Revelation 8 and the trumpets are during the tribulation and after the rapture of the church. We're all still here, so this clearly can't be a fulfillment of that bit of prophecy.
...because we all know it's impossible for a Christian to be level-headed and use sound reasoning.
I happen to disagree with his assessment of that bit of revelation by the way. It sounds more to me like a meteor. He's also off on his prophecy timing. The trumpets are squarely in the tribulation. That happens after the Christians disappear in chapter 3 iirc. And since we're all still here...
Eat lunch by yourself so that you won't be obligated to reveal personal information.
I disagree. The first thing do when I take a new (salaried) job is to look around the office and figure out who is likely to cause me the biggest political problems... then take them out to lunch. If you turn that person into your friend, you defuse a huge potential problem.
In my experience (this is true for your neighbors when you move into a new house also) if you're mysterious and unknown, you become that weird loner. If people can't figure you out, then they assume the worst. If you make it obvious to the people around you that you're a normal human, then you can avert a lot of potential headaches.
Re:recruiters - comment from the book's author
on
The Laidoff Ninja
·
· Score: 1
I've been an IT consultant for 20 years. I've found nearly all of my jobs in the last 15 years through recruiters. I don't like recruiters. Unfortunately, I'm required to use them.
The problem I have with recruiters is that we work with them when we are desperate and at our weakest point. We believe the things they say because we WANT to believe them.
This is exactly right. And they know it. And they use it to manipulate you. When a recruiter calls you, the instant you pick up the phone, they're negotiating with you. Look at what questions they ask: When is your contract ending? They don't care about getting you something in time. They're trying to figure out how desperate you are. Are you working now? Same thing. What was the rate/salary at your last job? They ask this so they can argue that you're getting a good raise, even when it's less than you asked for.
If a recruiter asks when your job is ending, it's not. It's open-ended. You don't have to find a new job, you're just looking around. If they ask what you're making now, either refuse to tell them or lie to them. If you don't have a job now and you can't hide it, then you're on vacation. Don't tell them anything that they can use against you during the money negotiation.
I don't fault recruiters for aggressively trying to succeed. I fault them for out-right lying.
I don't fault lions for trying to eat, I just fault them for killing other animals.
A recruiter told me that he brings people in even if they clearly are not a good match for the position they think they are applying. He said that it works out good for them because if another position comes along, he can suggest them for it. No, Thank You! You are not doing me any favors posing as my salvation and wasting my time.
It is absolutely your responsibility to determine whether the position they're submitting you to is a good match for your skills and experience. Recruiters are clueless. You're lucky if they've simply heard of the buzzword, and bonus points for being able to tell an operating system apart from a programming language. It's that bad.
The way they handled the first job (that required the move) was totally fishy - they wanted me to agree that I'd accept the job and move IF there was a job offer, while I pushed back I can't pre-accept what doesn't exist especially without even meeting or talking to the group first. They wouldn't even set the interview up so I had more info for the decision.
Recruiters are about on the level of used car salesmen. What you're describing is just a sales tactic. They want you to "commit" to something so that you can't later come back and "renege" on some "deal". After all, "you promised". It's all crap. They come to you with a job requirement and you sort of agree on a rate. If you go on an interview and learn something bad about the job (like travel or off hours support that they "forgot" to mention ahead of time) then it's entirely ok for you to ask for more money or walk away from the deal. But they'll manipulate you into thinking that you "promised" and are unable to change the deal now.:-P Did you sign a contract? No? Then negotiate whatever you want and tell them to stick it. Don't allow them to manipulate you. Just pre-accept whatever they're wanting you to verbally pre-accept, then walk away later if it sucks. What are they going to do to you? In fact, what are they doing to you? They promise the good and forget to tell you the bad, and this is ok. But when you promise a rate or a salary based on their good story, then complain when reality doesn't match, they accuse you of going back on the deal.
