Not only was Lewinsky a willing participant, but before getting her job at the White House, she told her friends she wanted to get that job so she could earn her "presidential kneepads" (her words). It would be very difficult to prove sexual harrassment; when servicing Bill Clinton was her objective from the start. She was clearly the predator here.
I worked at a larger dotcom in the late 1990's, and sure, they coddled developers with all this nice stuff.
But you should see what they did for the salesweasels:
One year, they had an offsite conference - in South Africa. They went on a hunting safari, and each got a commemorative, engraved, gold Rolex watch, for the occasion. I think that was the most extravagant offsite I heard of; but they had a big one like that, every year, and additional quarterly ones that were at local (Bay Area) country clubs or resorts.
I think that, in light of what the idiot salesweasels do, as opposed to, you know, the smart people who actually produce the products, create IP, and innovate, I would say that you can't coddle developers enough. I understand that without sales people, there's no market, no revenue. But these are the people closest to the money, and the people whose professional skillset revolves around lying and cheating to get the most money, and frankly, that sort of coddling is far more corrosive to the health of a corporate budget than a fucking fooseball table, or letting someone come to work in shorts and sandals.
Most significant drug R&D is done by government funded non-profits, and universities. And frankly, most of the large pharmaceutical companies are not even American. They operate this way in America. But they have ample funds, internationally, for their own R&D efforts.
Worse still, Americans pay way more for drugs than their European counterparts. Private American Citizens are effectively subsidising the drug research for people in other countries. This imbalance exists due to prohibition on drug-reimportation.
I've seen some folks deductibles, and in order to negotiate their premium prices down, they've had to accept deductibles in the $2000-$5000 range. That's pretty tough to swallow when you're paying $500/month premiums. In fact, it's the sole reason why I've chosen to work for a company that provides employees with a group plan, rather than start my own business, and risk that kind of expense.
Yes, we need those people to work the farms, the low-wage pay.
No, we don't.
The typical response to this is: "but you don't want to have to pay $5.72 for a head of lettuce, do you?"
Of course not. Nobody would. On today's wages.
But if food prices went up to where they were supposed to be - then salaries of consumers would be pressured upwards, to meet this inflation. Either that, or we'd all starve.
Our economy is completely out of balance, because we have this regulatory structure of a "Minimum wage, for some people". Our currency is way over-valued, compared to what it should be.
The illegal-labor issue is nothing more than a concealment of this embarrassing fact.
Of course they had bugs. But when they had bugs, the manufacturer had an incentive to try to fix them, and when they had bugs, only a fraction of all computers were affected.
IF, as a result of Apple's switch to intel chips, and as a result of intel's other anticompetitive practices, AMD's market standing slips further, intel will be in a position to "not give a crap" about such bugs. And when those bugs happen, they will affect a very large proportion of all computers. It will be even more of a field day for spammers and botnet operators than it is today.
In my experience, at least in cycling, carbon fiber has a weakness where aluminum does not.
If you even scratch or nick the surface of carbon fiber (which happens when you say, sideswipe a boulder), it forms a weak point, that later becomes the site of catastrophic failure. I've seen carbon handlebars SNAP, I've seen carbon chain stays literally turn to dust. Personally, I think cycling is a terrible application for carbon, and I do not trust it as a component on a bike. And I am most certainly NOT any kind of hard-core mountain biker. I'm casual, at best. (I have riding buddies who like to spend a lot of money on their bikes).
With aluminum, you can get a scratch, a nick, even a nasty dent, and not experience a complete structural breakdown of the component.
Now, with carbon wings, on a production airliner, little scratches and nicks are a fact of life. The idea of carbon wings scares the crap out of me.
Particularly in the case of our TOPIC: This is why nearly every single statue of Hatshetsup was destroyed or defaced (usually, by breaking the nose off). There was a contingent in the priesthood that was very opposed to a female being pharoh. When her reign ended, they sought to erase it from history.
I'm not his Jury - it's just me and my opinion, here.
In my opinion, he certainly could be a lot more forthcoming; and so could Sturgeon. They're BOTH hiding something.
There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye. I'd like to believe that Sturgeon did it. I'd like to believe that Nina is alive, in Russia, with the kids. But it does not make sense that Hans Reiser would be spouting all this nonsense, unless he's really no longer mentally competent. Or, he's concealing a secret that is more important to him than his own freedom. Clamming up about what happened to the car, and the seat, does not make him guilty - of course. He has that right under the 5th Amendment. But it makes him look bad. Apparently, he no longer cares about appearances. And that's not a good sign.
