I think it's a mistake to take a short-term view when talking about rebuilding a country.
There are obvious short-term needs which must be met, such as food and water. This is a no-brainer. The difficult part to rebuilding a country is taking advantage of the fact that you're essentially creating from whole cloth, and thus have the opportunity to either do things very right or completely cock it up.
Therefore, this is the time to talk about rebuilding Iraq's internet, especially given that the sort of freedom allowed by the internet could conceivably be an effective force for continued liberty in that country.
Iraq is a potentially wealthy country; I'd like to see that used for good things (net) rather than bad (weapons, oppression of its people, enriching Dick Cheney's friends, etc).
If my parents had been as forceful on me, as that school was, I would have likely developed a much better study habit then I currently have and would have continued to excel in life.
In the Real World(tm), I've found that my hard-won "study habits", which were developed at length in many weekend classes that my parents enrolled me in, are more or less completely useless. Unless you're an assembly-line worker, the structure of school bears little resemblence to what you'll be doing professionally.
Most of the posters here seem to agree that this is a handy tool for parents looking to, er, motivate their children to excel in the school system, but that doesn't change to fact that the basic approach to education followed by 99% of schools is badly outdated to begin with and that this sort of software only exacerbates the problem.
I'm not suggesting that a firm grip of the fundementals taught in school are not important, however one of the keys to raising a successful child is not to raise them in an environment where they are given (and thus learn to expect and rely on) constant supervision and management. This approach will create a mindset which will serve them only in the very lowest-level jobs.
The ability to demonstrate initiative, to think around problems and to plan effectively for both the short and long term are the real hallmark of effective parenting. Now, of course school performance is part of this, but only from the standpoint of working the system (good grades = good college = opportunities, hopefully).
The real issue here is that parents, and many non-parent adults, wrongly associate success in school with success in life, and as an extension their child's success in school as a validation of their parenting skills. This, of course, is not the case -- the real measure of a parent's success cannot be fully assessed until their child is thirty or so and well clear of school.
When the remote controls begin to cost more than any of the components they control are worth, there's something wrong.
Of course, all my gear is left over from college. It's been tempting to go out and get a serious home A/V system, but living in apartments as I do I feel it's a waste on several levels: (1) I can't really *use* a high end system without being lynched by my neighbors, (2) it'd be out of date when I finally get a house and can use it, and (3) spending $5k on a decent A/V setup is $5k I don't have for a home downpayment, impacting (1) and (2).
When, exactly, did life become so hectic that we need to be automating the microwave to speed up dining even more?
Learn to cook for real, people. It's cheaper, sometimes healthy and definately more satisfying. Cooking is a lot like coding -- you follow instructions. Good cooking is a lot like hacking -- you follow the instructions and then do what feels right.
Lemme get you started:
Cajun Honey Shrimp and Sausage Linguine 2 servings
1/2 package linguine
2 serrano peppers, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
3 T honey
3 T balsamic vinegar
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/4 c. fresh chopped basil or 2 T dried
1 link hot Italian sausage, casing removed and rolled into marble-sized balls
cream cheese
olive oil
12 21-25 ct. uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 c. sliced green onions
Boil water for pasta in a large pot. Heat saucepan to medium with a small amount of olive oil. Toss in the sausage balls, sauteing until they're browned (3 minutes or so). Add garlic, cook 1 minute. Add chopped tomatoes to pan and stir it up. Add the pasta to the pasta pot and begin cooking according to package directions (usually 11-12 minutes). Add peppers and basil to pan, stir together. Stir honey and balsamic vinegar into sauce. Add up to 1/4 c water from the boiling pasta pot (this will be dependant on how much water was in the tomatoes; you'll get a good feel for this after a few times making this dish). Continue to stir sauce periodically. When pasta is done, drain and return to pot with 2 or 3 T of olive oil - just enough to make it a little shiny. Mix in two spoonfulls of the sauce and mix well.