I figure there must have been something weird about their finder's fee and what sequence of steps or how far along things were before payments were exchanged or refunds made, etc. I think they were afraid if the company and I contacted each other (i.e. I interviewed) without an agreement in place for the recruiter, the company would somehow be able to duck their fee.
Nothing fishy. They were in no danger of being cut out of the deal because they already have a signed contract with the client. They were just manipulating you. It's basically lying. They're projecting the image that a certain contractual or business scenario exists when it does not. They were choosing words to make it sound like you were obligated to something, when in fact, you had no obligation to do anything. When they do this to me, I tell them to cut the crap. Then they either do it, or they don't and I walk away, or I tell them whatever they want to hear, then do what I want.
This is exactly right. In the US at least, all of the gasoline coming from the refineries goes into one giant pot in the form of a single gas pipeline network. Later, when the BP or Exxon tanker truck fills up, it takes whatever gasoline comes out of the pipe. Then they add their additives to differentiate themselves from the competition, then truck it to their gas stations. In other words, all manufacturer's gasoline is commingled before it arrives at a branded gas station.
The moral of the story is: buy whatever's cheapest. It's all the same.
However, he made one of the biggest mistakes then that he could have. While under police surveillance, he decided then to leave the state and make cash withdrawals of over $10,000. He was arrested, and that's where it became a criminal matter instead of simply an employment matter.
Yes, why blame Microsoft? The root cause of these working conditions falls squarely on the Chinese government and Chinese culture.
I agree that the chinese government and culture are to blame. But microsoft isn't blameless since they're enabling the chinese government. The chinese government actually made an attempt to improve the situation of workers like these and microsoft (through an riaa type trade association) lobbied against the changes arguing that they would increase costs and drive work out of china, thus "hurting" the chinese workers. Of course, this was really just a thinly veiled threat to leave china if they made the slightest attempt to cost big corporations even another penny.
Big evil corporations conspiring with oppressive government is the real source of the problem here. And I believe there's only one solution for that.
I know that everyone here thinks that euthanasia is all about personal rights and freedom. But please remember that once it becomes legal, it's a short step to mandating it for certain situations... like maybe when you can't pay your hospital bill and you're over 65.
You seem to be under the illusion that credit agencies are legitimate businesses, interested in the welfare of their customers, and you are their customer.
Let me fix that for you:
You're completely right. The Fair Isaac score is a measure of how likely a creditor is to make money from you. If you're a victim of identity theft, then you may cost the creditor money. So you necessarily get a lower score.
The credit reporting system is an ingenious scam. They've created a number from nothing. Then tied this number to behaviors they want to see from you. Don't go into enough debt? You get a low score. Don't pay reliably? You get a low score. It's a worthless shiny object that you've been conditioned to pursue.
They flood television with commercials spouting propaganda for the current system of credit. Responsible people pay their bills on time, even if it means they have to feed their kids crap food for dinner, or pull them out of private schools, or avoid taking them to the doctor because they can't afford it. Responsible people establish and maintain a good credit history. Responsible parents teach their kids about credit and help them get their first credit card. It's a confidence game. You groom the mark. Then you fleece them. You give up your hard-earned money so that a number in a computer doesn't drop.
Here's how it is folks: take care of yourself and your family first, even if your credit score takes a hit. You can't eat your credit score. It won't keep you warm in the winter. And if you have no desire to finance anything, then your credit score is utterly irrelevant.
Yes I see your point. Let's make what those CEOs did ILLEGAL.
Make no mistake. What happened with the banking system, the endless bubble-crash cycles, the bad mortgage lending, the massive bailouts, was on purpose and by design. The CEOs aren't stupid. When they say that no one could have seen this coming, they're lying. When they say that they made a mistake, they're lying. When they say that a bank is too big to fail, and society will collapse if you don't give them billions of taxpayer dollars, they're lying. Big banks stealing from taxpayers is not illegal because they write the laws. When the hacker did was illegal because he stole from the big banks.
