Cracking the sternum is a strange way to remove a kidney.Seems like you're a bit out of the way and all. Ho hum, I'm not a surgeon though, I just read the article.
IMO I think the union members earn their money. They have a right to collective bargaining and standing up for what they feel is reasonable working conditions and wages. Unions are going down the toilet. And the reason is, in many industries, it doesn't matter if they strike. Temp workers can be found to replace them easily enough.
Take Powell's Books in Portland OR. They're unionized. But replacing book store employees isn't tremendously difficult. A few months of massive revenue loss while new employees learn the ropes but then everything runs kind of alright. In the dock workers case, the company won't bring in scabs because the job is too dangerous.
So I argue that unions are a perfect response to the corporation. If a company is the aggregation of resources to produce something, and the management is the manifestation of that concept, aren't they just a union? A collective bargaining tool for the rights of the owners?
In any free market system, a union is a fair and honest way to assert the rights of workers. Like any nice idea, capitalism, corporate responsibility, the US Government, the implementation isn't always as nice as the idea. That doesn't mean it should go away. It just needs work. Like everything else in this run down used car lot we call the world.
Picking on unions might be fun, but the reality is that everyone deserves a decent job with a decent liveable wage. You can thank unions for the weekend, vacation time, health benefits, severance pay, comp time, work safety regulations. Whatever white collar fucks think those who do the work that makes this country function should be paid liveable wages. Whether its unloading cargo containers from ships or driving fork lifts at automotive plants.
FYI, the ILWU controls all the ports in the US. Europe, Canada and Japanese unions are in close contact as well (if you use non-union laborers in Boston, you're ship isn't getting unloaded in Europe). Dock workers have a thankless and dangerous job. They deserve their money.
And no-one ever knows how many potential crimes don't happen because the intended victim might have a gun. Those episodes never make the news either, for obvious reasons.
Those episodes never get reported because there's no evidence they actually exist. A nice urban myth that gun owners smugly tell themselves while going to bed. Sleep well!
I don't know how many of you live in New England (probably a lot) but in Vermont, at least, we don't really like shitheads from out of state coming in and telling us what to do. Especially if all they want to do is repeal all the laws and let a bunch of idiots from New York, Mass. and Connecticutt move up here and build a bunch of goddamn housing developments. Go home flatlander, you're not welcome here.
So support the war on Iraq if the UN can't find the balls to get rid of that man and free the Iraqi people.
Sure, great idea. Why don't we start going through the world and removing all the terrible dictators. Africa probably needs a good sweep and Asia. I'm sure we could get rid of some bad men in South America as well. Hell, the satellite states of the former Soviet Union probably have some real winners running things as well. Let's head over there and start kicking ass. What the hell, we only have a crumbling economy, more new bureacracies than you can shake a stick at (thanks Bush), schools that can't function because everyone above the level of teacher is brain dead (a lot of the teachers as well), a health care system that doesn't work for a large number of Americans and the potential for more terrorist attacks because our administration can't pull their head of their collective asses. But screw domestic policy, we need to go attack a tiny country in the middle of nowhere because Bush woke up one day with a hard-on for Saddam. Screw the CIA and most of the pentagon, they can advise against a war all they want. We're still going in damn't.
You can get beer at any McMenamins Theater in Portland, OR. Or Laurelhurst Theater, also in Portland OR. Nothing like paying $2 bucks to see a movie and get to drink beer and eat pizza while watching! Ha ha, portland rules (to bad Oregon's economy sucks right now).
Sprint was CDMA back when everything was TDMA. The entire U.S. didn't want to play GSM (can you say IS-41). It's only recently that the big U.S. wireless companies have come round. Cheers to them.
Do not go for an MBA. They are essentially worthless. Unless you go to a top 5 school there is a glut of meaningless MBAs. The only real benefit of the MBA is the networking potential. And then its only meaningful if you go to one of the top business schools.
Yep. When people have confidence in their leader and the direction of the country the economy does well. Bush does nothing but scare the shit out of everyone who hears him (and has any money). Investors flee the market. Personally, I also think that Bush is killing the tech market. His focus on oil, timber and natural resources and lack of interest in anything tech isn't helping any of us. The bubble burst but Bush isn't helping pick up any of the positive pieces.
