You implied that one could get in trouble for blogging about politics. The Hatch act does prohibit federal employees from engaging in certain types of political activity, regardless of where they are. If this employee was classified as someone who may not engage in partisan political activity, then they may not campaign for or against a candidate in a partisan election, nor may they collect contributions for political fund raising functions.
The bit about doing this stuff on government time is completely unrelated to the Hatch act. That's a distinctly separate offense, and one for which there is much less excuse. This doesn't seem to be wholly accurate anymore. I don't know if the specific provisions about doing it on work time are a part of the 1993 amendment or not, but the current text seems to explicitly prohibit all political activity while at work, and only explicitly prohibit some political activity while on your own time.
I wonder if this law has ever been challenged as a first amendment violation.
This of course, was a waste of OUR money which is why it was a federal crime. That's not how it came across to me. The Hatch Act seems to be an attempt to prevent conflicts of interest by restricting the types of activities in which federal employees can engage. http://www.osc.gov/ha_fed.htm
I'm surprised by the restrictions, but what seems most important at this point is the following:
These federal and D.C. employees may not-... # engage in political activity while:
* on duty
* in a government office
* wearing an official uniform
* using a government vehicle This is very specifically about "goofing off" by engaging in political activity while on duty and in a government office, not about federal employees goofing off in general.
They suspended this guy for 6 months without pay. He's going to be looking for another job, and the only kind of job he's going to be able to find (paying anything close to what he was making before) will expect him to be there for more than the term of his suspension. Suspending him like this is just a way of firing him without having to deal with unemployment--you don't get unemployment if you quit, even if you quit because you were suspended without pay.
There have been studies that showed employees as being more productive when they take several short breaks throughout the day. Unfortunately, many managers still don't believe this, and will insist that workers constantly work on their projects, even at the expense of productivity.
I guess it makes sense in a twisted kind of way. When people are paid for their hours, the part of you that wants to get what you pay for would insist on those people working those hours, not "slacking off." Then again, it generally makes more sense to pay people for the task that they're doing. If they can get the task done quickly, more power to them.
"Eating a bullet" is a phrase used to mean that a person was shot in the head with the gun barrel having been placed in the mouth before firing. It's almost always a euphemism for suicide.
I said non-caesar, as I didn't expect it to be one of those (one rarely pairs a caesar salad with vinaigrette dressing, though I suppose it does happen.)
Calories aren't the only thing that matter. The chicken on that salad has lots of sodium (depending upon which salad you're talking about, the salad+chicken can have up to 960mg.) The salad dressing has another 700mg or so. That's per serving--I don't know how many servings you get per order.
I can't figure out which salad you're talking about, anyway. Every non-ceasar salad with chicken has at least 260 calories per serving, plus another 40 from the dressing (again, always assuming 1 serving of each). Maybe you didn't include the dressing when you were reading on the salad's nutritional information?
It's impossible to say without more information on this person's build, but the BMI really is outdated and using it as an indicator of health fails to consider many factors. You can logically deduce this just by looking at what the BMI is--it's weight divided by (height)^2.
Muscle is more dense than fat. Someone who is 6 feet tall with a lot of fat could have the same BMI as someone who is 6 feet tall, lean, and muscular. No one would accuse the latter of being out of shape--except for someone only using BMI as their measure.
Maybe the child you were referring to was actually fat. Maybe not. Childhood obesity is definitely increasing, but why assume the worst in a particular case without a lot of actual facts?
My apologies to Slashdot in general for the off-topic post that follows--I'm just answering the question.
I was at lunch, checked my mail on my phone, and opened the link in Pocket Internet Explorer. I wasn't logged in there, and it seems to provide the old interface to that browser. The old interface asks for username, password, and captcha. If you omit the username and password, you post anonymously.
I honestly have no idea whether or not omitting the captcha is allowed if you include a username and password. I included the captcha because the connection on my phone is slow enough that I didn't want to risk it coming back demanding it.
Looks like with the new interface, you type in your reply, click Preview, and then it presents a captcha before you can Submit. It never asks for login credentials (at least, not without requiring you to navigate away from your reply), which I think is a bit of a regression. 99% of the time, though, I'm logged in (and maybe that's the case for most people who actively post.)
Luckily, the RIAA do not get to determine Fair Use.
But this nation's CD rippers are in good company. Bush admitted to having The Beatles on his iPod long before they were available as a digital download.
Depriving everyone of wifi? They're talking about public buildings. They're talking about places where it's probably not a burden to just run some damned lines.