This may be tin-foil-hat stuff, but the middle class is being intentionally, systematically destroyed. This banking crisis was used to enrich the elite at our expense. And anything that happens in the aftermath is an excuse to raise taxes and enslave us all. The big bankers want us living in shanty towns, drinking polluted water, eating the food they give us, working us and our children 80 hours a week.
You got modded down for this, but it's true. You get what you pay for. Just low-ball the salary or billing rate. The people who are worth anything will be kept by the employers who know better. And you'll just end up bottom-feeding. There's a reason Indian programmers are cheap. I've worked with many. Some were awesome programmers. But by far, most were just cheap. And this is true regardless of whether they're Indian or not. Cheap people are cheap for a reason.
I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic. Religions perceive sex as a necessary evil, to be used for procreation only. Actually, most religions go even further and condone the concept of love (and by extension sex) only if it subject to some kind of religious regulation mechanism, because anything else gnaws away at the oppressive stranglehold religion has over everyday life. In order to exist, religion needs to have a monopoly on everything fulfilling and meaningful.
I can only speak as a Christian. And from my perspective, you have no idea what you're talking about. The list of activities that the vast majority of Christian woman won't do is very short. The main restriction is having to wait until marriage. After that, there are virtually no restrictions at all. Any restrictions there are have to to with respecting each other and making each other happy.
Sex addiction is not a recognized medical condition, it's a catchphrase invented by tabloid media designed to appeal to stupid people.
I disagree. There's a neurochemical hit humans get from sex. Some people get addicted to this. Most people don't. Just because you're not an alcoholic, it doesn't mean there aren't any alcoholics.
And until you found "the right person", you are required to act as if you're a sexless, joyless, dishonest zombie. You're not even allowed to find out if that person is actually sexually compatible, until ít's too late. Oh, I forget "the right person" has to meet certain requirements of gender and, in many cases, social status. Otherwise, they're obviously not the right person. And once you have declared one person to be "the right person", you can never change your mind, or an invisible sky tyrant will crush your immortal soul for all eternity. Sounds awesome.
There's two things wrong with this attitude. First, I believe it's unrealistic to expect people to wait until their 20s or 30s to get married. If people were getting married right out of high school, it would be far easier to wait until you were married. It was like this in the past and worked. Our present society is broken. And don't try to tell me that 18 year old kids haven't experienced enough to know who to get married to. It's not like the divorce rate is heavily skewed toward young people. I'd rather my kid get married at 18 and get divorced 6 years later than have a different girlfriend every 6 months for 6 years. Which one is far less likely to get an STD?
And secondly, how difficult is it to have many explicit conversations about this before you get married? What do you like or not like? What's acceptable behavior and what isn't? How often is too much or not enough? The wedding night doesn't have to be a surprise if you don't want it to be.
What it sounds like to me is, someone found humanity's Asperger switch.
(I have Asperger's Syndrome)
AS is so much more than this. It causes 100 little problems that all add up to making your life suck.
From my own personal experience I know that people with AS have trouble reading facial expressions because they're never looking at people faces. This is because eye contact is uncomfortable (i'd call it more like creepy, or heebee-jeebees, it still happens to me). Because it's uncomfortable, they never learn to read it. I've started forcing myself to look at facial expressions in an attempt to read people's eyes. I'm slowly starting to be able to do this.
As other examples, my gait is subtly wrong. I have a hard time identifying the source of certain emotions. And I'm sometimes not to good at reading the positions of my arms and legs.
I think it's more than just a magnetic switch. I think it's a biochemical problem that causes development problems that propagate throughout your life.
Not really. Only a totalitarian state can force productive people to be slaves to non-productive people. The two modes are part and parcel of the whole.
Good thing the United States isn't like that. Oh wait...
I've seen people ragging on the price. Look at the cost of nice hardwood furniture. And I said NICE. My mother's a friggin' oak fanatic. So I know how pricey this stuff gets.
Their prices are only outrageous when viewed in a vacuum. People are talking about being able to buy the materials and tools for less. Sure. If your labor is worthless and you have already figured out all the joinery and other neat tricks that they've incorporated into one of these tables.
