it or are forbidden to use other languages. Making English the official language of the US would not actually change anything about how people speak or how documents are written.
Note that in Europe and many other places, students start to learn a second language at a young age. In the US this doesn't happen until high school or later, where it is only optional. It used to be required to study a second language in many colleges or pre-college tracks in high schools, even if you didn't learn enough to be able to read a foreign language book easily.
Yes, it's not needed, but it is also desirable to know a second language. Everywhere else in the world people are expected to learn a second or third language. Whether that's to get along better with neighbors and have trade, or because the country has multiple languages.
Much of that reason also I think is that America was somewhat isolated for a very long time, and for a period was intentionally isolationist. In schools you would be disciplined in the past for speaking a second language as well, even if you did not use that langauge for schoolwork (this happens in a few other countries).
Note that the US does not have an "official" language.
I learned a little bit of a lot of languages. This is very useful at times, you can figure out road signs, what a store is selling, and so forth. I was able to use a train ticket vending machine without help in Helsinki.
I'd rather have no one of any gender having a looksie when I pee.
The real issue is that some people are worried that if schools have people who don't conform to traditional values enter the wrong restroom that their children will become brainwashed to become liberal atheists.
I would think voters could sort this out even if they held the debate. If someone is just going to win because it's a shoe-in, then why don't they pretend to play fair and be above board instead of passing new laws to make it harder to vote, skipping debates, recusing himself from overseeing the election, etc? Or are shenanigans ok as long as it's your preferred candidate who does them? Or is disenfranchisement such a common habit that they do it even when it's not necessary to win?
Which is a pretty dumb way to vote, given that the parties have changed their core values within relatively short periods of time in the past.
But I think this effect also plays out mostly in the minor races. When it's president, then voters pay a lot of attention. When it's senator they pay attention. When it's for conress then voters pay less attention, and often don't even know the name of the incumbent.. When it's state office or small, voters pay very little attention. So the less attention voters are paying, the more likely they are to just vote their bias (look and see if there's a D or R next to the name). This is why you will see a state elect a president or senator from a different party than the majority of congress members.
But if it's not enough to pay the operations of the law firm, then what? Yes, the senior partners are very well paid, but they also have a large team of juniors, associates, paralegals, and misc. staff. Those people need to be paid for the time they spent working. Then there's rent on their offices, travel expenses, court fees, etc. So either the amount of settlements has to go up to pay for it, or they firm won't bother taking the class action case. Don't even think about it going to court, that's too financially risky to spend all that additional time.
If the case took a couple of years, say, then the expense to the law firm will be very high. That's two years of expensive lawyer salary (ignoring the obvious jacking up of hourly rates). That could add up to two million dollars easily.
When there's a settlement involved, generally they're going to ask for legal fees as a part of the negotiation. If it goes to court and they win, then the judge adds in legal fees. That is, the amount that goes to the lawyers is not carved out of the damages after the case is over.
So in this case, the amount that went to legal fees seems sort of inline to what one would expect. The amount left over was larger than the legal fees. The problem here is that the remaining $5+ million went to universities and organizations instead of to the class members.
Subtract legal fees first. Sure, it's not as much as what the lawyers want but it will compensate them for the time and effort put into the case. However the "fees" should be checked over first to make sure they're not padded. One advantage is that it may let lawyers put in enough time to do the suit but not enough that they're going to drag it out for years.
The $5000 for each of the 3 named plaintiffs is what sounded egregious to me. For compensatory damages it may be ok, but any punitive damage should have had a big chunk going to back to those three at the very least.
Slashdot Mirror
The guy who bought the land and build the city and brought over the London Bridge marketed the place as a place for retirees.
Retirees who want an affordable place to live. See Lake Havasu City.
What are the ingredients? Vanilla, white chocolate, and mayonaisse?
As well as Chinese jews.
in their own country.
Are we talking about Native Americans here or the European invaders?
Well... most slave descendants in this country have some amount of European ancestry. I guess the white nationalists hate blacks because they're still ashamed that their slave owning ancestors had jungle fever.
Is it "science" that created this, and if so is it still valid science or just a holdover from the "we know everything!" fifties?
Because there's no such thing as a "white" racial group. You genetic tests may be able to tell if you have more English ancestry than German. The reason these tests bring up the Ashkenazi Jewish percentage is because many customers are interested in such details.
Well, Fox News is still a legitimate news outfit, whereas Breitbart has alway and unashamedly been about promoting fake news.
Individual states may have their own rules. But in California we have our ballots in multiple languages, it does not cause any problems. I believe that English is required for some purposes, such as an ingredient list on food, but that does not forbid the use of other languagues as well.
I don't really see the use of both French and English on Canadian *products* to be a problem; the French/English divide in Canada comes more from Quebec attitudes that everyone needs to be bilingual except them.
Lingua Franca does not mean "French". It originally was used to refer to a pidjin language in common use in the eastern Mediterranean area from 11th century, which probably was more Italian based than French.