Although it does lend credence to the idea that there's some involvement with Nina and the Russian Mafia. . .
I know this is a very sick, and American thing for me to say; but this is going to make a great murder-mystery movie someday.
But this is the way it IS: You don't take care of business, you're on the "list". You're on the list? You have a higher chance of getting laid off. You get laid off? You have a lower chance of finding new work (particularly when layoffs are high throughout your industry). You can't find work? You take a hit in your income - often putting you behind the career and income growth curve, sometimes this hit lasts a short time, sometimes it can linger, and affect the entire rest of your career.
There's an attitude that a lot of people who get into a bad career spot - well, it's their own fault for not developing the right skills, not having a good work ethic, whatever. In a lot of cases, that's just a knee-jerk moralistic judgment. In reality - a lot of people can be very productive in some environments, and not in others. And their niche is out there, but connecting the right person with the right niche (whether it's at Google, Microsoft, or some other company with the right cultural mix, the right personnel, the right gaps), is sometimes really difficult - for employers, AND employees. Some people are versatile. Some just are not - but that doesn't make them worthless; and certainly doesn't make them morally deserving of unemployment.
Sometimes, being useless and getting laid off at one job opens the door to a much better situation elsewhere (and that has happened to me). Realizing the value of a particular situation - and acting to preserve it, can sometimes mean a stronger commitment. Whether that's uncompensated overtime, or whatever. Some individuals make that commitment, and when it counts, it's a good thing. If that establishes a "standard" to which others don't want to live up to is a different issue entirely.
I'm not saying that commitment to long hours SHOULD be a standard, and not everyone should be expected to do that. But neither should a strict adherence to the 8x5 week either.
There is no vehicle or platform that you could put a useful surveillance package onto, which you could not also put a nuclear device onto.
That said - ANYTHING you can fly over an enemy's territory, can be considered a threat of immediate nuclear attack.
Except, maybe a spy satellite.
And even then, the only assurance a potential target has, is the international ban, by treaty, of nuclear weapons in space. And given Bush's proclivity for declaring certain inconvenient international treaties as "obsolete" - there's really no assurance you can give a truly paranoid nation, that they are not, at any given moment, in the crosshairs of a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
Take from that whatever political message you will. Bottom line is; it's a fact.
I don't care if it's Bush's last effing day in office - it's NEVER too late to impeach. We may not be able to remove him from office - but we (the people, via our elected representatives) - CAN insist that justice be done. We CAN insist that we care about right and wrong. Sitting back and letting them get away with this, without even saying anything, is an invitation to the next set of thugs.
Last job I left; In my exit interview, they asked why I left, what they could do (and could they offer me more money).
I told them that for the past 3 years, I have continually brought up the issue to my supervisors, that I need more money. Yes; I made some shitty decisions and overextended myself in certain areas - but the bottom line is, it costs x dollars to live in this area. And they just don't pay that.
Every single time I brought it up, they wheeled out the charts and stats that said that people at my level, in my discipline, make a certain amount of money - period.
Then I worked very, very hard, and earned an internal promotion, to a new, higher-level position. And they gave me a really crappy (IMO) increase, and said; it was HR policy that nobody in the entire company could get more than a 6 percent increase without VP-level or above approval. Even from an internal hire.
So I worked my new job for a few months. Then I left.
I got a job at another company - and with it, a 15% increase.
So that's what I told them in my exit interview: I said: you can't afford me. Yes, money would have kept me - but your own HR policies say that you CAN'T get me that much. So just forget it. I have a family, I have kids, I have a house payment. I will need to save for my kids' college. I will need to save for retirement. This stuff isn't cheap.
I believe that there is a certain myopia, among those who are coming up with pay rates and job market statistics. And I think that there are some players who are just WAY OFF. There's especially a big fuzzy grey box that they put people in, called "Systems Engineer" - and it's way too vague in terms of skill-set and competence valuation. My new employer didn't hire me as a "Systems Engineer" - my new employer hired me based on the story my resume told me. My new employer did their homework, and actually READ my resume before calling me into an interview. He knew what I would be worth, and was willing to pay it. To my former employer's detriment.
