By virtue of being below sea level, New Orleans is, by definition, below bodies of water that flow into the sea, namely the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain.
"The "it's always been that way" answer is a non-starter too - there's no reason behind it, just momentum."
That's how most words in the English language work. Sometimes they can be traced to other langauges, but then the question is "How did these words come to mean these things in language X?"
"He was aware of this when he took up a role at MS."
Again, whether or not the agreement was entered into voluntarily is not an issue, which is why I emphasised "voluntarily or involuntarily" however many posts up. It's similar to the way that rape is still considered rape even if the victim had previously consented before changing their mind.
It is understood that when you're talking about "consenting to give up your ability to withold your consent," whether or not such an act was entered into voluntarily is subjective at best (which is why the word "peon" is used in the law and the name of the law itself). These laws written pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment were written in such a way to err on the side of caution, to make sure a laborer cannot divest himself of "certain inalienable rights." Whether or not you agree with it philosophically doesn't change the fact that this has been US law for well over a century. Chinese law may be different, but Microsoft is pushing for US jurisdiction.
"This might be a compelling argument if non-compete clauses were new and unchallenged."
If the Anti-Peonage Act has been used before to challenge such non-compete clauses, Google ain't finding it. If you're suggesting that the act has been used to challenge such clauses and failed, where are these cases?
"Seriously though, the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans right now should give folks something to think about with respect to global warming."
New Orleans has always been below sea level (not to mention the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain), they're fucked regardless. The only question is whether or not they'll have the option of diverting flood waters to Chalmette this time around.
(I spelled "Pontchartrain" right on the first try, I spent too much time there.)
Enough people have died in hurricane-induced flooding on the delta over the past two centuries, there's no need to pretend that this is some sort of new phenomena for the region.
As I mentioned elsewhere, a clause of any contract subject to US law that binds a person to labor for number of years, whether signed voluntarily or not, "above board" or not, is rendered unenforcable by the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867. Indentured servitude went out with with the Thirteenth Amendment.
"Lee's not providing service, he's withholding information. This is not labor."
This is not a non-disclosure agreement, this is a non-compete agreement. The agreement prevents Lee from voluntarily leaving the terms of the contract and voluntarily laboring for a competitor.
"Microsoft did not invent the non-compete clause. They've been around for quite a while. Obviously this clause is not preventing use of this type of agreement."
The fact that the Anti-Peonage Act has not been used against such clauses does not automatically mean that it cannot or will not. "People got away with it in the past" doesn't make it legal.
"For all you know, his salary included severance to compensate him for the year that he wouldn't be working for the competition."
Then Microsoft would be entitled to stop payment of this severence. Microsoft is specifically not entitled to use legal action or threat of legal action to keep Lee from working for a competitor. The most Microsoft is entitled to do is to stop paying for services no longer rendered, not to compel, to bind Lee against working for a competitor without continued compensation.
"Microsoft held up their end of the bargain, he has to hold up his."
(A)ll acts, laws, resolutions, orders, regulations, or usages of any Territory or State (...) made to establish (...) the
voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise, are declared null and void. (source, emphasis mine)
Whoever knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person (...) by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. (source)
According to the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867, whether or not the laborer (ostensibly) signed the contract voluntarily doesn't matter. The only real difference between these non-compete contracts and indentured servitude was that indentured servants were contractually guaranteed subsistance living for the term of service.
No, the "million dollars," the salary is for work performed for the company, services rendered. And when the money stops, the employee has no obligation to continue doing anything for their former employer, including honoring some sort of "non-compete" clause. Once one side of the contract ceases to hold up its end (namely, paying the salary), the employee is under no obligation to continue upholding their end.
"This is what we'll give you, this is what you gotta do in return."
"And even if we stop giving you things, you still have to do stuff for us?" Where I come from, that's called "involuntary servitude." Just because it's in a contract doesn't mean it's leagal or enforcable.
" If Iraq had been sitting on massive reserves of (...) bananas would they have been invaded by the USA?"
Yes, it probably would. Ever wonder how the phrase "banana repulic" came about?
"There are brutal regimes all over the world, African ones seemingly the most vicious of them,"
None of them had UN precedent against them, as Iraq did (even the situation in Sudan inspired a good deal of waffling). In that way Iraq was conveniently a "more legitimate" target.
"there are WMD in former Soviet republics that can be had for a few crates of vodka."
Name one former Soviet republic, other than Russia, that is knowingly retaining weapons of mass destruction. One of the first things the US did after the collapse of the USSR was to offer to buy all such weapons from all the republics, and Russia is the only one that didn't take the US up on the offer.