Add shrimp and green onions to sauce, cook 1-2 minutes, stirring a few times and flipping shimp in the sauce -- DO NOT OVERCOOK THE SHRIMP!
To serve, put pasta on a plate and top with sauce. Spoon 4 or 5 1/4 t. balls of cream cheese on top. Serve with wine; I highly recommend a Gewürztraminer.
Given that the things we need to do in our jobs will be illegal in a couple of years, (a) which other fields would you recommend getting into and (b) when should we start going to the local tech school to pick up the training we'll need to make it in our new careers?
Better yet, are there any other countries that have eqivalent programs to our H1-B system? I could always go live as an indentured servant to an American software company overseas.
If this fall through, however, I have dibbs on learning to rebuild engines for a living.
So for the price of two tickets, you can actually own it!
Sure, but you can't go out to the movies, buy hot movie popcorn with artificial butter and a bucket of soda and have your ticket torn. You can't sit in the dark in those movie seats playing "guess the number of trailers" with your friends. You don't get that thrill of anticipation when the lights go down, you don't get the surprise of which movies are coming up, and you don't get to see it on the Big Screen, your bladder screaming as you try to last that last fifteen minutes with a gallon of Coke cut with Sprees sloshing around your system.
Sorry, I really love going to the movies. The DVD is never the same.
Just fire all the troublemakers as an example to others. Morale will skyrocket.
I know you're probably just being sarcastic, but this is a management tactic and one I firmly disagree with.
Here's something that every university-level management program ought to stress on the first day of class: The real leaders in your organization are not just in the management chain, and all those in the management chain are not real leaders. Effective "troublemakers" are really the natural leaders in your organization who are alienated or dissatisfied for some reason. The smart thing to do it listen to them and recruit them to your side.
I'm not talking about the know-it-all engineer who runs his mouth constantly (we all know this guy, don't we?) because nobody really listens to him, anyhow. No, I mean the person who seems like they're friends with 90% of the company, who people like and respect. Think about it -- you know the sort of person I mean.
A good manager will figure out who these natural leaders are and understand that they're the key to guiding whatever organization they manage. These people can either destoy morale or make your team a team. As a manager, it's your choice.
If they're not, they can either leave or get fired, and it will be easy to replace them, probably with someone more qualified and/or with more experience, who will work for as much or maybe less money.
I know there are some bosses who think that way, but it's a bad idea from a couple of aspects.
First, it takes at least six months to get someone really up to speed in the company, probably a little longer to get them fully effective.
Second, and more important IMO, there's no entity in business more effective than an honest-to-God *team*. People who know each other, who know how the people around them work and who feel like they owe something to their coworkers. This is a hard thing to pull together, but when you do they can accomplish some really special things. Making employees feel like a commodity is completely counter to this.
A good manager will understand this; the problem is, simply, there aren't enough "good" mangers out there -- most people who manage are woefully incompetent at actually managing. Beancounters.
1) Stop laying people off. If you have to make sacrifices, then make them accross the whole oragnization, temporary pay cuts, etc.
Or, if you must lay off, act like you don't want to do it.
I've been through or in six rounds of layoffs at four different companies since I was an intern in '98. The very best handling I've seen was when I was with SGI (the company formerly known as Cray at the time) as an intern.
First, you could tell that the boss genuinely hated, hated laying off her people and felt like she'd failed them somehow. Second, when the layoffs actually happened, she held a meeting with the survivors to tell us about it so we didn't hear it through the grape vine. Finally, the department took the whole afternoon off. We had the option to go home, but instead we grabbed some beer and a couple of pizzas and went to a local park, played frisbee and hung out (the people who'd gotten laid off were invited too, which I thought was classy).
At my last company, they laid off like theives in the night. They'd call people in out of the blue, then send out an email apparently designed to scare us all into working harder and longer. One time, we laid off a dozen people and the CEO's wife (who was executive something or other) went out and bought a new Lexus the same day. It's amazing nobody took an AK-47 to that shithole -- they definately had it coming.