Very likely though, you have not. As such, you're paying a skilled craftsman for labor.
I'm a computer programmer and play a lot of RPGs. I'm also a woodworking fanatic. I've spent the last 10 years collecting power tools, and I don't mean hand drills and jigsaws. I have a complete woodworking shop in my 3-car garage. I had to put in a separate 100amp subpanel just for the shop. I have probably $30,000 in tools. I've made maybe half a dozen pieces of furniture so far. I would have made more, but my time is limited.
I could probably make a decent attempt at this table and do fairly well. I'm sure mine wouldn't be as good. It takes skill to do this stuff, even with good tools. And the tools can be expensive. The dovetails for example take years of practice to be able to make them look perfect when doing them by hand. I can make perfect dovetails, but I use a $500 jig and two $200 routers. Even the router bits can be $5 to $40 a piece. And the hardwoods their using aren't cheap either. Things like oak, walnut, cherry, and maple can go from $2 to $8 a board-foot (144 cubic inches of wood), more (possibly 10x more) for figured wood. Then there's the finish. Getting it right is hard and takes hours of surface preparation. I still suck at this.
I'm amused by people's attitudes toward good furniture. People walk through furniture stores and ooh and ahh over the furniture. We have antique furniture now because it was made right in the past. The stuff you see today, most of it will fall apart in a few years. When I walk through furniture stores now, all I see are the shortcuts, finishing mistakes, and how that piece will fail.
People think that because you can buy a piece of crap particle board or MDF table at walmart for $50, that this table is outrageously priced. What's really happened is that your incomes have dropped so low that the real quality that we used to be able to afford is now beyond reach. I can't afford $8000 for a table. But I can certainly make nice ones now that my grandchildren will have in their houses.
Except for small number of odd (or quite wealthy) individuals, they actually would very much like to have health coverage, just in case. When faced with the prospect of paying a fine, and getting nothing in return, and paying somewhat more and getting a valuable benefit - health coverage - people are very likely to go for the coverage.
In the case of many independent consultants with family coverage, the cost of insurance is 20 times more than the fine. The only thing keeping many of them from dropping coverage are the pre-existing condition rules. Once those rules are out, they'll all drop coverage and bank the $25,000 or more a year they're paying now. They can earn a return on their money instead of lining the pockets of an insurance company exec. Then they can just write a check for antibiotics and broken legs. If anyone gets cancer, just sign up for insurance. You may not even have to use your saved up insurance fund. Everyone picks a number they're comfortable with. Just save up $20k or $30k and self-insure by writing checks out of that. If something big comes in, sign up for coverage and save your money. You can view the system as giant free reinsurance.
Having said that, the vast majority of workers in the US aren't independent like this. And it would probably be worth it for them to just keep their current coverage because their monthly contribution is low, and they're not making enough to save up the money to self-insure.
First, it mandates that everyone buy insurance because apparently, 30 million people go without it merely because someone is not making them.
This is like saying people don't run the heat in their house in the winter because they're free to freeze to death. If those people could afford health insurance, most would buy it.
It's mandating that everyone have coverage so that the healthy people don't opt of out coverage until they get sick, then join. You need the premiums from healthy people to keep costs down for everyone. That's the entire idea behind insurance int he first place.
As far as I can tell, this seems to be about killing a Citizen that has a gun and is presently involved in shooting at American soldiers
If this is on American soil, why are there American soldiers engaged in combat? Have we been invaded? Shouldn't it be the police? And if this isn't on American soil, how will they be able to tell it's an American citizen shooting at them until the battle is over?
oh, that's right, they're going to station a unit on American soil for crowd control.
Slashdot Mirror
Revelation 8 and the trumpets are during the tribulation and after the rapture of the church. We're all still here, so this clearly can't be a fulfillment of that bit of prophecy.
...because we all know it's impossible for a Christian to be level-headed and use sound reasoning.
