The problem with that is all the Super Atomic Egotists who think everyone can be in the top 5%, and actively work against unions because "they'll hold me back."
It's all good and well to give executives incentives that are linked to corporate performance, but it pisses me off to no end when they get those bonuses ANYWAY even when they haven't met their targets.
Case in point: airlines and Detroit. The corporate boards ward themselves and the top executives top pay, regardless of their performance.
I see this complaint a lot, and just uttering it shows how uneducated in economics you are.
And your comment shows what an ass you are. If you are on call, you are working, and deserve to be compensated for that. Many employers expect their workers to be on call 24/7, yet are only compensated for the 40 hours a week (or more) that they already put in.
Your example is one of a regular boom/bust. IT workers not only had to grapple with the dotcom crash, they also face offshoring and the H1-B visa program, two things your father did not have to deal with. In fact, some companies have continued to use the H1-B visa program, despite offshoring jobs and laying off thousands of workers. Another limit on job mobility is the sky high cost of health care - not so bad when you're a healthy 20 something, but it's a different story if you develop a disability or have a family.
Seems to me that defense is one of the top priorities, according to the constitution.
You don't need to outspend every other nation in the world, combined, when you are surrounded by two friendly nations and the world's largest oceans.
I didn't see anything about education in that document so that is supposed to be left up to the states.
The Constitution grants the authority to Congress to promote the general welfare and make laws to that effect, and your general welfare is going to be pretty piss poor without education.
You make it sound so easy. Standing up for your rights probably will mean you wont make it on the plane, and you are out several hundred dollars on a ticket you can resell. Especially when flying is a necessary part of your job.
Now even if your figures are correct, which I tend to doubt but lets say they are correct for the sake of argument, I see a minority group. The US population is over 300mil. That makes the number of Atheists at most not even 10% of the US population.
Oh, don't go changing the subject now. The issue is not the number of atheists - I am perfectly aware there are several times more Christians in the United States than atheists. The issue is the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity.
As for Lewis being from Ireland, what is your point with that statement exactly?
That 50% of your examples aren't from the U.S., and can't figure into the percentage for this country.
As for your bet. Give me something better than that to work with, that is an unfounded statement until you can give me some reference and then we can work from there.
I think it's fairly easy - name more atheists who converted to Christianity. If it happens "often" as you suggest, there surely must be some articles on the subject, maybe some organizations for such individuals, guestimations on the number of converts, etc.
Okay, so in my original reply, the parent (Planesdragon) asked for examples, and I listed some, and you're busting my balls because it's anecdotal evidence?
No, you deserve to be busted for copying the "women in refrigerators" argument verbatim instead of coming up with your own examples. Hint: it was called Women In Refrigerators for the woman that was stuffed in a refrigerator.
And there's the flipside to her feminist rant: the reason women are hurt and put in danger is because female life is more valued than male life. Thus, when they are threatened, it makes for more tension. Watch any horror movie, a woman is likely to be the last survivor if not one of the last survivors. Women and children first, and all that.
When Black Canary was beaten to a pulp in the Longbow Hunters, it lead not to her coming back even stronger and helping to further define her character, but to Green Arrow coming in and killing the perpetrators, thus showing more about his character. If Black Canary had come back from the beating like Batman did, we wouldn't be talking about it. But instead of using it to further her character, it happened to further the male character.
But Black Canary did come back like Batman did. Savant broke both her legs and chained her to a rotten mattress to user her as leverage against Oracle (Barbra Gordon). After she heals and gets more training, she challenges him to a fight and wins.
Scarlet Witch (children 'die'/vanish/are lost because they are figments of her imagination)
That's because some jackass writer or editor at Marvel decided she didn't want her to have kids, so they made them to be her imaginary friends. Marvel likes to periodically have an orgasmic shitstorm of bad writing. Wanda's kids are one example. Other's are brining back Norman Osbourne, the one major villain to actually stay dead, Onslaught, dragging out the Spider Clone story, and having Wanda reduce Earth's mutant population from millions to a few hundred.
And every time I think they've hit rock bottom, they find a new way to prove me wrong. Not only did they bring back Norman Osbourne, but now supposedly he had an affair with Gwen Stacey...and knocked her up...and she had kids. I shit you not.
Death in comics has become far too unpermanent. Just on the DC Comics side, Superman, Wonder Woman (Diana), Wonder Woman (Hyppolyta) Green Arrow (Oliver Queen), and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) have all died and returned to life. Death used to be a big deal, now its more like giving the character a pause.