Treat your people like professionals, not children. Tell them what you need them to do by when (set reasonable expectations, not impossibilities), tell them what their assets and resources are, and then leave them the hell alone to work. Don't hold enless status meetings, don't hassle them about what hours they're working, etc. If someone's struggling or not doing their work, you'll have to deal with that, but don't treat that as the default situation.
My last "bad" company was constantly under deadline pressure. My development VP responded to this my having daily status meetings, wasting an hour a day restating what was happening and getting status info that he could have gotten automatically if he'd just learned to use the damned change tracking system. They'd also give you shit if you tried to go home before 9 PM (even if your work was done; you should be "testing or something"). What did I learn there? Treat people like irresponsible children and that's how they'll act.
So, basically, don't overmanage and don't be a dick. Treat your people with respect that you'll get it in return.
There's one more thing I'd suggest, but in my experience this is either something you're good at or something you're not: I'm a firm believer in team building, but in an informal way -- when you go to grab lunch, ask your people to come with you. If you're going to grab a beer after work, invite your people along. In my experience, this works great and has a lot better effect than going to Dave & Busters once a quarter or something.
Well, to be fair, I think the Iraqis may be choosing the battle site.
Try to think like a defender in this case. Would you (a) move out to engage the enemy in the open so you could be ripped apart by their superior long-range weapons and air power, or (b) let 'em come into the cities to fight, where recent history shows they're vulnerable (imagine Mogidishu with trained troops with real weapons rather than some militia with AKs)?
I'd think (b), personally -- set a few guys you don't like out in the desert to put up token resistance and place your loyal troops in areas where they can't be easily MOAB'ed.
It's too soon to call this a victory. I still think the US will win this particular battle, but it's probably not going to be as bloodless and easy as it seems so far.
But we can hope for a quick peace with minimal casualties. Hell, that's all we can do at this point.
Using religion and misinterpretation of religious writings to justify war and suffering is what got us into this mess. Personally, I've had enough of that sort of bullshit; I think 1000+ years of East-West conflict would be enough to convince anyone of that.
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
Anyhow, I'll feel better when these guys get tossed out of the White House. This whole war was so contrived and forced down people's throats it's not even funny (okay, wars aren't funny in general, but you know what I mean).
The most depressing part for me has been that this war really points out the lack of sophistication in many Americans. First, the rational is pretty much invented and set up in a schitzo way (the lack of proof is proof!) and then repeated, basically, until people bought it. Now, we have to deal with idiots being all excited that we're going to blow stuff up and kill people.
You'd think after 9-11 we'd be a little more empathetic, but then maybe it's only human suffering if you have endless TV specials with mournful music and lingering shots of the flag to back it up.
Crap, I worked from home all yesterday and I get one lousy burning building and some idiot driving through the desert with a bunch of tanks. Today, when I can't see a TV, the major bombing starts...
God, I hope this is over soon. War sucks, especially when it's for no good reason (or the reasons are manufactured).
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
- WH Auden
I'm sorry you can't find work, but I found a job in the SF Bay Area back in June, and all of the people who were laid off with me have jobs in their respective areas of expertise as well. This demonstrates that there are jobs out there.
So don't call me blase. I know what I'm talking about here from first-hand experience.
I don't think that the responses in this thread are out of line with the normal/. thinking. Really, the H1-B debate is about how large software companies are able to fuck over American workers by exploiting foreign labor -- it's not as if it's a good situation for any of the "little people" involved.
The US government has two jobs here that are sort of in conflict: They need to allow US companies to compete globally with as good a position as possible, but it also needs to maintain the standard of living for its citizens. At this particular time in history, the pendulum between those two is waaay over towards helping companies, because the companies have money to give politicians who'll help them and the citizens (IT workers, specifically) don't have any sort of organized effort to help themselves.
Many people have responded to this thread bragging about how lean they live and how there's no right to two cars or vacation or houses, but that's backwards thinking -- the whole point of working is to better our economic situations. Otherwise, we'd all be free to volunteer for worthwhile causes or sit on our asses and watch TV or whatever floats our boat.
