To 99% of Americans, embryonic stem cell = stem cell. The key words "stem cells" is all that is latched on to, regardless of political or religious affiliation.
And before you come back and say that everyone you personally know do know the difference between the two - good for you for having scientifically literate companions. But keep in mind that this is a country where 37% of the population couldn't locate their own country on a map - yet you expect a vast majority of the electorate to know the difference between types of stem cells?
I guess racism doesn't exist because you don't see it. Great. I'll let my white female friend and her black husband know. I'm sure they'll be comforted by your observations when they're bombarded by daily disgusted looks and hushed comments from passerbys.
Just because we're better than many places in regards to treatment of ethnic minorities doesn't mean racial-related matters are necessarily peachy in the U.S.. Trotting out phrases like the "Great Melting Pot" shows that you may not be really qualified in any way to speak on the subject of racial tensions and problems. Next, you'll probably tell me that everything's all kumbaya and hugs-n-kisses in the "post-Obama/post-racial" America. It's an absolute human trait to be racist. Every person judges based on visual cues - and it's puzzling that you think there's some American exceptionalism in this regard. Are Americans exempt from following basic human instincts?
Yes, as a whole I wholeheartedly agree with you that Americans in general are likely to be more accepting of people of different backgrounds - but it's not as though we should deserve an award for this over other nations - we're a nation built and peopled by immigrants so we're supposed to have a headstart in stuff like this. But when it comes to comparisons with other countries, it's not as black and white as you claim. I've traveled throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Northern Africa for both business and pleasure and have never been on the receiving end of overt mistreatment in restaurants or pubs, whether they're tourist haunts or neighborhood hang-outs for locals. And I'm a very dark-skinned Asian man. A lot of healthy curiosity from the locals, sure, but never hostility. In places like Italy and Spain, some will come right out and bitch about their problems with illegal migrants from Asia (I guess they think I would have a unique perspective or interest about the matter) but the conversation almost never veers off to a dark end. That's not to say what you mention do not happen, but they certainly don't happen as a rule of thumb. I've racked up quite the number of miles traveling and have been to literally thousands of eateries around the world and have been spared "the treatment". If one find oneself getting constantly kicked out of local establishments in foreign countries, perhaps it's time to try reexamining one's personal behavior as a start.
In my experience, having lived both overseas and in the U.S. (in the Pacific NW and in the South), it's more likely that Americans are just less vocal about race in everyday conversation. Fear of lawsuits and/or losing one's job has made it this way. Sure, people are not so racially confrontational anymore at first glance. But they're just more quiet and hidden about it all. I've been in bars with a group of Southerners, and they often use codewords like "Democrats" to refer to a group of black people sitting at a nearby table - as in "check out that loud table of Democrats over there...". And that's with just casual coworkers. One can imagine what they talk about with close family and acquaintances.
People are people, and will resort to tribalism wherever you go. But there's nothing like the fear of HR canning you for making inappropriate comments to silence even the most fervent racists (and sexists) in our midst. That kind of corporate culture doesn't exist as pervasively everywhere as it does in N America, hence the superficial difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world in this regard.
As an Asian person who went to college within the last 15 years - let me be the first to tell you that being Asian is actually a disadvantage for the purposes of college admissions when it comes to preferential treatment policies when compared to all other ethnic groups including whites.
The large number of Asian applicants are already playing some kind of musical instrument, taking college prep courses, have high scholastic numbers, etc. Asians applying to Ivies actually have to step up quite a bit - volunteer to build a village full of houses in Mozambique, play something obscure like a xylophone, start a charity foundation, etc. In the way that some schools are set up (with unofficial quotas for each group?), Asians have to compete with a large group of high-performing students.
So if this Asian woman got a full ride, either because of her efforts in finding obscure scholarships/grants and/or because of her family's financial situation, she most likely got it fair and square. I've known several people like that - who spend week after week hunting for scholarships that are offered by various organizations - it's amazing how many of them end up being the only applicant. Seems like there's rather a lot of laziness out there, despite the poor economy.