"Why doesn't your government interven there if the WMD threat is its true motivation?"
Again, Iraq's unique history with the UN made it a "more legitimate" taret than others.
Whether or not these are the true motives of the federal government in invading Iraq, the "If A, why not B?" argument doesn't work when A is unique.
Do you know why the US dollar got off the gold standard? Voters who were debtors were in favor of a currency that could inflate; if a dollar was worth less, so were the dollars they owed to the bank.
Fast forward a century, and we now have the government that is deeply indebted, and while both parties like to gloss over it, it's still an albatross around the federal government's collective neck. The easiest way to pay off this debt? Devalue the dollars that debt is measured in.
This is why the US government has done little in the wake of the dollar's slide in the past few years, and why foreign governments (including/especially Japan) have been scrambling to prop it up. And this is why your particular conspiracy theory holds no water.
Absolute value with respect to other currencies doesn't matter, the only important part is the change in value over time (think back to first semester calculus). If the US dollar being worth less than a (presumably) Mexican peso is such a bad thing, then why isn't Japan in a panic since there are about 10 yen to a peso? Was Italy a third-world country back when they still used lira?
If Sony says that the DS isn't really its competition, then that leaves only the Game Boy for it to compete against. And they're doing far worse against the Game Boy than they are against the DS.
Sony saying this pretty much means that Sony is failing more miserably than previously thought. They had a handicap in their favor by going against a new, experimental product rather than the only entrenched name brand in the industry.
"Her mail was stolen repeatedly, and when she complained to her landlord, he explained that it was against the laws of the City of Boston to change the building's mailboxes, because it was a historic building. Now, he may have been full of sh*t"
He was; mailboxes are technically federal property.
Did she talk to law enforcement about the missing mail? It is rather suspicious that he'd look for excuses to avoid changing the mailboxes when he himself, not having anyplace else to go during the day, would be in the best position to find out when it is and is not safe to remove mail from a tennant's mailbox.
"They scan the mail, get the PIN, then *return* it to the mail box and no one is the wiser. "
That's far more difficult than removing it. For the most part, when mail is stolen it's not directly from the mailbox so much as from the delivery person (there's no guarantee you'll find a PIN number in any one person's mail in the course of a day, a week, or even a month, but a truck full of mail is bound to have something, especially on the day Social Security checks are sent out).
And then assuming they use this method to inspect all this mail to find the useful things without opening it, the problem becomes making sure this mail gets to its intended destination in order to avoid the suspicion of the recipient. But the Postal Service knows damned well that a lot of mail was stolen. You cannot simply drop it off at a mailbox and expect it to get delivered the rest of the way: stamped mail can't already be cancelled and metered mail must have today's date. You can't hold a mailperson at gunpoint and give them mail to deliver, since you'll just piss off the Postal Inspectors even more (you should fear the law enforcement organizations that nobody's heard of).
Deliver it yourself? You stole the mail in mid-stream, not at the destination. You don't know what the recipient's schedule is (whether or not it's safe to deliver mail "early" or "late"), you can't follow around the mail carrier to get the letter delivered at "almost the same time" since the recently-robbed carrier will be more aware of being followed (or, worse yet, be an undercover Postal Inspector). And this is all assuming the intended recipient doesn't have a locking mailbox. The more time you wait trying to figure out the right time of day to deliver the mail, the more the recipient may get suspeicious, especially if Postal Inspectors have already gone around asking people on the delivery route if they'd seen "anything suspicious."
Television, the same place other people get ideas.
"Being good at a professional sport is even worse -- it gives you grandiose dreams of playing in the major leagues, which lead to your skimping on everything else and then having no place to go once you wash out along the way (as 99.999% of all wannabe professional athletes do), and you end up as a bitter, burned-out has-been, endlessly talking about your "glory days" back in college."
The fact that people still pursue it suggests that the goal is still popular, that people still "skimp on classes" to improve their physical abilities.
Just because boys "should" be more interested in classes doesn't mean they are, just as girls aren't interested.
You're assuming there was any sort of competition in the test-taking to begin with. The people who tallied up the scores on the tests probably didn't look at anything other what the participant put down as their sex, and I doubt the test results were divulged to the takers so that they could see where they ranked. It was probably simply a matter of "Here, take this test."
Slashdot Mirror
By virtue of being below sea level, New Orleans is, by definition, below bodies of water that flow into the sea, namely the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain.
"The "it's always been that way" answer is a non-starter too - there's no reason behind it, just momentum."