Holy shit. You're an American citizen? I hope that there aren't very many like you because that would be terrible for this nation. I value my freedoms and I feel that is what makes America great. Not that we're free, but that some portion of the population strives for an ideal and doesn't seek compromise. You're definition of free is basically a short distance from fascism. You are justifying the removal of all freedom in the name of a safety which doesn't exist and is impossible to attain. I'm not a big anti-communist but you are espousing the worst of Soviet communism. Please, we have enough quasi-fascists in our government and society turning our country into a police state. Don't be one of them.
No matter what scientists think are the benefits - and no matter how skillful their rhetoric - if the general public doesn't want to fund research into XXX, then those scientists should not receive a penny of taxpayer's money.
This is completely wrong. There is no general public, we are not a tyranny of the majority (well, that's debatable). I don't want my money to go to the military-industrial complex, or the agri-business. Do I get a chance to say that? Hell, no. Is there a large chunk of the population, who pay significant taxes, who agree with me. Yes! I grew up in Vermont which is something of an agricultural state. Did my taxes go to support small farms, which is what agriculture is in New England? No, it goes to put them out of business by subsidizing farms in the midwest and california. The point is, there is no general concensus on what research should be supported. Yes, I believe science should be supported for it's own sake. The taxes I pay would happily support a grad student or buy 1/100000th of a pork military bomber that doesn't fly, won't ever be used and the pentagon doesn't even want. No, I don't give a rats ass what the general public thinks. This nebulous "we the people" who so clearly express their opinion doesn't exist. It's a fantasy invented by companies and politicians.
The problem with what you're saying is that it's true of the private sector as well. Anyone who believes that corporations are lean machines designed to make money is A) working for the Government B) A politician or C) Never had a job in a company larger than 15 people. People don't generally get fired in the private sector (unless the company likes lawsuits).
You didn't work in Silicon Valley at it's peak I gather. Holy crap, the most incompetent bunch of idiots I've ever worked with. Companies (I worked for Lucent and with Cisco and a few other companies) were hiring warm bodies who could string together semi-complete sentences containing some combo of tech babble. And paying them huge salaries. It was ludicrous. Having a (C, C++) programmer call me up and ask me how to use a switch statement was sad. Even worse was working with other SS7 "experts" who had never picked up a protocol spec and couldn't differentiate between MTP2 and MTP3, to say nothing of the relationship between IS-41, SCCP and TCAP.:)
I don't trust poor people or government officials when they insist that it can't.
Actually rich people are the ones that tell the rest of us that being rich sucks and money can't buy you happiness. Only an asshole who's never had to stress out about paying rent, or grocery bills, or supporting other people on a miniscule budget would say something as inane as money can't buy happiness. People who have no money know that this is complete bullshit. Money can buy a shitload of happiness. As soon as I get me some, I'll demonstrate. Finally, in the immortal words of the Wu-Tang C.R.E.A.M. baby.
There is a non-coherent creationist conjecture, there is no theory. Perhaps try showing (or explaining) this theory and demonstrating provable tests for its validity. Oh, you can't can you. The bible doesn't try to explain the actual creation of diddly squat.
To claim that all Christians are fundamentalist is inane. The large majority of Christians, in my experience (which was Episcopalian, thank god) are not fundamentalist. For them it's not difficult to reconcile science with their belief that the bible is NOT literally true. Any intelligent Christian understands that the bible is allegory and that doesn't invalidate their faith in any way.
Ahhh if only it were true. Most of the time business is about clueless losers who can't figure out how they are managing to make money. So you get told to do one thing, and then a week later another. Bob the vice president of ass-picking thinks we should refocus and spend less time with whatever random ass thing another vice president thought was cool last week and start working on another inane project. But your director wants to be a vice president and thinks Bob might be on the way out because the ceo or president or whoever didn't bring him coffee at last weeks important persons meeting. Blah blah blah, corporations are full of retards. It's been a continueing mystery how most of the companies I've worked at make any money whatsoever (and some, like Lucent, went where they should have). But somehow they do, it's a conspiracy or something.
The real thing that seems to matter is the egos of directors, vice presidents, cfos, ctos, ceos, coos.
I believe the white collar criminal is fundamentally worse than a mugger or car jacker.
The white collar criminal costs us all money. In the lost taxes and lost jobs that eventually follow from corps. eating shit. 1) Since Enron and Worldcom are subsidized by our tax dollars in the first place (telecoms and the electric industry wouldn't exist today if we hadn't payed for the infrastructure) 2) We eat the taxes they don't pay. Now that we're having all these bitches being brought to trial we're all hurt and demoralized by having the executive world exposed for what it is. A bunch of crooks looking to take your money and run as fast as they can.