The French are more productive than both Sweden and Germany, and is only surpassed by the U.S. And that's with working 35 hours a week and taking the entire August off every year.
That's true. If you look at the "requirements" for stewardesses (yes - stewardesses) for airlines outside of America - particularly in Asia, they're more strict than the most high-profile beauty pageants.
This reminds me of how they "integrated" schools in Texas - black and white students under the same roof, but they march to separate classrooms after they get off the school bus. They're technically still following the letter of the law.
At my university, the dorms were designed by the same company that designed prisons. And some of the buildings erected in the 60s were designed with architecture specifically to aid police in the event of a mass riot.
Your taxes pay for diplomatic/consular protection when your offshore paradise rises up in revolution and you have to get the eff out of Dodge. Or the corporate laws which protect your business assets and intellectual properties in court.
What's a US or EU passport going in the global black market these days? There's a definite tangible value to citizenship.
I find it very interesting that my federal income tax in the U.S. is just a tad higher (14%) than what I would pay in Hong Kong (13%) - granted I'm not taking any mortgage interest deductions in Hong Kong (but I am in the U.S.). I've always been under the assumption that Hong Kong would have much lower taxes.
And when I lived there a long time ago, it was a simple flat tax and everyone just got mailed an invoice once a year.
Another thing that bothered me was that they (everyone from the lowly engineer to the hiring manager to the HR guy) could never tell me what the position was about. At least probably not until you get past the all-day on-site interview. For many people, it's quite a time and financial commitment (precious, precious PTO) to do something like this without knowing what you're potentially signing up for.
But in any case I don't vibe well with these types of high-pressure, code-on-the-spot type of interviews. So either I royally flunk them or they turn out in the end to be jobs I don't want to do.
IMO, technical interviews with only a simple C string manipulation "what's wrong with this function?" question is usually enough. Anything further than that (barring any unique technical needs of the position) are just as good as asking the candidate to name the members of the Wu Tang Clan in reverse alphabetical order.
That's why centrally-planned economies had black markets. I didn't make any claims that any system would be a 100% replacement of the other - just that modern IT eliminates a significant percentage of inefficiencies in a centrally-planned economy. The question is whether the amount of inefficiency is anywhere close to the inefficiencies of a "free"-market economy.
My coworker and I had this convo a few weeks back. Of course, we've witnessed the demise of centrally-planned economies in the last 100 years, as they're unable to determine the optimal setup of manufacture and distribution of goods and services, resulting in shortages or overproduction. However, does the proliferation of information technology change this?
In many industries, the only remaining competitive advantage is to optimize process through the use of IT, as opposed to making a product better or cheaper (a toaster will be $X +/- a few dollars no matter which big box store you go to). Walmart competes with Target not by having lower prices, but by streamlining shipping and ordering to minimize wastage - to use computers to determine the optimum number of Fram oil filters that need to be on the shelf at store #2 in Boise, for example. In fact, one could say that something like Walmart could very well represent a microcosm of the economy of a country whose economy is centrally-planned, using massive servers to calculate the exact amount of demand for any product at any given time.
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Oh egg on my face. The link is fake. :-)
The actual figure is "only" 6%. Not 37%.
To 99% of Americans, embryonic stem cell = stem cell. The key words "stem cells" is all that is latched on to, regardless of political or religious affiliation. And before you come back and say that everyone you personally know do know the difference between the two - good for you for having scientifically literate companions. But keep in mind that this is a country where 37% of the population couldn't locate their own country on a map - yet you expect a vast majority of the electorate to know the difference between types of stem cells?
HP laser printers are favorites on ebay precisely because of their high quality.
HP corporate PCs (the Kayak line? back in the Pentium II days) were built like tanks.
And wasn't a HP 48G found intact and working in the World Trade Center rubble? (this may be urban legend...)
I guess racism doesn't exist because you don't see it. Great. I'll let my white female friend and her black husband know. I'm sure they'll be comforted by your observations when they're bombarded by daily disgusted looks and hushed comments from passerbys.