At least, that's my assumption. The article doesn't make it clear, but the word "public" has two meanings: one means buildings run by the government, and one means buildings which are open to anyone (the difference between the Department of Public Safety office and the grocery store.)
My assumption on the article's meaning is based upon the fact that they're targeting the city. "The city" would not be infringing on their rights if the local grocer had wifi.
Interestingly enough, here's some more correlation.
Cancer rates are sky rocketing. Posts on Slashdot are increasing. Software and media piracy are skyrocketing. People are living longer. More and more people who don't understand causation and correlation post stupid things on web forums.
We should ban all of these things to prevent cancer!
The patent office no longer reads for content. They get so many patent applications per year that they just grant them all and let the courts work it out.
That's the difference between the city doing something that sparks an allergic reaction and a private individual doing the same. I can choose to avoid going near houses which have allergen-flowering plants. I can't avoid going to city hall if I need to do something there. I have to renew my license periodically (and only every other year can you do it online, here), for example.
Well, yeah. I mean, it's at least in line with other ADA requirements. When I go to the grocery store, I almost always see empty handicapped spaces. They're unused a huge percentage of the time--and they could be used for other people (it's particularly bad when there is no other parking.)
I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that it's consistent with other laws.
use microwave ovens? They operate on the same band of frequencies, along with many other consumer devices. The ovens are shielded pretty well, but nothing is perfect. The radiation leakage is measurable and can overload a close by WiFi receiver. Does it matter? The difference between always-on wifi and on-for-3-minutes microwaves is pretty big, I'd say.
If I put myself through excruciating pain in order to cook my meals, that's one thing. That's my choice. I'm allergic to dogs, but I still pet them. But if the city says that I have to go through excruciating pain in order to renew my driver's licen... oh, wait.
Your explanation isn't good for the people with bleeding hearts (and hey, I'm one of those.) Some people just think that everyone ought to be paid a living wage, and that if you can't get paid a living wage, you should be on welfare. It's a misapplication of a perfectly valid opinion on how society "should be."
I don't really have a problem with the idea of socialism--we just haven't seen a working implementation of it. Minimum wage looks like it works at first glance, so it's an easy way for liberals to get votes. "I voted for the minimum wage increase," sounds like "I support the poor!" but it really means, "I support increasing inflation and unemployment!" Of course, if they actually said the latter, they'd never get voted into office again.
I don't have to accept the GPL in order to use Linux legally. I do have to accept whatever Microsoft's EULA of the day is in order to use Windows legally. GPL software is generally unlicensed for use.
I think that the problem is that lots of people believe that "unlicensed" somehow means that you're running afoul of the law. It's bad PR to call Ubuntu "unlicensed", but that doesn't mean that it's technically inaccurate. License-free would probably be a better term.
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I wonder if this law has ever been challenged as a first amendment violation.
I'm surprised by the restrictions, but what seems most important at this point is the following: These federal and D.C. employees may not-
# engage in political activity while:
* on duty
* in a government office
* wearing an official uniform
* using a government vehicle This is very specifically about "goofing off" by engaging in political activity while on duty and in a government office, not about federal employees goofing off in general.
They suspended this guy for 6 months without pay. He's going to be looking for another job, and the only kind of job he's going to be able to find (paying anything close to what he was making before) will expect him to be there for more than the term of his suspension. Suspending him like this is just a way of firing him without having to deal with unemployment--you don't get unemployment if you quit, even if you quit because you were suspended without pay.
There have been studies that showed employees as being more productive when they take several short breaks throughout the day. Unfortunately, many managers still don't believe this, and will insist that workers constantly work on their projects, even at the expense of productivity.
I guess it makes sense in a twisted kind of way. When people are paid for their hours, the part of you that wants to get what you pay for would insist on those people working those hours, not "slacking off." Then again, it generally makes more sense to pay people for the task that they're doing. If they can get the task done quickly, more power to them.
As someone else pointed out, the largest number is 3.
Edit page -> Insert link to old page and hit Save -> View this page.
"Eating a bullet" is a phrase used to mean that a person was shot in the head with the gun barrel having been placed in the mouth before firing. It's almost always a euphemism for suicide.
I said non-caesar, as I didn't expect it to be one of those (one rarely pairs a caesar salad with vinaigrette dressing, though I suppose it does happen.)
It's better than eating a bullet, too. That doesn't make it good for you.
Calories aren't the only thing that matter. The chicken on that salad has lots of sodium (depending upon which salad you're talking about, the salad+chicken can have up to 960mg.) The salad dressing has another 700mg or so. That's per serving--I don't know how many servings you get per order.