The illusion drops for a second and we see the situation for what it is. As soon as the news stops we'll all get our medication and the stock market will bloat up on the same bullshit as before though. And then there's be more tax based subsidies to support and maintain our corporate masters.
(These are U.S. available beers from various local and international breweries - all are excellent) Black Butte Porter (Deschutes), Blue Paddle or Fat Tire, Catamount Ale, Optimator, Czechvar, anything from Bridgeport in Portland, OR, Paulaner Hefeweizen, Celebrator, I'm a sucker for Russian Stouts and just about any Dopplebock as well. Wow, I'm getting thirsty. Notice neither Labatts nor Molson is on that list, nor Bud, Busch, Schlitz, Schaefers, PBR, Hams, Olympia, Rainier nor any of the other bazillion shit ass beers.
To depict every event from, say, the Lord of the Rings in nine hours of film, you would have to watch the entire thing in fast forward. Take Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs for example. That makes up much of the first book (of six). However, I think most people agree that while interesting, it was nonessential in telling the story and not worth sacrificing quality of other scenes to cram it in.
Actually I disagree that the Tom Bombadil sections are nonessential. I think leaving them out of the movie makes the story come dangerously close to simply being one big chase scene. Tom Bombadil represents a perspective that is never again provided in the book. He demonstrates the pointless and absurd nature of history. He is not affected by the corruption of the ring (the only party in the books who isn't affected). It is important to the story to see this counterpoint to the rest of the characters. Tom Bombadil shows that all the other characters are, in some ways, just playing games. There is something more fundamental and more meaningful.
Not only that but the cops are assholes AND everywhere. I used to drive from Vermont to Cleveland a fair amount and Pennsylvania was always a police nightmare.
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Cracking the sternum is a strange way to remove a kidney.Seems like you're a bit out of the way and all. Ho hum, I'm not a surgeon though, I just read the article.
IMO I think the union members earn their money. They have a right to collective bargaining and standing up for what they feel is reasonable working conditions and wages. Unions are going down the toilet. And the reason is, in many industries, it doesn't matter if they strike. Temp workers can be found to replace them easily enough.
Take Powell's Books in Portland OR. They're unionized. But replacing book store employees isn't tremendously difficult. A few months of massive revenue loss while new employees learn the ropes but then everything runs kind of alright. In the dock workers case, the company won't bring in scabs because the job is too dangerous.
So I argue that unions are a perfect response to the corporation. If a company is the aggregation of resources to produce something, and the management is the manifestation of that concept, aren't they just a union? A collective bargaining tool for the rights of the owners?
In any free market system, a union is a fair and honest way to assert the rights of workers. Like any nice idea, capitalism, corporate responsibility, the US Government, the implementation isn't always as nice as the idea. That doesn't mean it should go away. It just needs work. Like everything else in this run down used car lot we call the world.
Picking on unions might be fun, but the reality is that everyone deserves a decent job with a decent liveable wage. You can thank unions for the weekend, vacation time, health benefits, severance pay, comp time, work safety regulations. Whatever white collar fucks think those who do the work that makes this country function should be paid liveable wages. Whether its unloading cargo containers from ships or driving fork lifts at automotive plants.
FYI, the ILWU controls all the ports in the US. Europe, Canada and Japanese unions are in close contact as well (if you use non-union laborers in Boston, you're ship isn't getting unloaded in Europe). Dock workers have a thankless and dangerous job. They deserve their money.
Do you understand what Foucault actually means when he talks about the Panopticon.
While interesting the important thing is to understand Derrida and read Foucault. Derrida is the idea, Foucault the implementation.
Actually GWAR would kill all, not even breaking a sweat (well, maybe a little bit).
Corrrr, Danger!
And no-one ever knows how many potential crimes don't happen because the intended victim might have a gun. Those episodes never make the news either, for obvious reasons.
Those episodes never get reported because there's no evidence they actually exist. A nice urban myth that gun owners smugly tell themselves while going to bed. Sleep well!