We're used to people dying and coming back, especially villains. The one that pissed me off though was when Marvel brought back Norman Osbourne, when he was the one major bad guy to have actually stayed dead. And it's not just that they brought him back, but in a gloriously shitty storyline that had Norman "hiding out in Europe for five years" to explain why he didn't come back sooner.
Oh, I wouldn't deprive you of the pleasure of proving your points. Go ahead and list every atheist you can find that has converted to Christianity. The problem for you is that there are 20 to 30 million atheists in the U.S. - what is your percentage of converts going to be? And that's just in the states, not the rest of the world...and Lewis was from Ireland.
And as long as we're throwing stuff out, I bet the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity is insignificant to the number of people who started off as Christians only to become atheists.
Considering how many conservatives are literally aghast at Huck's success so far, I still think he's toast come Super Tuesday.
It's delightful to see this happen on the Republican side - usually its the Democratic establishment telling their base to shut the fuck up and vote, cuz you don't want a repeat of Nader in 2000, now do you?
The Republican establishment is freaking out because some uppity theocon with a populist message is not making a token run for the presidency - he has a good chance of getting the nomination. Same thing happened to Dean in 2004 - the Dem establishment hated him. The problem with taking out Huckabee is that I think the anti-Huck vote will be split between McCain and Romney.
My ideal situation would be Edwards vs Huckabee with Bloomberg running on a Unity 08 ticket. The press would be forced to talk about economics from the viewpoint of the middle class for once, and with the theocons voting for Huck and the corporatecons voting for Bloomberg, the establishment Dems would be given the finger, and the God-gun nut-free market jihad would finally be sundered.
Edwards doesn't look likely at this point because he *really* needed to win Iowa. The media has been entirely focused on Hillary vs Obama on the Democratic side, and Edwards doesn't have the warchests his two opponents do. Huckabee is surging but the GOP establishment hates his guts and will now do their best to destroy him. And there's a lot to work with - his "wedding registry" when he left office in Arkansas, his penchant for pardoning violent criminals based on the say so of his pastor buddies, for example.
Also, his explanation on the fair tax system furthered my desire to lean in that direction.
We already have a fair tax: the income tax. The "fair tax" advocated by Huckabee would be more appropriately called the "fuck the middle class tax". Consumption taxes are regressive taxes - they fall hardest on the middle and lower classes as they necessarily speed a higher percentage of their income on necessary items like shelter, food, and transportation. As Huck explains, the poor would be exempt, but the rich would be able to kiss income, capital gains and estate taxes goodbye. This is grotesquely unfair - if you want a preview of what this would be like, billionaire hedge fund managers only pay a 15% capital gains tax - half that of the janitors that clean their bathrooms.
Or, put it another way, it would be a continuation of the rising income disparity that started with Reagan. If the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO salaries, it would be over $50 an hour today.
The guy is toast. He's an incompetent, authoritarian dick who only got as far as he did because the media fell in love with "America's Mayor." His recent pandering to the contrary (that he would nominate judges like Alito or Scalia), his record of support for gun control, abortion and gay rights puts him at odds with much of the wingnut base. And there are the slight issues of his spending tens of thousands of dollars having the NYPD act as chauffeurs for his his mistress, putting an executive fuck pad into the emergency management headquarters, putting said headquarters in the complex that terrorists had already attacked before because he wanted them within walking distance of the mayor's office, failing to upgrade the radios for the cities fire department which got a whole lot of firefighters killed, and so on.
Rudy was always a paper tiger. The real nightmare scenario for the Dems is Hillary vs Huckabee. Huckabee would have the theocon base who would be ecstatic to have one of their own in the Oval Office as opposed to a panderer, and his working class populism would resonate with a middle class that has seen CEO salaries double every year couple years while their own jobs stagnate or are shipped off overseas. Economically, Hillary would be left as the coporate Democratic candidate versus the populist Republican who's shown humility on foreign policy - about the only scenario where the Dem candidate can lose this year.
Slashdot Mirror
The labor market is a free market.
Not when companies can bring in H1-B visa workers at the same time it's firing thousands of Americans, it's not.
The problem with that is all the Super Atomic Egotists who think everyone can be in the top 5%, and actively work against unions because "they'll hold me back."