That's how most words in the English language work. Sometimes they can be traced to other langauges, but then the question is "How did these words come to mean these things in language X?"
It's language, not science.
"He was aware of this when he took up a role at MS."
Again, whether or not the agreement was entered into voluntarily is not an issue, which is why I emphasised "voluntarily or involuntarily" however many posts up. It's similar to the way that rape is still considered rape even if the victim had previously consented before changing their mind.
It is understood that when you're talking about "consenting to give up your ability to withold your consent," whether or not such an act was entered into voluntarily is subjective at best (which is why the word "peon" is used in the law and the name of the law itself). These laws written pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment were written in such a way to err on the side of caution, to make sure a laborer cannot divest himself of "certain inalienable rights." Whether or not you agree with it philosophically doesn't change the fact that this has been US law for well over a century. Chinese law may be different, but Microsoft is pushing for US jurisdiction.
"This might be a compelling argument if non-compete clauses were new and unchallenged."
If the Anti-Peonage Act has been used before to challenge such non-compete clauses, Google ain't finding it. If you're suggesting that the act has been used to challenge such clauses and failed, where are these cases?
"maybe something like rubbing aluminum foil together could do it."
Shiney to shiney, dull to dull, or shiney to dull?
Will Google be mailing out scores of CDs to all of us so we can access this online network?
Now I only have one corporation to hate on instead of two. This frees up hatred for new and upcoming businesses.
"HermanAB?" AB? You're in the Canadian Rockies, what exactly were you expecting?
"Seriously though, the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans right now should give folks something to think about with respect to global warming."
New Orleans has always been below sea level (not to mention the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain), they're fucked regardless. The only question is whether or not they'll have the option of diverting flood waters to Chalmette this time around.
(I spelled "Pontchartrain" right on the first try, I spent too much time there.)
Enough people have died in hurricane-induced flooding on the delta over the past two centuries, there's no need to pretend that this is some sort of new phenomena for the region.
As I mentioned elsewhere, a clause of any contract subject to US law that binds a person to labor for number of years, whether signed voluntarily or not, "above board" or not, is rendered unenforcable by the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867. Indentured servitude went out with with the Thirteenth Amendment.
"Lee's not providing service, he's withholding information. This is not labor."
This is not a non-disclosure agreement, this is a non-compete agreement. The agreement prevents Lee from voluntarily leaving the terms of the contract and voluntarily laboring for a competitor.
"Microsoft did not invent the non-compete clause. They've been around for quite a while. Obviously this clause is not preventing use of this type of agreement."
The fact that the Anti-Peonage Act has not been used against such clauses does not automatically mean that it cannot or will not. "People got away with it in the past" doesn't make it legal.
"For all you know, his salary included severance to compensate him for the year that he wouldn't be working for the competition."
Then Microsoft would be entitled to stop payment of this severence. Microsoft is specifically not entitled to use legal action or threat of legal action to keep Lee from working for a competitor. The most Microsoft is entitled to do is to stop paying for services no longer rendered, not to compel, to bind Lee against working for a competitor without continued compensation.
No, the "million dollars," the salary is for work performed for the company, services rendered. And when the money stops, the employee has no obligation to continue doing anything for their former employer, including honoring some sort of "non-compete" clause. Once one side of the contract ceases to hold up its end (namely, paying the salary), the employee is under no obligation to continue upholding their end.
"This is what we'll give you, this is what you gotta do in return."
"And even if we stop giving you things, you still have to do stuff for us?" Where I come from, that's called "involuntary servitude." Just because it's in a contract doesn't mean it's leagal or enforcable.
No, it's intended to mean that the author cannot accept the possibility that "he" is essentially geneder neutral in English.
Part of having a global empire means having people stationed around the world (i. e. outside the US).
" If Iraq had been sitting on massive reserves of (...) bananas would they have been invaded by the USA?"
Yes, it probably would. Ever wonder how the phrase "banana repulic" came about?
"There are brutal regimes all over the world, African ones seemingly the most vicious of them,"
None of them had UN precedent against them, as Iraq did (even the situation in Sudan inspired a good deal of waffling). In that way Iraq was conveniently a "more legitimate" target.
"there are WMD in former Soviet republics that can be had for a few crates of vodka."
Name one former Soviet republic, other than Russia, that is knowingly retaining weapons of mass destruction. One of the first things the US did after the collapse of the USSR was to offer to buy all such weapons from all the republics, and Russia is the only one that didn't take the US up on the offer.
"Why doesn't your government interven there if the WMD threat is its true motivation?"