I don't know how many of you live in New England (probably a lot) but in Vermont, at least, we don't really like shitheads from out of state coming in and telling us what to do. Especially if all they want to do is repeal all the laws and let a bunch of idiots from New York, Mass. and Connecticutt move up here and build a bunch of goddamn housing developments. Go home flatlander, you're not welcome here.
So support the war on Iraq if the UN can't find the balls to get rid of that man and free the Iraqi people.
Sure, great idea. Why don't we start going through the world and removing all the terrible dictators. Africa probably needs a good sweep and Asia. I'm sure we could get rid of some bad men in South America as well. Hell, the satellite states of the former Soviet Union probably have some real winners running things as well. Let's head over there and start kicking ass. What the hell, we only have a crumbling economy, more new bureacracies than you can shake a stick at (thanks Bush), schools that can't function because everyone above the level of teacher is brain dead (a lot of the teachers as well), a health care system that doesn't work for a large number of Americans and the potential for more terrorist attacks because our administration can't pull their head of their collective asses. But screw domestic policy, we need to go attack a tiny country in the middle of nowhere because Bush woke up one day with a hard-on for Saddam. Screw the CIA and most of the pentagon, they can advise against a war all they want. We're still going in damn't.
You can get beer at any McMenamins Theater in Portland, OR. Or Laurelhurst Theater, also in Portland OR. Nothing like paying $2 bucks to see a movie and get to drink beer and eat pizza while watching! Ha ha, portland rules (to bad Oregon's economy sucks right now).
Sprint was CDMA back when everything was TDMA. The entire U.S. didn't want to play GSM (can you say IS-41). It's only recently that the big U.S. wireless companies have come round. Cheers to them.
Do not go for an MBA. They are essentially worthless. Unless you go to a top 5 school there is a glut of meaningless MBAs. The only real benefit of the MBA is the networking potential. And then its only meaningful if you go to one of the top business schools.
Yep. When people have confidence in their leader and the direction of the country the economy does well. Bush does nothing but scare the shit out of everyone who hears him (and has any money). Investors flee the market. Personally, I also think that Bush is killing the tech market. His focus on oil, timber and natural resources and lack of interest in anything tech isn't helping any of us. The bubble burst but Bush isn't helping pick up any of the positive pieces.
Holy shit. You're an American citizen? I hope that there aren't very many like you because that would be terrible for this nation. I value my freedoms and I feel that is what makes America great. Not that we're free, but that some portion of the population strives for an ideal and doesn't seek compromise. You're definition of free is basically a short distance from fascism. You are justifying the removal of all freedom in the name of a safety which doesn't exist and is impossible to attain. I'm not a big anti-communist but you are espousing the worst of Soviet communism. Please, we have enough quasi-fascists in our government and society turning our country into a police state. Don't be one of them.
Tyranny of the majority is basically mob rule. And as any good Black Sabbath fan knows: When you listen to Fools the mob rules.
No matter what scientists think are the benefits - and no matter how skillful their rhetoric - if the general public doesn't want to fund research into XXX, then those scientists should not receive a penny of taxpayer's money.
This is completely wrong. There is no general public, we are not a tyranny of the majority (well, that's debatable). I don't want my money to go to the military-industrial complex, or the agri-business. Do I get a chance to say that? Hell, no. Is there a large chunk of the population, who pay significant taxes, who agree with me. Yes! I grew up in Vermont which is something of an agricultural state. Did my taxes go to support small farms, which is what agriculture is in New England? No, it goes to put them out of business by subsidizing farms in the midwest and california. The point is, there is no general concensus on what research should be supported. Yes, I believe science should be supported for it's own sake. The taxes I pay would happily support a grad student or buy 1/100000th of a pork military bomber that doesn't fly, won't ever be used and the pentagon doesn't even want. No, I don't give a rats ass what the general public thinks. This nebulous "we the people" who so clearly express their opinion doesn't exist. It's a fantasy invented by companies and politicians.
The problem with what you're saying is that it's true of the private sector as well. Anyone who believes that corporations are lean machines designed to make money is A) working for the Government B) A politician or C) Never had a job in a company larger than 15 people. People don't generally get fired in the private sector (unless the company likes lawsuits).