This very complex debate is extremely simple, when you boil it down to this one salient fact. An insurer should not be able to pick and choose the insured.
The point of insurance is to spread risk. Once they're allowed to focus risk, it's no longer insurance. It's healthcare-brokering.
We're not going to get public health insurance in this country, because the insurance industry is too powerful, it's already heavily regulated (in just the right way). There is no public healthcare approach which will make things better for Americans, until there is DISINTERMEDIATION of the health INSURANCE industry. That's because the health INSURANCE industry, in America, is no longer an insurance provider. They call themselves "insurance" - but they're really just a middle man, for most purposes. Since they're allowed to drop high-risk patients, and keep low-risk ones, they simple are not "insurance" any more. They focus risk, they do not spread risk. That is the opposite of what insurance is for. Until this parasitic industry is removed - eliminated, things will not get better. They own politicians on both sides of the aisle - and that is why no major candidate has put forth a plan that has Single Payer. Except Hillarycare -from 1993. Even SHE won't back that plan any more. If she did, she would quickly be eclipsed by the other candidates, as her funding dried up.
Well, I think that eventually, maybe 5-10 years; there will be available, speech recognition technology that can parse through an encoded audio channel, and; maybe not in real-time, but close enough, create a transcript that can be used for closed captioning. Can't really say who this will come from - but there's a lot of very encouraging research going on in this field right now. And folks like Google will sure be eager to field technology that can do this. Imagine how it could benefit the search-ability of online video content. . .
Slashdot Mirror
No, Bush said "that person will be taken care of."
Now we know what he meant by "taken care of."
Not only was Lewinsky a willing participant, but before getting her job at the White House, she told her friends she wanted to get that job so she could earn her "presidential kneepads" (her words). It would be very difficult to prove sexual harrassment; when servicing Bill Clinton was her objective from the start. She was clearly the predator here.
I worked at a larger dotcom in the late 1990's, and sure, they coddled developers with all this nice stuff.
But you should see what they did for the salesweasels:
One year, they had an offsite conference - in South Africa. They went on a hunting safari, and each got a commemorative, engraved, gold Rolex watch, for the occasion. I think that was the most extravagant offsite I heard of; but they had a big one like that, every year, and additional quarterly ones that were at local (Bay Area) country clubs or resorts.
I think that, in light of what the idiot salesweasels do, as opposed to, you know, the smart people who actually produce the products, create IP, and innovate, I would say that you can't coddle developers enough. I understand that without sales people, there's no market, no revenue. But these are the people closest to the money, and the people whose professional skillset revolves around lying and cheating to get the most money, and frankly, that sort of coddling is far more corrosive to the health of a corporate budget than a fucking fooseball table, or letting someone come to work in shorts and sandals.
Have you ever BEEN to New Mexico?
It's the ideal place for space aliens to feel at home.
It's millions of miles from anywhere, and the landscape is barren and surreal.
Um - they spend FAR MORE on marketing than R&D.
Most significant drug R&D is done by government funded non-profits, and universities. And frankly, most of the large pharmaceutical companies are not even American. They operate this way in America. But they have ample funds, internationally, for their own R&D efforts.
Worse still, Americans pay way more for drugs than their European counterparts. Private American Citizens are effectively subsidising the drug research for people in other countries. This imbalance exists due to prohibition on drug-reimportation.
He must mean "deductible".
I've seen some folks deductibles, and in order to negotiate their premium prices down, they've had to accept deductibles in the $2000-$5000 range. That's pretty tough to swallow when you're paying $500/month premiums. In fact, it's the sole reason why I've chosen to work for a company that provides employees with a group plan, rather than start my own business, and risk that kind of expense.
The left doesn't hate it because there's not enough amnesty.
The left hates it because there's too much amnesty - for employers of illegals.
Oh super!
We're not as bad as North Korea, so anything our government does is okay.
As long as we're safe from the evul atheists/communists/terrorists/etc.
Thomas Jefferson, and his bretheren, are spinning in their graves, and you sir, are no countryman of mine.
Yes, we need those people to work the farms, the low-wage pay.
No, we don't.
The typical response to this is: "but you don't want to have to pay $5.72 for a head of lettuce, do you?"
Of course not. Nobody would. On today's wages.
But if food prices went up to where they were supposed to be - then salaries of consumers would be pressured upwards, to meet this inflation. Either that, or we'd all starve.