Just because we're better than many places in regards to treatment of ethnic minorities doesn't mean racial-related matters are necessarily peachy in the U.S.. Trotting out phrases like the "Great Melting Pot" shows that you may not be really qualified in any way to speak on the subject of racial tensions and problems. Next, you'll probably tell me that everything's all kumbaya and hugs-n-kisses in the "post-Obama/post-racial" America. It's an absolute human trait to be racist. Every person judges based on visual cues - and it's puzzling that you think there's some American exceptionalism in this regard. Are Americans exempt from following basic human instincts?
Yes, as a whole I wholeheartedly agree with you that Americans in general are likely to be more accepting of people of different backgrounds - but it's not as though we should deserve an award for this over other nations - we're a nation built and peopled by immigrants so we're supposed to have a headstart in stuff like this. But when it comes to comparisons with other countries, it's not as black and white as you claim. I've traveled throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Northern Africa for both business and pleasure and have never been on the receiving end of overt mistreatment in restaurants or pubs, whether they're tourist haunts or neighborhood hang-outs for locals. And I'm a very dark-skinned Asian man. A lot of healthy curiosity from the locals, sure, but never hostility. In places like Italy and Spain, some will come right out and bitch about their problems with illegal migrants from Asia (I guess they think I would have a unique perspective or interest about the matter) but the conversation almost never veers off to a dark end. That's not to say what you mention do not happen, but they certainly don't happen as a rule of thumb. I've racked up quite the number of miles traveling and have been to literally thousands of eateries around the world and have been spared "the treatment". If one find oneself getting constantly kicked out of local establishments in foreign countries, perhaps it's time to try reexamining one's personal behavior as a start.
In my experience, having lived both overseas and in the U.S. (in the Pacific NW and in the South), it's more likely that Americans are just less vocal about race in everyday conversation. Fear of lawsuits and/or losing one's job has made it this way. Sure, people are not so racially confrontational anymore at first glance. But they're just more quiet and hidden about it all. I've been in bars with a group of Southerners, and they often use codewords like "Democrats" to refer to a group of black people sitting at a nearby table - as in "check out that loud table of Democrats over there...". And that's with just casual coworkers. One can imagine what they talk about with close family and acquaintances.
People are people, and will resort to tribalism wherever you go. But there's nothing like the fear of HR canning you for making inappropriate comments to silence even the most fervent racists (and sexists) in our midst. That kind of corporate culture doesn't exist as pervasively everywhere as it does in N America, hence the superficial difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world in this regard.
As an Asian person who went to college within the last 15 years - let me be the first to tell you that being Asian is actually a disadvantage for the purposes of college admissions when it comes to preferential treatment policies when compared to all other ethnic groups including whites.
The large number of Asian applicants are already playing some kind of musical instrument, taking college prep courses, have high scholastic numbers, etc. Asians applying to Ivies actually have to step up quite a bit - volunteer to build a village full of houses in Mozambique, play something obscure like a xylophone, start a charity foundation, etc. In the way that some schools are set up (with unofficial quotas for each group?), Asians have to compete with a large group of high-performing students.
So if this Asian woman got a full ride, either because of her efforts in finding obscure scholarships/grants and/or because of her family's financial situation, she most likely got it fair and square. I've known several people like that - who spend week after week hunting for scholarships that are offered by various organizations - it's amazing how many of them end up being the only applicant. Seems like there's rather a lot of laziness out there, despite the poor economy.
Looks nice on paper, except:
- Benefits are not indexed to inflation. Think about how the initially slightly higher monthly payouts will look 20 years afterwards.
- No spousal benefits.
- Looks like there's some percentage of return that they guarantee. Sounds like SS to me, except on a much smaller scale.
Sounds like one of those things in life that sounds good, but in the end is just as good as most other things already out there, at best.
The French are more productive than both Sweden and Germany, and is only surpassed by the U.S. And that's with working 35 hours a week and taking the entire August off every year.