As a citizen of the US, I expect my government to do everything in their power to maintain my standard of living (which I acknowledge is superior to that of 90% of the rest of the rest of the world's population, something for which I am glad). That's one of the things I pay taxes for.
You don't actually believe that that is the case, do you? Obviously you are not a racist, but certainly an ignorant and unaware jingoist.
Name-calling aside, you're completely off-base.
The economy of any country is based pretty much entirely on the people having jobs so they can, in turn, go out and buy things. If individual companies start firing people in their country and either bringing in foreign workers or contracting that work overseas, it damages the overall national economy.
That's why we have government. They tax these things to make them less attractive to companies and encourage them to continue paying citizens of their country to do these things, or at least reclaim some of that money and pour it back into the national economy.
If enough jobs are shipped to India, the US economy will suffer as consumer spending tanks. It's that simple. Therefore, the government needs to come in and regulate how these things are being done. It's not racist, it's not jingoist, it's economic reality.
This sounds *very* framiliar. I used to work at an office in San Jose that was 95% Chinese nationals.
Besides it being a tough environment to work in (almost all communication was in Chinese, most of the engineers spoke little to no english and my Manderin sucks except for curses), it also meant that I ended up doing all the traveling even though it wasn't in my job description. It made me miserable -- I'm just not the sort of person who enjoys flying to client sites on 24 hour notice, working in someone else's machine room, being away from home alot and etc.
I stayed for the same reasons as you, but was eventually laid off for not coming in on Christmas day. Trust me: keep the job for now, but start looking around heavily. There are other jobs out there if you're willing to put in the work to look (aka, don't just hit Monster). I spent five months unemployed and burned through 98% of my savings, but it was worth every second and every penny to be happy at work again and have stabilized my relationships with my family.
so what your saying is that history is someones opinion of what past events mean. No Thankyou, I'll be the judge of the meaning of events that happened yesterday.
Pretty much anybody can judge the meaning of events that happened yesterday, seeing as most of us were around back then to witness it first hand. It's a mistake, however, to instantly group political propaganda with valid interpretation of historical events.
Let me give you a "what": Homesteaders in the midwest during the last part of the 19th century would surprisingly often take time off from working on their own farms to go work on their neighbors' farms. There was no money or barter involved, they'd do it even when there was obviously work to be done on their own farms, and in most cases the time spent wasn't even kept track of in any way. Why not work on their own farms where they'd benefit from their labor?
It's not spelled out for you in their journals or explained in the county records, so you've got to work out the "why" for yourself. To do that, you need to do what the historian does: try to put yourself in their place, understand their reality and their reasoning. Our thinking is that it served two purposes: (1) an informal form of work sharing, an understanding that many jobs can be completed in fewer man-hours with many people than with a few, but even more importantly (2) this custom provided much-needed socialization, which is especially important when you consider how rampant cabin fever was during the isolation of the winter ("Wisconsin Death Trip" is overdone and somewhat cliche, but none the less an informative collection of the sort of insanity that prevailed when this system broke down).
That's an example from just over a century ago here in America, within three or four generations for most of us; now try interpreting events from 1000 years ago and half a world away. Take my word, it ain't easy -- if we thought like you, I'm sure we'd just assume our ancestors were just stupid or nuts.
The history of discoveries is also important but only for those who are interested. Besides teaching many theories instead of one can make some kids confused.
I would argue that the most important lesson which can be learned in relation to modern science is that the whole affair carries the disclaimer, "...But we could be completely wrong."
Pretty much anyone can follow the twists and turns of a narrative -- if you can't understand basic changes in what people believe, you'd never be able to read even the most basic work of fiction or carry on basic human relationships. We're good at understanding changes in how things are percieved because, well, that's what we *do* as humans...
Science is about how and why things work, and the process of finding out.
Isn't that exactly the point? By using a narrative format to explain how we know the things we know, aren't you accomplishing the goal of finding out how and why things work, and hte process of finding out?