Our economy is completely out of balance, because we have this regulatory structure of a "Minimum wage, for some people". Our currency is way over-valued, compared to what it should be.
The illegal-labor issue is nothing more than a concealment of this embarrassing fact.
Of course they had bugs. But when they had bugs, the manufacturer had an incentive to try to fix them, and when they had bugs, only a fraction of all computers were affected.
IF, as a result of Apple's switch to intel chips, and as a result of intel's other anticompetitive practices, AMD's market standing slips further, intel will be in a position to "not give a crap" about such bugs. And when those bugs happen, they will affect a very large proportion of all computers. It will be even more of a field day for spammers and botnet operators than it is today.
In my experience, at least in cycling, carbon fiber has a weakness where aluminum does not.
If you even scratch or nick the surface of carbon fiber (which happens when you say, sideswipe a boulder), it forms a weak point, that later becomes the site of catastrophic failure. I've seen carbon handlebars SNAP, I've seen carbon chain stays literally turn to dust. Personally, I think cycling is a terrible application for carbon, and I do not trust it as a component on a bike. And I am most certainly NOT any kind of hard-core mountain biker. I'm casual, at best. (I have riding buddies who like to spend a lot of money on their bikes).
With aluminum, you can get a scratch, a nick, even a nasty dent, and not experience a complete structural breakdown of the component.
Now, with carbon wings, on a production airliner, little scratches and nicks are a fact of life. The idea of carbon wings scares the crap out of me.
Exactly true.
Particularly in the case of our TOPIC:
This is why nearly every single statue of Hatshetsup was destroyed or defaced (usually, by breaking the nose off). There was a contingent in the priesthood that was very opposed to a female being pharoh. When her reign ended, they sought to erase it from history.
Thank GOODNESS apple switched to intel chips.
Nothing like a monopoly, and a monoculture, to breed innovation and a robust information infrastructure!
It probably wasn't about wanting to play video games.
He wanted to control his own life.
Video games (and his son) became a proxy-battlefield for them.
I'm not his Jury - it's just me and my opinion, here.
In my opinion, he certainly could be a lot more forthcoming; and so could Sturgeon. They're BOTH hiding something.
There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye.
I'd like to believe that Sturgeon did it.
I'd like to believe that Nina is alive, in Russia, with the kids.
But it does not make sense that Hans Reiser would be spouting all this nonsense, unless he's really no longer mentally competent. Or, he's concealing a secret that is more important to him than his own freedom. Clamming up about what happened to the car, and the seat, does not make him guilty - of course. He has that right under the 5th Amendment. But it makes him look bad.
Apparently, he no longer cares about appearances.
And that's not a good sign.
Although it does lend credence to the idea that there's some involvement with Nina and the Russian Mafia. . .
I know this is a very sick, and American thing for me to say; but this is going to make a great murder-mystery movie someday.
This is the way we WANT the world to be.
But this is the way it IS:
You don't take care of business, you're on the "list".
You're on the list? You have a higher chance of getting laid off.
You get laid off? You have a lower chance of finding new work (particularly when layoffs are high throughout your industry).
You can't find work? You take a hit in your income - often putting you behind the career and income growth curve, sometimes this hit lasts a short time, sometimes it can linger, and affect the entire rest of your career.
There's an attitude that a lot of people who get into a bad career spot - well, it's their own fault for not developing the right skills, not having a good work ethic, whatever. In a lot of cases, that's just a knee-jerk moralistic judgment. In reality - a lot of people can be very productive in some environments, and not in others. And their niche is out there, but connecting the right person with the right niche (whether it's at Google, Microsoft, or some other company with the right cultural mix, the right personnel, the right gaps), is sometimes really difficult - for employers, AND employees. Some people are versatile. Some just are not - but that doesn't make them worthless; and certainly doesn't make them morally deserving of unemployment.
Sometimes, being useless and getting laid off at one job opens the door to a much better situation elsewhere (and that has happened to me). Realizing the value of a particular situation - and acting to preserve it, can sometimes mean a stronger commitment. Whether that's uncompensated overtime, or whatever. Some individuals make that commitment, and when it counts, it's a good thing. If that establishes a "standard" to which others don't want to live up to is a different issue entirely.
I'm not saying that commitment to long hours SHOULD be a standard, and not everyone should be expected to do that. But neither should a strict adherence to the 8x5 week either.