I happen to disagree with his assessment of that bit of revelation by the way. It sounds more to me like a meteor. He's also off on his prophecy timing. The trumpets are squarely in the tribulation. That happens after the Christians disappear in chapter 3 iirc. And since we're all still here...
Eat lunch by yourself so that you won't be obligated to reveal personal information.
I disagree. The first thing do when I take a new (salaried) job is to look around the office and figure out who is likely to cause me the biggest political problems... then take them out to lunch. If you turn that person into your friend, you defuse a huge potential problem.
In my experience (this is true for your neighbors when you move into a new house also) if you're mysterious and unknown, you become that weird loner. If people can't figure you out, then they assume the worst. If you make it obvious to the people around you that you're a normal human, then you can avert a lot of potential headaches.
I've been an IT consultant for 20 years. I've found nearly all of my jobs in the last 15 years through recruiters. I don't like recruiters. Unfortunately, I'm required to use them.
The problem I have with recruiters is that we work with them when we are desperate and at our weakest point. We believe the things they say because we WANT to believe them.
This is exactly right. And they know it. And they use it to manipulate you. When a recruiter calls you, the instant you pick up the phone, they're negotiating with you. Look at what questions they ask: When is your contract ending? They don't care about getting you something in time. They're trying to figure out how desperate you are. Are you working now? Same thing. What was the rate/salary at your last job? They ask this so they can argue that you're getting a good raise, even when it's less than you asked for.
If a recruiter asks when your job is ending, it's not. It's open-ended. You don't have to find a new job, you're just looking around. If they ask what you're making now, either refuse to tell them or lie to them. If you don't have a job now and you can't hide it, then you're on vacation. Don't tell them anything that they can use against you during the money negotiation.
I don't fault recruiters for aggressively trying to succeed. I fault them for out-right lying.
I don't fault lions for trying to eat, I just fault them for killing other animals.
A recruiter told me that he brings people in even if they clearly are not a good match for the position they think they are applying. He said that it works out good for them because if another position comes along, he can suggest them for it. No, Thank You! You are not doing me any favors posing as my salvation and wasting my time.
It is absolutely your responsibility to determine whether the position they're submitting you to is a good match for your skills and experience. Recruiters are clueless. You're lucky if they've simply heard of the buzzword, and bonus points for being able to tell an operating system apart from a programming language. It's that bad.
The way they handled the first job (that required the move) was totally fishy - they wanted me to agree that I'd accept the job and move IF there was a job offer, while I pushed back I can't pre-accept what doesn't exist especially without even meeting or talking to the group first. They wouldn't even set the interview up so I had more info for the decision.
Recruiters are about on the level of used car salesmen. What you're describing is just a sales tactic. They want you to "commit" to something so that you can't later come back and "renege" on some "deal". After all, "you promised". It's all crap. They come to you with a job requirement and you sort of agree on a rate. If you go on an interview and learn something bad about the job (like travel or off hours support that they "forgot" to mention ahead of time) then it's entirely ok for you to ask for more money or walk away from the deal. But they'll manipulate you into thinking that you "promised" and are unable to change the deal now. :-P Did you sign a contract? No? Then negotiate whatever you want and tell them to stick it. Don't allow them to manipulate you. Just pre-accept whatever they're wanting you to verbally pre-accept, then walk away later if it sucks. What are they going to do to you? In fact, what are they doing to you? They promise the good and forget to tell you the bad, and this is ok. But when you promise a rate or a salary based on their good story, then complain when reality doesn't match, they accuse you of going back on the deal.
I figure there must have been something weird about their finder's fee and what sequence of steps or how far along things were before payments were exchanged or refunds made, etc. I think they were afraid if the company and I contacted each other (i.e. I interviewed) without an agreement in place for the recruiter, the company would somehow be able to duck their fee.