It's all good and well to give executives incentives that are linked to corporate performance, but it pisses me off to no end when they get those bonuses ANYWAY even when they haven't met their targets.
Case in point: airlines and Detroit. The corporate boards ward themselves and the top executives top pay, regardless of their performance.
I see this complaint a lot, and just uttering it shows how uneducated in economics you are.
And your comment shows what an ass you are. If you are on call, you are working, and deserve to be compensated for that. Many employers expect their workers to be on call 24/7, yet are only compensated for the 40 hours a week (or more) that they already put in.
If an employer is complaining about turnover, it means their working conditions are crap, or they aren't offering enough compensation, or both.
Your example is one of a regular boom/bust. IT workers not only had to grapple with the dotcom crash, they also face offshoring and the H1-B visa program, two things your father did not have to deal with. In fact, some companies have continued to use the H1-B visa program, despite offshoring jobs and laying off thousands of workers. Another limit on job mobility is the sky high cost of health care - not so bad when you're a healthy 20 something, but it's a different story if you develop a disability or have a family.
...for Guiliani's speech generator.
Seems to me that defense is one of the top priorities, according to the constitution.
You don't need to outspend every other nation in the world, combined, when you are surrounded by two friendly nations and the world's largest oceans.
I didn't see anything about education in that document so that is supposed to be left up to the states.
The Constitution grants the authority to Congress to promote the general welfare and make laws to that effect, and your general welfare is going to be pretty piss poor without education.
Bush will be in office until the end of next January, unless Congress pulls hits head out and impeaches his ass.
You make it sound so easy. Standing up for your rights probably will mean you wont make it on the plane, and you are out several hundred dollars on a ticket you can resell. Especially when flying is a necessary part of your job.
Uh huh. I only switched from 2k to XP last fall (Adobe CS3 requires XP) and never had a problem with any of my iPods.
Now even if your figures are correct, which I tend to doubt but lets say they are correct for the sake of argument, I see a minority group. The US population is over 300mil. That makes the number of Atheists at most not even 10% of the US population.
Oh, don't go changing the subject now. The issue is not the number of atheists - I am perfectly aware there are several times more Christians in the United States than atheists. The issue is the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity.
As for Lewis being from Ireland, what is your point with that statement exactly?
That 50% of your examples aren't from the U.S., and can't figure into the percentage for this country.
As for your bet. Give me something better than that to work with, that is an unfounded statement until you can give me some reference and then we can work from there.
I think it's fairly easy - name more atheists who converted to Christianity. If it happens "often" as you suggest, there surely must be some articles on the subject, maybe some organizations for such individuals, guestimations on the number of converts, etc.
Okay, so in my original reply, the parent (Planesdragon) asked for examples, and I listed some, and you're busting my balls because it's anecdotal evidence?
No, you deserve to be busted for copying the "women in refrigerators" argument verbatim instead of coming up with your own examples. Hint: it was called Women In Refrigerators for the woman that was stuffed in a refrigerator.
And there's the flipside to her feminist rant: the reason women are hurt and put in danger is because female life is more valued than male life. Thus, when they are threatened, it makes for more tension. Watch any horror movie, a woman is likely to be the last survivor if not one of the last survivors. Women and children first, and all that.
When Black Canary was beaten to a pulp in the Longbow Hunters, it lead not to her coming back even stronger and helping to further define her character, but to Green Arrow coming in and killing the perpetrators, thus showing more about his character. If Black Canary had come back from the beating like Batman did, we wouldn't be talking about it. But instead of using it to further her character, it happened to further the male character.
But Black Canary did come back like Batman did. Savant broke both her legs and chained her to a rotten mattress to user her as leverage against Oracle (Barbra Gordon). After she heals and gets more training, she challenges him to a fight and wins.
Scarlet Witch (children 'die'/vanish/are lost because they are figments of her imagination)
That's because some jackass writer or editor at Marvel decided she didn't want her to have kids, so they made them to be her imaginary friends. Marvel likes to periodically have an orgasmic shitstorm of bad writing. Wanda's kids are one example. Other's are brining back Norman Osbourne, the one major villain to actually stay dead, Onslaught, dragging out the Spider Clone story, and having Wanda reduce Earth's mutant population from millions to a few hundred.
And every time I think they've hit rock bottom, they find a new way to prove me wrong. Not only did they bring back Norman Osbourne, but now supposedly he had an affair with Gwen Stacey...and knocked her up...and she had kids. I shit you not.