Look, there's always going to be effort involved in learning; nobody's saying there won't be. But if you know that children of a given age absorb information better from format A than format B, why not go with A and set the kids up to succeed?
Just because you were taught a certain way does not mean that it was the best possible way you could have been taught. In many respects, teaching is a science -- you have to be willing to examine the studies and data and discard bad practices.
They're rewriting history books? Dammit, now I'll have to re-learn all sorts of things, like who won World War II!
Disclaimer: IAAH (I am a Historian).
There isn't a "right" way to view history; it's simplistic to think that there is. History is always necessarily the interpretation of data through our modern worldview and understanding, and as such it's appropriate to constantly reevaluate what we know of history.
Of course, there are dates and places and people in history, but the "hard facts" aren't generally important. Just knowing *what* happened doesn't really buy you anything -- it's just trivia. The *why* is what really counts, what really leads us to some understanding of history, and that's rightly always open to interpretation.
Slashdot Mirror
There are obvious short-term needs which must be met, such as food and water. This is a no-brainer. The difficult part to rebuilding a country is taking advantage of the fact that you're essentially creating from whole cloth, and thus have the opportunity to either do things very right or completely cock it up.
Therefore, this is the time to talk about rebuilding Iraq's internet, especially given that the sort of freedom allowed by the internet could conceivably be an effective force for continued liberty in that country.
Iraq is a potentially wealthy country; I'd like to see that used for good things (net) rather than bad (weapons, oppression of its people, enriching Dick Cheney's friends, etc).
In the Real World(tm), I've found that my hard-won "study habits", which were developed at length in many weekend classes that my parents enrolled me in, are more or less completely useless. Unless you're an assembly-line worker, the structure of school bears little resemblence to what you'll be doing professionally.
Most of the posters here seem to agree that this is a handy tool for parents looking to, er, motivate their children to excel in the school system, but that doesn't change to fact that the basic approach to education followed by 99% of schools is badly outdated to begin with and that this sort of software only exacerbates the problem.
I'm not suggesting that a firm grip of the fundementals taught in school are not important, however one of the keys to raising a successful child is not to raise them in an environment where they are given (and thus learn to expect and rely on) constant supervision and management. This approach will create a mindset which will serve them only in the very lowest-level jobs.
The ability to demonstrate initiative, to think around problems and to plan effectively for both the short and long term are the real hallmark of effective parenting. Now, of course school performance is part of this, but only from the standpoint of working the system (good grades = good college = opportunities, hopefully).
The real issue here is that parents, and many non-parent adults, wrongly associate success in school with success in life, and as an extension their child's success in school as a validation of their parenting skills. This, of course, is not the case -- the real measure of a parent's success cannot be fully assessed until their child is thirty or so and well clear of school.
Of course, all my gear is left over from college. It's been tempting to go out and get a serious home A/V system, but living in apartments as I do I feel it's a waste on several levels: (1) I can't really *use* a high end system without being lynched by my neighbors, (2) it'd be out of date when I finally get a house and can use it, and (3) spending $5k on a decent A/V setup is $5k I don't have for a home downpayment, impacting (1) and (2).
Learn to cook for real, people. It's cheaper, sometimes healthy and definately more satisfying. Cooking is a lot like coding -- you follow instructions. Good cooking is a lot like hacking -- you follow the instructions and then do what feels right.