Oxycontin (and other opium-derivatives) can cause permanent nerve damage and hearing loss.
Just ask Rush Limbaugh.
There is no vehicle or platform that you could put a useful surveillance package onto, which you could not also put a nuclear device onto.
That said - ANYTHING you can fly over an enemy's territory, can be considered a threat of immediate nuclear attack.
Except, maybe a spy satellite.
And even then, the only assurance a potential target has, is the international ban, by treaty, of nuclear weapons in space. And given Bush's proclivity for declaring certain inconvenient international treaties as "obsolete" - there's really no assurance you can give a truly paranoid nation, that they are not, at any given moment, in the crosshairs of a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
Take from that whatever political message you will. Bottom line is; it's a fact.
Safari doesn't rate even a casual eval.
No flashblock. No ad blocking.
Not.
Worth.
My.
Time.
I don't care if it's Bush's last effing day in office - it's NEVER too late to impeach. We may not be able to remove him from office - but we (the people, via our elected representatives) - CAN insist that justice be done. We CAN insist that we care about right and wrong. Sitting back and letting them get away with this, without even saying anything, is an invitation to the next set of thugs.
YES.
Last job I left;
In my exit interview, they asked why I left, what they could do (and could they offer me more money).
I told them that for the past 3 years, I have continually brought up the issue to my supervisors, that I need more money. Yes; I made some shitty decisions and overextended myself in certain areas - but the bottom line is, it costs x dollars to live in this area. And they just don't pay that.
Every single time I brought it up, they wheeled out the charts and stats that said that people at my level, in my discipline, make a certain amount of money - period.
Then I worked very, very hard, and earned an internal promotion, to a new, higher-level position. And they gave me a really crappy (IMO) increase, and said; it was HR policy that nobody in the entire company could get more than a 6 percent increase without VP-level or above approval. Even from an internal hire.
So I worked my new job for a few months.
Then I left.
I got a job at another company - and with it, a 15% increase.
So that's what I told them in my exit interview:
I said: you can't afford me. Yes, money would have kept me - but your own HR policies say that you CAN'T get me that much. So just forget it. I have a family, I have kids, I have a house payment. I will need to save for my kids' college. I will need to save for retirement. This stuff isn't cheap.
I believe that there is a certain myopia, among those who are coming up with pay rates and job market statistics. And I think that there are some players who are just WAY OFF. There's especially a big fuzzy grey box that they put people in, called "Systems Engineer" - and it's way too vague in terms of skill-set and competence valuation. My new employer didn't hire me as a "Systems Engineer" - my new employer hired me based on the story my resume told me. My new employer did their homework, and actually READ my resume before calling me into an interview. He knew what I would be worth, and was willing to pay it. To my former employer's detriment.
You've hit the nail on the head, by friend.
This very complex debate is extremely simple, when you boil it down to this one salient fact. An insurer should not be able to pick and choose the insured.
The point of insurance is to spread risk. Once they're allowed to focus risk, it's no longer insurance. It's healthcare-brokering.
We're not going to get public health insurance in this country, because the insurance industry is too powerful, it's already heavily regulated (in just the right way). There is no public healthcare approach which will make things better for Americans, until there is DISINTERMEDIATION of the health INSURANCE industry. That's because the health INSURANCE industry, in America, is no longer an insurance provider. They call themselves "insurance" - but they're really just a middle man, for most purposes. Since they're allowed to drop high-risk patients, and keep low-risk ones, they simple are not "insurance" any more. They focus risk, they do not spread risk. That is the opposite of what insurance is for. Until this parasitic industry is removed - eliminated, things will not get better. They own politicians on both sides of the aisle - and that is why no major candidate has put forth a plan that has Single Payer. Except Hillarycare -from 1993. Even SHE won't back that plan any more. If she did, she would quickly be eclipsed by the other candidates, as her funding dried up.
Well, that, and the left-over McCarthyism that persists in this country to this day.
Well, I think that eventually, maybe 5-10 years; there will be available, speech recognition technology that can parse through an encoded audio channel, and; maybe not in real-time, but close enough, create a transcript that can be used for closed captioning. Can't really say who this will come from - but there's a lot of very encouraging research going on in this field right now. And folks like Google will sure be eager to field technology that can do this. Imagine how it could benefit the search-ability of online video content. . .