Because people who can't really stand spicy but think they can buy these. And they also like to spout off on yelp and file lawsuits.
That's true. If you look at the "requirements" for stewardesses (yes - stewardesses) for airlines outside of America - particularly in Asia, they're more strict than the most high-profile beauty pageants.
I'm on a T-Mobile family plan with a Droid on a voice and unlimited data for $30/person.
I don't think $30 buys you much health care.
Dunno about you - but my coworkers just love to come up and point and poke my monitor to show me this and that. Fingerprints!!
This reminds me of how they "integrated" schools in Texas - black and white students under the same roof, but they march to separate classrooms after they get off the school bus. They're technically still following the letter of the law.
At my university, the dorms were designed by the same company that designed prisons. And some of the buildings erected in the 60s were designed with architecture specifically to aid police in the event of a mass riot.
I thought it was just a real-life demonstration of divide-and-conquer - where after each midterm the class size halved.
We do FAA certifiable software, and:
"should" -> suggested, not really required; means the same as "may"
"shall" -> required
Your taxes pay for diplomatic/consular protection when your offshore paradise rises up in revolution and you have to get the eff out of Dodge. Or the corporate laws which protect your business assets and intellectual properties in court.
What's a US or EU passport going in the global black market these days? There's a definite tangible value to citizenship.
I'm a former Hong Kong resident.
I find it very interesting that my federal income tax in the U.S. is just a tad higher (14%) than what I would pay in Hong Kong (13%) - granted I'm not taking any mortgage interest deductions in Hong Kong (but I am in the U.S.). I've always been under the assumption that Hong Kong would have much lower taxes.
And when I lived there a long time ago, it was a simple flat tax and everyone just got mailed an invoice once a year.
Another thing that bothered me was that they (everyone from the lowly engineer to the hiring manager to the HR guy) could never tell me what the position was about. At least probably not until you get past the all-day on-site interview. For many people, it's quite a time and financial commitment (precious, precious PTO) to do something like this without knowing what you're potentially signing up for.
But in any case I don't vibe well with these types of high-pressure, code-on-the-spot type of interviews. So either I royally flunk them or they turn out in the end to be jobs I don't want to do.
IMO, technical interviews with only a simple C string manipulation "what's wrong with this function?" question is usually enough. Anything further than that (barring any unique technical needs of the position) are just as good as asking the candidate to name the members of the Wu Tang Clan in reverse alphabetical order.
No income tax, but very high property taxes. A $300k house will get you a tax bill between $7,000 - $10,000 annually.
You'll pay one way or another.
...as it has done for the past decade, as it was in my employer's case.
That's why centrally-planned economies had black markets. I didn't make any claims that any system would be a 100% replacement of the other - just that modern IT eliminates a significant percentage of inefficiencies in a centrally-planned economy. The question is whether the amount of inefficiency is anywhere close to the inefficiencies of a "free"-market economy.
My coworker and I had this convo a few weeks back. Of course, we've witnessed the demise of centrally-planned economies in the last 100 years, as they're unable to determine the optimal setup of manufacture and distribution of goods and services, resulting in shortages or overproduction. However, does the proliferation of information technology change this?
In many industries, the only remaining competitive advantage is to optimize process through the use of IT, as opposed to making a product better or cheaper (a toaster will be $X +/- a few dollars no matter which big box store you go to). Walmart competes with Target not by having lower prices, but by streamlining shipping and ordering to minimize wastage - to use computers to determine the optimum number of Fram oil filters that need to be on the shelf at store #2 in Boise, for example. In fact, one could say that something like Walmart could very well represent a microcosm of the economy of a country whose economy is centrally-planned, using massive servers to calculate the exact amount of demand for any product at any given time.
There was a time when the rap group Three 6 Mafia had an Oscar, and Martin Scorsese did not.
The chief architect of the Patriot Act was Viet Dinh, Assistant Attorney General to John Ashcroft.