Lemme get you started:
Cajun Honey Shrimp and Sausage Linguine
2 servings
1/2 package linguine
2 serrano peppers, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
3 T honey
3 T balsamic vinegar
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/4 c. fresh chopped basil or 2 T dried
1 link hot Italian sausage, casing removed and rolled into marble-sized balls
cream cheese
olive oil
12 21-25 ct. uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 c. sliced green onions
Boil water for pasta in a large pot. Heat saucepan to medium with a small amount of olive oil. Toss in the sausage balls, sauteing until they're browned (3 minutes or so). Add garlic, cook 1 minute. Add chopped tomatoes to pan and stir it up. Add the pasta to the pasta pot and begin cooking according to package directions (usually 11-12 minutes). Add peppers and basil to pan, stir together. Stir honey and balsamic vinegar into sauce. Add up to 1/4 c water from the boiling pasta pot (this will be dependant on how much water was in the tomatoes; you'll get a good feel for this after a few times making this dish). Continue to stir sauce periodically. When pasta is done, drain and return to pot with 2 or 3 T of olive oil - just enough to make it a little shiny. Mix in two spoonfulls of the sauce and mix well.
Add shrimp and green onions to sauce, cook 1-2 minutes, stirring a few times and flipping shimp in the sauce -- DO NOT OVERCOOK THE SHRIMP!
To serve, put pasta on a plate and top with sauce. Spoon 4 or 5 1/4 t. balls of cream cheese on top. Serve with wine; I highly recommend a Gewürztraminer.
Better yet, are there any other countries that have eqivalent programs to our H1-B system? I could always go live as an indentured servant to an American software company overseas.
If this fall through, however, I have dibbs on learning to rebuild engines for a living.
Sure, but you can't go out to the movies, buy hot movie popcorn with artificial butter and a bucket of soda and have your ticket torn. You can't sit in the dark in those movie seats playing "guess the number of trailers" with your friends. You don't get that thrill of anticipation when the lights go down, you don't get the surprise of which movies are coming up, and you don't get to see it on the Big Screen, your bladder screaming as you try to last that last fifteen minutes with a gallon of Coke cut with Sprees sloshing around your system.
Sorry, I really love going to the movies. The DVD is never the same.
I know you're probably just being sarcastic, but this is a management tactic and one I firmly disagree with.
Here's something that every university-level management program ought to stress on the first day of class: The real leaders in your organization are not just in the management chain, and all those in the management chain are not real leaders. Effective "troublemakers" are really the natural leaders in your organization who are alienated or dissatisfied for some reason. The smart thing to do it listen to them and recruit them to your side.
I'm not talking about the know-it-all engineer who runs his mouth constantly (we all know this guy, don't we?) because nobody really listens to him, anyhow. No, I mean the person who seems like they're friends with 90% of the company, who people like and respect. Think about it -- you know the sort of person I mean.
A good manager will figure out who these natural leaders are and understand that they're the key to guiding whatever organization they manage. These people can either destoy morale or make your team a team. As a manager, it's your choice.
I know there are some bosses who think that way, but it's a bad idea from a couple of aspects.
First, it takes at least six months to get someone really up to speed in the company, probably a little longer to get them fully effective.
Second, and more important IMO, there's no entity in business more effective than an honest-to-God *team*. People who know each other, who know how the people around them work and who feel like they owe something to their coworkers. This is a hard thing to pull together, but when you do they can accomplish some really special things. Making employees feel like a commodity is completely counter to this.
A good manager will understand this; the problem is, simply, there aren't enough "good" mangers out there -- most people who manage are woefully incompetent at actually managing. Beancounters.
Or, if you must lay off, act like you don't want to do it.
I've been through or in six rounds of layoffs at four different companies since I was an intern in '98. The very best handling I've seen was when I was with SGI (the company formerly known as Cray at the time) as an intern.
First, you could tell that the boss genuinely hated, hated laying off her people and felt like she'd failed them somehow. Second, when the layoffs actually happened, she held a meeting with the survivors to tell us about it so we didn't hear it through the grape vine. Finally, the department took the whole afternoon off. We had the option to go home, but instead we grabbed some beer and a couple of pizzas and went to a local park, played frisbee and hung out (the people who'd gotten laid off were invited too, which I thought was classy).
At my last company, they laid off like theives in the night. They'd call people in out of the blue, then send out an email apparently designed to scare us all into working harder and longer. One time, we laid off a dozen people and the CEO's wife (who was executive something or other) went out and bought a new Lexus the same day. It's amazing nobody took an AK-47 to that shithole -- they definately had it coming.