Nothing fishy. They were in no danger of being cut out of the deal because they already have a signed contract with the client. They were just manipulating you. It's basically lying. They're projecting the image that a certain contractual or business scenario exists when it does not. They were choosing words to make it sound like you were obligated to something, when in fact, you had no obligation to do anything. When they do this to me, I tell them to cut the crap. Then they either do it, or they don't and I walk away, or I tell them whatever they want to hear, then do what I want.
This is exactly right. In the US at least, all of the gasoline coming from the refineries goes into one giant pot in the form of a single gas pipeline network. Later, when the BP or Exxon tanker truck fills up, it takes whatever gasoline comes out of the pipe. Then they add their additives to differentiate themselves from the competition, then truck it to their gas stations. In other words, all manufacturer's gasoline is commingled before it arrives at a branded gas station.
The moral of the story is: buy whatever's cheapest. It's all the same.
Easy, just keep an eye out for the following signs:
I don't know. I work with a lot of indians and they don't look anything like what you describe.
However, he made one of the biggest mistakes then that he could have. While under police surveillance, he decided then to leave the state and make cash withdrawals of over $10,000. He was arrested, and that's where it became a criminal matter instead of simply an employment matter.
Is this illegal?
Have you read the Geneva Conventions?
Geneva Conventions... how quaint. The people who fight the next world war that's almost here will have an utter disregard for civilian life.
Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
I think so Brain. But if people could put heads at the end of their hands, they would never leave the house.
Yes, why blame Microsoft? The root cause of these working conditions falls squarely on the Chinese government and Chinese culture.
I agree that the chinese government and culture are to blame. But microsoft isn't blameless since they're enabling the chinese government. The chinese government actually made an attempt to improve the situation of workers like these and microsoft (through an riaa type trade association) lobbied against the changes arguing that they would increase costs and drive work out of china, thus "hurting" the chinese workers. Of course, this was really just a thinly veiled threat to leave china if they made the slightest attempt to cost big corporations even another penny.
Big evil corporations conspiring with oppressive government is the real source of the problem here. And I believe there's only one solution for that.
I wish we could create a new (viable) political party in the US. :-(
I know that everyone here thinks that euthanasia is all about personal rights and freedom. But please remember that once it becomes legal, it's a short step to mandating it for certain situations... like maybe when you can't pay your hospital bill and you're over 65.
You seem to be under the illusion that credit agencies are legitimate businesses, interested in the welfare of their customers, and you are their customer.
Let me fix that for you:
You're completely right. The Fair Isaac score is a measure of how likely a creditor is to make money from you. If you're a victim of identity theft, then you may cost the creditor money. So you necessarily get a lower score.
The credit reporting system is an ingenious scam. They've created a number from nothing. Then tied this number to behaviors they want to see from you. Don't go into enough debt? You get a low score. Don't pay reliably? You get a low score. It's a worthless shiny object that you've been conditioned to pursue.
They flood television with commercials spouting propaganda for the current system of credit. Responsible people pay their bills on time, even if it means they have to feed their kids crap food for dinner, or pull them out of private schools, or avoid taking them to the doctor because they can't afford it. Responsible people establish and maintain a good credit history. Responsible parents teach their kids about credit and help them get their first credit card. It's a confidence game. You groom the mark. Then you fleece them. You give up your hard-earned money so that a number in a computer doesn't drop.
Here's how it is folks: take care of yourself and your family first, even if your credit score takes a hit. You can't eat your credit score. It won't keep you warm in the winter. And if you have no desire to finance anything, then your credit score is utterly irrelevant.
Yes I see your point. Let's make what those CEOs did ILLEGAL.
Make no mistake. What happened with the banking system, the endless bubble-crash cycles, the bad mortgage lending, the massive bailouts, was on purpose and by design. The CEOs aren't stupid. When they say that no one could have seen this coming, they're lying. When they say that they made a mistake, they're lying. When they say that a bank is too big to fail, and society will collapse if you don't give them billions of taxpayer dollars, they're lying. Big banks stealing from taxpayers is not illegal because they write the laws. When the hacker did was illegal because he stole from the big banks.