Again, Iraq's unique history with the UN made it a "more legitimate" taret than others.
Whether or not these are the true motives of the federal government in invading Iraq, the "If A, why not B?" argument doesn't work when A is unique.
Do you know why the US dollar got off the gold standard? Voters who were debtors were in favor of a currency that could inflate; if a dollar was worth less, so were the dollars they owed to the bank.
Fast forward a century, and we now have the government that is deeply indebted, and while both parties like to gloss over it, it's still an albatross around the federal government's collective neck. The easiest way to pay off this debt? Devalue the dollars that debt is measured in.
This is why the US government has done little in the wake of the dollar's slide in the past few years, and why foreign governments (including/especially Japan) have been scrambling to prop it up. And this is why your particular conspiracy theory holds no water.
Absolute value with respect to other currencies doesn't matter, the only important part is the change in value over time (think back to first semester calculus). If the US dollar being worth less than a (presumably) Mexican peso is such a bad thing, then why isn't Japan in a panic since there are about 10 yen to a peso? Was Italy a third-world country back when they still used lira?
If Sony says that the DS isn't really its competition, then that leaves only the Game Boy for it to compete against. And they're doing far worse against the Game Boy than they are against the DS.
Sony saying this pretty much means that Sony is failing more miserably than previously thought. They had a handicap in their favor by going against a new, experimental product rather than the only entrenched name brand in the industry.
"Her mail was stolen repeatedly, and when she complained to her landlord, he explained that it was against the laws of the City of Boston to change the building's mailboxes, because it was a historic building. Now, he may have been full of sh*t"
He was; mailboxes are technically federal property.
Did she talk to law enforcement about the missing mail? It is rather suspicious that he'd look for excuses to avoid changing the mailboxes when he himself, not having anyplace else to go during the day, would be in the best position to find out when it is and is not safe to remove mail from a tennant's mailbox.
"They scan the mail, get the PIN, then *return* it to the mail box and no one is the wiser. "
That's far more difficult than removing it. For the most part, when mail is stolen it's not directly from the mailbox so much as from the delivery person (there's no guarantee you'll find a PIN number in any one person's mail in the course of a day, a week, or even a month, but a truck full of mail is bound to have something, especially on the day Social Security checks are sent out).
And then assuming they use this method to inspect all this mail to find the useful things without opening it, the problem becomes making sure this mail gets to its intended destination in order to avoid the suspicion of the recipient. But the Postal Service knows damned well that a lot of mail was stolen. You cannot simply drop it off at a mailbox and expect it to get delivered the rest of the way: stamped mail can't already be cancelled and metered mail must have today's date. You can't hold a mailperson at gunpoint and give them mail to deliver, since you'll just piss off the Postal Inspectors even more (you should fear the law enforcement organizations that nobody's heard of).
Deliver it yourself? You stole the mail in mid-stream, not at the destination. You don't know what the recipient's schedule is (whether or not it's safe to deliver mail "early" or "late"), you can't follow around the mail carrier to get the letter delivered at "almost the same time" since the recently-robbed carrier will be more aware of being followed (or, worse yet, be an undercover Postal Inspector). And this is all assuming the intended recipient doesn't have a locking mailbox. The more time you wait trying to figure out the right time of day to deliver the mail, the more the recipient may get suspeicious, especially if Postal Inspectors have already gone around asking people on the delivery route if they'd seen "anything suspicious."
"Where did you get that idea?"
Television, the same place other people get ideas.
"Being good at a professional sport is even worse -- it gives you grandiose dreams of playing in the major leagues, which lead to your skimping on everything else and then having no place to go once you wash out along the way (as 99.999% of all wannabe professional athletes do), and you end up as a bitter, burned-out has-been, endlessly talking about your "glory days" back in college."
The fact that people still pursue it suggests that the goal is still popular, that people still "skimp on classes" to improve their physical abilities.
Just because boys "should" be more interested in classes doesn't mean they are, just as girls aren't interested.
Predictor, or mere indicator? Does the test say you will acheive those things, or simply that you already have?
Ask a boy if he'd rather be intelligent or good at a professional sport. Nobody wants to be intelligent, it doesn't get you any of your 15 minutes.
You're assuming there was any sort of competition in the test-taking to begin with. The people who tallied up the scores on the tests probably didn't look at anything other what the participant put down as their sex, and I doubt the test results were divulged to the takers so that they could see where they ranked. It was probably simply a matter of "Here, take this test."
They did. Kid Icarus II was for the old four-color Game Boy, and it came out maybe a few months after Metroid II.