Treat your people like professionals, not children. Tell them what you need them to do by when (set reasonable expectations, not impossibilities), tell them what their assets and resources are, and then leave them the hell alone to work. Don't hold enless status meetings, don't hassle them about what hours they're working, etc. If someone's struggling or not doing their work, you'll have to deal with that, but don't treat that as the default situation.
My last "bad" company was constantly under deadline pressure. My development VP responded to this my having daily status meetings, wasting an hour a day restating what was happening and getting status info that he could have gotten automatically if he'd just learned to use the damned change tracking system. They'd also give you shit if you tried to go home before 9 PM (even if your work was done; you should be "testing or something"). What did I learn there? Treat people like irresponsible children and that's how they'll act.
So, basically, don't overmanage and don't be a dick. Treat your people with respect that you'll get it in return.
There's one more thing I'd suggest, but in my experience this is either something you're good at or something you're not: I'm a firm believer in team building, but in an informal way -- when you go to grab lunch, ask your people to come with you. If you're going to grab a beer after work, invite your people along. In my experience, this works great and has a lot better effect than going to Dave & Busters once a quarter or something.
http://www.madison.com/captimes/news/stories/45
The Feingold amendment is taking $100b from Bush's tax cuts over the next ten years to pay for the war.
Thank God someone in Washinton is still sane -- maybe we'll have an economic rebound in the next ten years after all...
Try to think like a defender in this case. Would you (a) move out to engage the enemy in the open so you could be ripped apart by their superior long-range weapons and air power, or (b) let 'em come into the cities to fight, where recent history shows they're vulnerable (imagine Mogidishu with trained troops with real weapons rather than some militia with AKs)?
I'd think (b), personally -- set a few guys you don't like out in the desert to put up token resistance and place your loyal troops in areas where they can't be easily MOAB'ed.
It's too soon to call this a victory. I still think the US will win this particular battle, but it's probably not going to be as bloodless and easy as it seems so far.
But we can hope for a quick peace with minimal casualties. Hell, that's all we can do at this point.
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
(ducks) Kidding! Kidding! Sorry!
Anyhow, I'll feel better when these guys get tossed out of the White House. This whole war was so contrived and forced down people's throats it's not even funny (okay, wars aren't funny in general, but you know what I mean).
The most depressing part for me has been that this war really points out the lack of sophistication in many Americans. First, the rational is pretty much invented and set up in a schitzo way (the lack of proof is proof!) and then repeated, basically, until people bought it. Now, we have to deal with idiots being all excited that we're going to blow stuff up and kill people.
You'd think after 9-11 we'd be a little more empathetic, but then maybe it's only human suffering if you have endless TV specials with mournful music and lingering shots of the flag to back it up.
Ignore me. I'm feeling angstful today.
God, I hope this is over soon. War sucks, especially when it's for no good reason (or the reasons are manufactured).
Sorry to burst your bubble there, shooter.
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. - WH Auden
So don't call me blase. I know what I'm talking about here from first-hand experience.
The US government has two jobs here that are sort of in conflict: They need to allow US companies to compete globally with as good a position as possible, but it also needs to maintain the standard of living for its citizens. At this particular time in history, the pendulum between those two is waaay over towards helping companies, because the companies have money to give politicians who'll help them and the citizens (IT workers, specifically) don't have any sort of organized effort to help themselves.
Many people have responded to this thread bragging about how lean they live and how there's no right to two cars or vacation or houses, but that's backwards thinking -- the whole point of working is to better our economic situations. Otherwise, we'd all be free to volunteer for worthwhile causes or sit on our asses and watch TV or whatever floats our boat.
As a citizen of the US, I expect my government to do everything in their power to maintain my standard of living (which I acknowledge is superior to that of 90% of the rest of the rest of the world's population, something for which I am glad). That's one of the things I pay taxes for.
Name-calling aside, you're completely off-base.