I can't figure out which salad you're talking about, anyway. Every non-ceasar salad with chicken has at least 260 calories per serving, plus another 40 from the dressing (again, always assuming 1 serving of each). Maybe you didn't include the dressing when you were reading on the salad's nutritional information?
Citation:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html
The salads may taste good, but that doesn't mean that they're good for you.
It's impossible to say without more information on this person's build, but the BMI really is outdated and using it as an indicator of health fails to consider many factors. You can logically deduce this just by looking at what the BMI is--it's weight divided by (height)^2.
Muscle is more dense than fat. Someone who is 6 feet tall with a lot of fat could have the same BMI as someone who is 6 feet tall, lean, and muscular. No one would accuse the latter of being out of shape--except for someone only using BMI as their measure.
Maybe the child you were referring to was actually fat. Maybe not. Childhood obesity is definitely increasing, but why assume the worst in a particular case without a lot of actual facts?
My apologies to Slashdot in general for the off-topic post that follows--I'm just answering the question.
I was at lunch, checked my mail on my phone, and opened the link in Pocket Internet Explorer. I wasn't logged in there, and it seems to provide the old interface to that browser. The old interface asks for username, password, and captcha. If you omit the username and password, you post anonymously.
I honestly have no idea whether or not omitting the captcha is allowed if you include a username and password. I included the captcha because the connection on my phone is slow enough that I didn't want to risk it coming back demanding it.
Looks like with the new interface, you type in your reply, click Preview, and then it presents a captcha before you can Submit. It never asks for login credentials (at least, not without requiring you to navigate away from your reply), which I think is a bit of a regression. 99% of the time, though, I'm logged in (and maybe that's the case for most people who actively post.)
Luckily, the RIAA do not get to determine Fair Use.
But this nation's CD rippers are in good company. Bush admitted to having The Beatles on his iPod long before they were available as a digital download.
My captcha was nicely relevant: judicial
The mp3s ripped from my CDs don't have a purchase date.
s/public/government/ in my second sentence.
Depriving everyone of wifi? They're talking about public buildings. They're talking about places where it's probably not a burden to just run some damned lines.
At least, that's my assumption. The article doesn't make it clear, but the word "public" has two meanings: one means buildings run by the government, and one means buildings which are open to anyone (the difference between the Department of Public Safety office and the grocery store.)
My assumption on the article's meaning is based upon the fact that they're targeting the city. "The city" would not be infringing on their rights if the local grocer had wifi.
Interestingly enough, here's some more correlation.
Cancer rates are sky rocketing.
Posts on Slashdot are increasing.
Software and media piracy are skyrocketing.
People are living longer.
More and more people who don't understand causation and correlation post stupid things on web forums.
We should ban all of these things to prevent cancer!
The patent office no longer reads for content. They get so many patent applications per year that they just grant them all and let the courts work it out.
It's an unfortunate watering down of the language. They meant sensitivity, not allergy.
That's the difference between the city doing something that sparks an allergic reaction and a private individual doing the same. I can choose to avoid going near houses which have allergen-flowering plants. I can't avoid going to city hall if I need to do something there. I have to renew my license periodically (and only every other year can you do it online, here), for example.
Well, yeah. I mean, it's at least in line with other ADA requirements. When I go to the grocery store, I almost always see empty handicapped spaces. They're unused a huge percentage of the time--and they could be used for other people (it's particularly bad when there is no other parking.)
I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that it's consistent with other laws.
If I put myself through excruciating pain in order to cook my meals, that's one thing. That's my choice. I'm allergic to dogs, but I still pet them. But if the city says that I have to go through excruciating pain in order to renew my driver's licen... oh, wait.
Your explanation isn't good for the people with bleeding hearts (and hey, I'm one of those.) Some people just think that everyone ought to be paid a living wage, and that if you can't get paid a living wage, you should be on welfare. It's a misapplication of a perfectly valid opinion on how society "should be."
I don't really have a problem with the idea of socialism--we just haven't seen a working implementation of it. Minimum wage looks like it works at first glance, so it's an easy way for liberals to get votes. "I voted for the minimum wage increase," sounds like "I support the poor!" but it really means, "I support increasing inflation and unemployment!" Of course, if they actually said the latter, they'd never get voted into office again.
Others have pointed out the flaw.
I don't have to accept the GPL in order to use Linux legally. I do have to accept whatever Microsoft's EULA of the day is in order to use Windows legally. GPL software is generally unlicensed for use.
I think that the problem is that lots of people believe that "unlicensed" somehow means that you're running afoul of the law. It's bad PR to call Ubuntu "unlicensed", but that doesn't mean that it's technically inaccurate. License-free would probably be a better term.