This may be tin-foil-hat stuff, but the middle class is being intentionally, systematically destroyed. This banking crisis was used to enrich the elite at our expense. And anything that happens in the aftermath is an excuse to raise taxes and enslave us all. The big bankers want us living in shanty towns, drinking polluted water, eating the food they give us, working us and our children 80 hours a week.
You got modded down for this, but it's true. You get what you pay for. Just low-ball the salary or billing rate. The people who are worth anything will be kept by the employers who know better. And you'll just end up bottom-feeding. There's a reason Indian programmers are cheap. I've worked with many. Some were awesome programmers. But by far, most were just cheap. And this is true regardless of whether they're Indian or not. Cheap people are cheap for a reason.
It's called a condom (..)
Just one? That won't get you very far...
You can re-use them. Just flip it inside out and shake the fuck out of it.
I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic. Religions perceive sex as a necessary evil, to be used for procreation only. Actually, most religions go even further and condone the concept of love (and by extension sex) only if it subject to some kind of religious regulation mechanism, because anything else gnaws away at the oppressive stranglehold religion has over everyday life. In order to exist, religion needs to have a monopoly on everything fulfilling and meaningful.
I can only speak as a Christian. And from my perspective, you have no idea what you're talking about. The list of activities that the vast majority of Christian woman won't do is very short. The main restriction is having to wait until marriage. After that, there are virtually no restrictions at all. Any restrictions there are have to to with respecting each other and making each other happy.
Sex addiction is not a recognized medical condition, it's a catchphrase invented by tabloid media designed to appeal to stupid people.
I disagree. There's a neurochemical hit humans get from sex. Some people get addicted to this. Most people don't. Just because you're not an alcoholic, it doesn't mean there aren't any alcoholics.
And until you found "the right person", you are required to act as if you're a sexless, joyless, dishonest zombie. You're not even allowed to find out if that person is actually sexually compatible, until ít's too late. Oh, I forget "the right person" has to meet certain requirements of gender and, in many cases, social status. Otherwise, they're obviously not the right person. And once you have declared one person to be "the right person", you can never change your mind, or an invisible sky tyrant will crush your immortal soul for all eternity. Sounds awesome.
There's two things wrong with this attitude. First, I believe it's unrealistic to expect people to wait until their 20s or 30s to get married. If people were getting married right out of high school, it would be far easier to wait until you were married. It was like this in the past and worked. Our present society is broken. And don't try to tell me that 18 year old kids haven't experienced enough to know who to get married to. It's not like the divorce rate is heavily skewed toward young people. I'd rather my kid get married at 18 and get divorced 6 years later than have a different girlfriend every 6 months for 6 years. Which one is far less likely to get an STD?
And secondly, how difficult is it to have many explicit conversations about this before you get married? What do you like or not like? What's acceptable behavior and what isn't? How often is too much or not enough? The wedding night doesn't have to be a surprise if you don't want it to be.
What it sounds like to me is, someone found humanity's Asperger switch.
(I have Asperger's Syndrome)
AS is so much more than this. It causes 100 little problems that all add up to making your life suck.
From my own personal experience I know that people with AS have trouble reading facial expressions because they're never looking at people faces. This is because eye contact is uncomfortable (i'd call it more like creepy, or heebee-jeebees, it still happens to me). Because it's uncomfortable, they never learn to read it. I've started forcing myself to look at facial expressions in an attempt to read people's eyes. I'm slowly starting to be able to do this.
As other examples, my gait is subtly wrong. I have a hard time identifying the source of certain emotions. And I'm sometimes not to good at reading the positions of my arms and legs.
I think it's more than just a magnetic switch. I think it's a biochemical problem that causes development problems that propagate throughout your life.
Not really. Only a totalitarian state can force productive people to be slaves to non-productive people. The two modes are part and parcel of the whole.
Good thing the United States isn't like that. Oh wait...