Death in comics has become far too unpermanent. Just on the DC Comics side, Superman, Wonder Woman (Diana), Wonder Woman (Hyppolyta) Green Arrow (Oliver Queen), and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) have all died and returned to life. Death used to be a big deal, now its more like giving the character a pause.
We're used to people dying and coming back, especially villains. The one that pissed me off though was when Marvel brought back Norman Osbourne, when he was the one major bad guy to have actually stayed dead. And it's not just that they brought him back, but in a gloriously shitty storyline that had Norman "hiding out in Europe for five years" to explain why he didn't come back sooner.
And if it's on the Internet, it must be true!
And as long as we're throwing stuff out, I bet the number of atheists who have converted to Christianity is insignificant to the number of people who started off as Christians only to become atheists.
It only took 37 minutes for one to hop in and respond your post with a pithy comment. I left him one in kind. :)
Socialism - failure to recognize the power of individualism, subversion of an individual to the collective.
Society is made up of individuals - by ignoring society, Libertarianism ignores the individual.
Considering how many conservatives are literally aghast at Huck's success so far, I still think he's toast come Super Tuesday.
It's delightful to see this happen on the Republican side - usually its the Democratic establishment telling their base to shut the fuck up and vote, cuz you don't want a repeat of Nader in 2000, now do you?
The Republican establishment is freaking out because some uppity theocon with a populist message is not making a token run for the presidency - he has a good chance of getting the nomination. Same thing happened to Dean in 2004 - the Dem establishment hated him. The problem with taking out Huckabee is that I think the anti-Huck vote will be split between McCain and Romney.
My ideal situation would be Edwards vs Huckabee with Bloomberg running on a Unity 08 ticket. The press would be forced to talk about economics from the viewpoint of the middle class for once, and with the theocons voting for Huck and the corporatecons voting for Bloomberg, the establishment Dems would be given the finger, and the God-gun nut-free market jihad would finally be sundered.
Edwards doesn't look likely at this point because he *really* needed to win Iowa. The media has been entirely focused on Hillary vs Obama on the Democratic side, and Edwards doesn't have the warchests his two opponents do. Huckabee is surging but the GOP establishment hates his guts and will now do their best to destroy him. And there's a lot to work with - his "wedding registry" when he left office in Arkansas, his penchant for pardoning violent criminals based on the say so of his pastor buddies, for example.
Catch much flack for the sig? I think the self-centeredness exceeds the selfishness, with a side helping of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Two examples doesn't equate to "often".
Also, his explanation on the fair tax system furthered my desire to lean in that direction.
We already have a fair tax: the income tax. The "fair tax" advocated by Huckabee would be more appropriately called the "fuck the middle class tax". Consumption taxes are regressive taxes - they fall hardest on the middle and lower classes as they necessarily speed a higher percentage of their income on necessary items like shelter, food, and transportation. As Huck explains, the poor would be exempt, but the rich would be able to kiss income, capital gains and estate taxes goodbye. This is grotesquely unfair - if you want a preview of what this would be like, billionaire hedge fund managers only pay a 15% capital gains tax - half that of the janitors that clean their bathrooms.
Or, put it another way, it would be a continuation of the rising income disparity that started with Reagan. If the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO salaries, it would be over $50 an hour today.
The guy is toast. He's an incompetent, authoritarian dick who only got as far as he did because the media fell in love with "America's Mayor." His recent pandering to the contrary (that he would nominate judges like Alito or Scalia), his record of support for gun control, abortion and gay rights puts him at odds with much of the wingnut base. And there are the slight issues of his spending tens of thousands of dollars having the NYPD act as chauffeurs for his his mistress, putting an executive fuck pad into the emergency management headquarters, putting said headquarters in the complex that terrorists had already attacked before because he wanted them within walking distance of the mayor's office, failing to upgrade the radios for the cities fire department which got a whole lot of firefighters killed, and so on.
Rudy was always a paper tiger. The real nightmare scenario for the Dems is Hillary vs Huckabee. Huckabee would have the theocon base who would be ecstatic to have one of their own in the Oval Office as opposed to a panderer, and his working class populism would resonate with a middle class that has seen CEO salaries double every year couple years while their own jobs stagnate or are shipped off overseas. Economically, Hillary would be left as the coporate Democratic candidate versus the populist Republican who's shown humility on foreign policy - about the only scenario where the Dem candidate can lose this year.