The economy of any country is based pretty much entirely on the people having jobs so they can, in turn, go out and buy things. If individual companies start firing people in their country and either bringing in foreign workers or contracting that work overseas, it damages the overall national economy.
That's why we have government. They tax these things to make them less attractive to companies and encourage them to continue paying citizens of their country to do these things, or at least reclaim some of that money and pour it back into the national economy.
If enough jobs are shipped to India, the US economy will suffer as consumer spending tanks. It's that simple. Therefore, the government needs to come in and regulate how these things are being done. It's not racist, it's not jingoist, it's economic reality.
Besides it being a tough environment to work in (almost all communication was in Chinese, most of the engineers spoke little to no english and my Manderin sucks except for curses), it also meant that I ended up doing all the traveling even though it wasn't in my job description. It made me miserable -- I'm just not the sort of person who enjoys flying to client sites on 24 hour notice, working in someone else's machine room, being away from home alot and etc.
I stayed for the same reasons as you, but was eventually laid off for not coming in on Christmas day. Trust me: keep the job for now, but start looking around heavily. There are other jobs out there if you're willing to put in the work to look (aka, don't just hit Monster). I spent five months unemployed and burned through 98% of my savings, but it was worth every second and every penny to be happy at work again and have stabilized my relationships with my family.
Pretty much anybody can judge the meaning of events that happened yesterday, seeing as most of us were around back then to witness it first hand. It's a mistake, however, to instantly group political propaganda with valid interpretation of historical events.
Let me give you a "what": Homesteaders in the midwest during the last part of the 19th century would surprisingly often take time off from working on their own farms to go work on their neighbors' farms. There was no money or barter involved, they'd do it even when there was obviously work to be done on their own farms, and in most cases the time spent wasn't even kept track of in any way. Why not work on their own farms where they'd benefit from their labor?
It's not spelled out for you in their journals or explained in the county records, so you've got to work out the "why" for yourself. To do that, you need to do what the historian does: try to put yourself in their place, understand their reality and their reasoning. Our thinking is that it served two purposes: (1) an informal form of work sharing, an understanding that many jobs can be completed in fewer man-hours with many people than with a few, but even more importantly (2) this custom provided much-needed socialization, which is especially important when you consider how rampant cabin fever was during the isolation of the winter ("Wisconsin Death Trip" is overdone and somewhat cliche, but none the less an informative collection of the sort of insanity that prevailed when this system broke down).
That's an example from just over a century ago here in America, within three or four generations for most of us; now try interpreting events from 1000 years ago and half a world away. Take my word, it ain't easy -- if we thought like you, I'm sure we'd just assume our ancestors were just stupid or nuts.
I would argue that the most important lesson which can be learned in relation to modern science is that the whole affair carries the disclaimer, "...But we could be completely wrong."
Pretty much anyone can follow the twists and turns of a narrative -- if you can't understand basic changes in what people believe, you'd never be able to read even the most basic work of fiction or carry on basic human relationships. We're good at understanding changes in how things are percieved because, well, that's what we *do* as humans...
Isn't that exactly the point? By using a narrative format to explain how we know the things we know, aren't you accomplishing the goal of finding out how and why things work, and hte process of finding out?
Look, there's always going to be effort involved in learning; nobody's saying there won't be. But if you know that children of a given age absorb information better from format A than format B, why not go with A and set the kids up to succeed?
Just because you were taught a certain way does not mean that it was the best possible way you could have been taught. In many respects, teaching is a science -- you have to be willing to examine the studies and data and discard bad practices.
Disclaimer: IAAH (I am a Historian).
There isn't a "right" way to view history; it's simplistic to think that there is. History is always necessarily the interpretation of data through our modern worldview and understanding, and as such it's appropriate to constantly reevaluate what we know of history.
Of course, there are dates and places and people in history, but the "hard facts" aren't generally important. Just knowing *what* happened doesn't really buy you anything -- it's just trivia. The *why* is what really counts, what really leads us to some understanding of history, and that's rightly always open to interpretation.