America was a backwards country for a very long time. It wasn't until WWI that the US was really taken seriously on the world stage. Muc of the early immigration came from countries that were just as civilized as the US, the immigrants were showing up because their home country had famines, economic slump, or they were from a group discriminated against at home. Outside of former British colonies, It wasn't until the economic boom in the US in the twentieth century that English become more popular.
And what's wrong with that? San Diego was originally founded by the Spanish conquistidors and later was a part of Mexico. El Paso used to be a city that straddled the border and the citizens freely walked back and forth until the border patrol beefed up its presence.
What is so special about American culture anway? And why is a homogenous culture even remotely important?
Virtually everyone in America has ancestors that came from somewhere else, and a very large number of US citizens were born in different cities or states than they were born in. If you aren't native American you really shouldn't be griping about other cultures showing up uninvited.
Why does it even matter if English isn't the dominant language anyway? It's not like all the English speakers here are natives anyway. And not even all of the original 13 colonies were English speaking or founded by the English. They spoke Spanish in Southwest before English speakers showed up. Texas used to be a part of Mexico until the upstart gringos got pissed that they couldn't own slaves. The only American "culture" we have is what we've stolen and modified from other countries. If English declines in usage over time, it's no big deal.
Some countries have multiple official languages as well... Also note that making an official language only means that official documents are in that language, not that people are required to learn it or are forbidden to use other languages. Making English the official language of the US would not actually change anything about how people speak or how documents are written.
Note that in Europe and many other places, students start to learn a second language at a young age. In the US this doesn't happen until high school or later, where it is only optional. It used to be required to study a second language in many colleges or pre-college tracks in high schools, even if you didn't learn enough to be able to read a foreign language book easily.
Yes, it's not needed, but it is also desirable to know a second language. Everywhere else in the world people are expected to learn a second or third language. Whether that's to get along better with neighbors and have trade, or because the country has multiple languages.
Much of that reason also I think is that America was somewhat isolated for a very long time, and for a period was intentionally isolationist. In schools you would be disciplined in the past for speaking a second language as well, even if you did not use that langauge for schoolwork (this happens in a few other countries).
Note that the US does not have an "official" language.
I learned a little bit of a lot of languages. This is very useful at times, you can figure out road signs, what a store is selling, and so forth. I was able to use a train ticket vending machine without help in Helsinki.
I'd rather have no one of any gender having a looksie when I pee.
The real issue is that some people are worried that if schools have people who don't conform to traditional values enter the wrong restroom that their children will become brainwashed to become liberal atheists.
Except now they want to get rid of the "other", because they don't believe it exists.
I would think voters could sort this out even if they held the debate. If someone is just going to win because it's a shoe-in, then why don't they pretend to play fair and be above board instead of passing new laws to make it harder to vote, skipping debates, recusing himself from overseeing the election, etc? Or are shenanigans ok as long as it's your preferred candidate who does them? Or is disenfranchisement such a common habit that they do it even when it's not necessary to win?
Which is a pretty dumb way to vote, given that the parties have changed their core values within relatively short periods of time in the past.
But I think this effect also plays out mostly in the minor races. When it's president, then voters pay a lot of attention. When it's senator they pay attention. When it's for conress then voters pay less attention, and often don't even know the name of the incumbent.. When it's state office or small, voters pay very little attention. So the less attention voters are paying, the more likely they are to just vote their bias (look and see if there's a D or R next to the name). This is why you will see a state elect a president or senator from a different party than the majority of congress members.
But if it's not enough to pay the operations of the law firm, then what? Yes, the senior partners are very well paid, but they also have a large team of juniors, associates, paralegals, and misc. staff. Those people need to be paid for the time they spent working. Then there's rent on their offices, travel expenses, court fees, etc. So either the amount of settlements has to go up to pay for it, or they firm won't bother taking the class action case. Don't even think about it going to court, that's too financially risky to spend all that additional time.
If the case took a couple of years, say, then the expense to the law firm will be very high. That's two years of expensive lawyer salary (ignoring the obvious jacking up of hourly rates). That could add up to two million dollars easily.
When there's a settlement involved, generally they're going to ask for legal fees as a part of the negotiation. If it goes to court and they win, then the judge adds in legal fees. That is, the amount that goes to the lawyers is not carved out of the damages after the case is over.
So in this case, the amount that went to legal fees seems sort of inline to what one would expect. The amount left over was larger than the legal fees. The problem here is that the remaining $5+ million went to universities and organizations instead of to the class members.
Subtract legal fees first. Sure, it's not as much as what the lawyers want but it will compensate them for the time and effort put into the case. However the "fees" should be checked over first to make sure they're not padded. One advantage is that it may let lawyers put in enough time to do the suit but not enough that they're going to drag it out for years.
The $5000 for each of the 3 named plaintiffs is what sounded egregious to me. For compensatory damages it may be ok, but any punitive damage should have had a big chunk going to back to those three at the very least.