I've seen people ragging on the price. Look at the cost of nice hardwood furniture. And I said NICE. My mother's a friggin' oak fanatic. So I know how pricey this stuff gets.
Their prices are only outrageous when viewed in a vacuum. People are talking about being able to buy the materials and tools for less. Sure. If your labor is worthless and you have already figured out all the joinery and other neat tricks that they've incorporated into one of these tables.
Very likely though, you have not. As such, you're paying a skilled craftsman for labor.
I'm a computer programmer and play a lot of RPGs. I'm also a woodworking fanatic. I've spent the last 10 years collecting power tools, and I don't mean hand drills and jigsaws. I have a complete woodworking shop in my 3-car garage. I had to put in a separate 100amp subpanel just for the shop. I have probably $30,000 in tools. I've made maybe half a dozen pieces of furniture so far. I would have made more, but my time is limited.
I could probably make a decent attempt at this table and do fairly well. I'm sure mine wouldn't be as good. It takes skill to do this stuff, even with good tools. And the tools can be expensive. The dovetails for example take years of practice to be able to make them look perfect when doing them by hand. I can make perfect dovetails, but I use a $500 jig and two $200 routers. Even the router bits can be $5 to $40 a piece. And the hardwoods their using aren't cheap either. Things like oak, walnut, cherry, and maple can go from $2 to $8 a board-foot (144 cubic inches of wood), more (possibly 10x more) for figured wood. Then there's the finish. Getting it right is hard and takes hours of surface preparation. I still suck at this.
I'm amused by people's attitudes toward good furniture. People walk through furniture stores and ooh and ahh over the furniture. We have antique furniture now because it was made right in the past. The stuff you see today, most of it will fall apart in a few years. When I walk through furniture stores now, all I see are the shortcuts, finishing mistakes, and how that piece will fail.
People think that because you can buy a piece of crap particle board or MDF table at walmart for $50, that this table is outrageously priced. What's really happened is that your incomes have dropped so low that the real quality that we used to be able to afford is now beyond reach. I can't afford $8000 for a table. But I can certainly make nice ones now that my grandchildren will have in their houses.
Except for small number of odd (or quite wealthy) individuals, they actually would very much like to have health coverage, just in case. When faced with the prospect of paying a fine, and getting nothing in return, and paying somewhat more and getting a valuable benefit - health coverage - people are very likely to go for the coverage.
In the case of many independent consultants with family coverage, the cost of insurance is 20 times more than the fine. The only thing keeping many of them from dropping coverage are the pre-existing condition rules. Once those rules are out, they'll all drop coverage and bank the $25,000 or more a year they're paying now. They can earn a return on their money instead of lining the pockets of an insurance company exec. Then they can just write a check for antibiotics and broken legs. If anyone gets cancer, just sign up for insurance. You may not even have to use your saved up insurance fund. Everyone picks a number they're comfortable with. Just save up $20k or $30k and self-insure by writing checks out of that. If something big comes in, sign up for coverage and save your money. You can view the system as giant free reinsurance.
Having said that, the vast majority of workers in the US aren't independent like this. And it would probably be worth it for them to just keep their current coverage because their monthly contribution is low, and they're not making enough to save up the money to self-insure.
First, it mandates that everyone buy insurance because apparently, 30 million people go without it merely because someone is not making them.
This is like saying people don't run the heat in their house in the winter because they're free to freeze to death. If those people could afford health insurance, most would buy it.
It's mandating that everyone have coverage so that the healthy people don't opt of out coverage until they get sick, then join. You need the premiums from healthy people to keep costs down for everyone. That's the entire idea behind insurance int he first place.
...with epic dentures and a wheeled mount.
As far as I can tell, this seems to be about killing a Citizen that has a gun and is presently involved in shooting at American soldiers
If this is on American soil, why are there American soldiers engaged in combat? Have we been invaded? Shouldn't it be the police? And if this isn't on American soil, how will they be able to tell it's an American citizen shooting at them until the battle is over?
oh, that's right, they're going to station a unit on American soil for crowd control.