You didn't work in Silicon Valley at it's peak I gather. Holy crap, the most incompetent bunch of idiots I've ever worked with. Companies (I worked for Lucent and with Cisco and a few other companies) were hiring warm bodies who could string together semi-complete sentences containing some combo of tech babble. And paying them huge salaries. It was ludicrous. Having a (C, C++) programmer call me up and ask me how to use a switch statement was sad. Even worse was working with other SS7 "experts" who had never picked up a protocol spec and couldn't differentiate between MTP2 and MTP3, to say nothing of the relationship between IS-41, SCCP and TCAP. :)
Sorry I could't resist that last bit.
I don't trust poor people or government officials when they insist that it can't.
Actually rich people are the ones that tell the rest of us that being rich sucks and money can't buy you happiness. Only an asshole who's never had to stress out about paying rent, or grocery bills, or supporting other people on a miniscule budget would say something as inane as money can't buy happiness. People who have no money know that this is complete bullshit. Money can buy a shitload of happiness. As soon as I get me some, I'll demonstrate.
Finally, in the immortal words of the Wu-Tang C.R.E.A.M. baby.
There is a non-coherent creationist conjecture, there is no theory. Perhaps try showing (or explaining) this theory and demonstrating provable tests for its validity. Oh, you can't can you. The bible doesn't try to explain the actual creation of diddly squat.
To claim that all Christians are fundamentalist is inane. The large majority of Christians, in my experience (which was Episcopalian, thank god) are not fundamentalist. For them it's not difficult to reconcile science with their belief that the bible is NOT literally true. Any intelligent Christian understands that the bible is allegory and that doesn't invalidate their faith in any way.
In business, the bottom line is all that matters.
Ahhh if only it were true. Most of the time business is about clueless losers who can't figure out how they are managing to make money. So you get told to do one thing, and then a week later another. Bob the vice president of ass-picking thinks we should refocus and spend less time with whatever random ass thing another vice president thought was cool last week and start working on another inane project. But your director wants to be a vice president and thinks Bob might be on the way out because the ceo or president or whoever didn't bring him coffee at last weeks important persons meeting. Blah blah blah, corporations are full of retards. It's been a continueing mystery how most of the companies I've worked at make any money whatsoever (and some, like Lucent, went where they should have). But somehow they do, it's a conspiracy or something.
The real thing that seems to matter is the egos of directors, vice presidents, cfos, ctos, ceos, coos.
I believe the white collar criminal is fundamentally worse than a mugger or car jacker.
The white collar criminal costs us all money. In the lost taxes and lost jobs that eventually follow from corps. eating shit.
1) Since Enron and Worldcom are subsidized by our tax dollars in the first place (telecoms and the electric industry wouldn't exist today if we hadn't payed for the infrastructure)
2) We eat the taxes they don't pay. Now that we're having all these bitches being brought to trial we're all hurt and demoralized by having the executive world exposed for what it is. A bunch of crooks looking to take your money and run as fast as they can.
The illusion drops for a second and we see the situation for what it is. As soon as the news stops we'll all get our medication and the stock market will bloat up on the same bullshit as before though. And then there's be more tax based subsidies to support and maintain our corporate masters.
(These are U.S. available beers from various local and international breweries - all are excellent) Black Butte Porter (Deschutes), Blue Paddle or Fat Tire, Catamount Ale, Optimator, Czechvar, anything from Bridgeport in Portland, OR, Paulaner Hefeweizen, Celebrator, I'm a sucker for Russian Stouts and just about any Dopplebock as well. Wow, I'm getting thirsty. Notice neither Labatts nor Molson is on that list, nor Bud, Busch, Schlitz, Schaefers, PBR, Hams, Olympia, Rainier nor any of the other bazillion shit ass beers.
To depict every event from, say, the Lord of the Rings in nine hours of film, you would have to watch the entire thing in fast forward. Take Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs for example. That makes up much of the first book (of six). However, I think most people agree that while interesting, it was nonessential in telling the story and not worth sacrificing quality of other scenes to cram it in.
Actually I disagree that the Tom Bombadil sections are nonessential. I think leaving them out of the movie makes the story come dangerously close to simply being one big chase scene. Tom Bombadil represents a perspective that is never again provided in the book. He demonstrates the pointless and absurd nature of history. He is not affected by the corruption of the ring (the only party in the books who isn't affected). It is important to the story to see this counterpoint to the rest of the characters. Tom Bombadil shows that all the other characters are, in some ways, just playing games. There is something more fundamental and more meaningful.
Not only that but the cops are assholes AND everywhere. I used to drive from Vermont to Cleveland a fair amount and Pennsylvania was always a police nightmare.