Yes, teachers earn above average salary. As in, just barely above average salary. And they require at least four years of post-secondary education from an accredited university, multiple certification tests, and specialized training beyond their content area. It's more common than not to have teachers with either a Masters degree or more-than-a-Masters in college credits. And they are (almost always) forced to take yearly classes to improve their teaching skills.
And for that, they earn slightly above average wages (slightly below average when you remove overpaid and under-qualified private teachers and "specialist" teachers) and get subjected to statements like the old gem:
"Those who can't do, teach."
Right. I remember taking classes with the MBA crowd in college. I'm sure there were some talented people there, but I never met them. Most of them spent their time drinking and screwing people who weren't their girlfriend (or fiancee). They do their four or five years, exit with their cakewalk 3.0 GPA and avoid all learning for the rest of their lives.
And they have higher average salaries than teachers.
I will openly admit that I spent four years in college, got my BS and left. And when I spend time around teachers, I feel ashamed that I make twice as much as they do. And I get 26 vacation days a year. That's only a couple weeks short of what the teachers here get.
Looking back over this post, it's actually much worse than I first thought. My first response assumed that teachers would just accept this new pay mechanism and not adjust to it.
The reality is that this would turn teaching into the worst kind of popularity competition: the kind where you're paid if you win.
Ignoring the fact that students are notoriously horrible at judging the quality of their teachers until much later in life (and sometimes: never), and that dozens of studies have shown that students behave better and show greater appreciation of attractive teachers regardless of their ability as a teacher, this idea is almost humorously bad on its face. Worded another way:
Teachers should be paid based on how many students say they like them.
Oh, sure, it won't matter when Jebidiah Bob Hickson comes through school. He'd get treated just like everyone else. But when Alistair Moneysocks writes a three page paper about how the Great Pyramids of Gibraltar were used to talk with the Prince of Atlantis, the teacher's not going to think twice about flunking his absurdly rich and profitable ass.
Yay! We've come up with yet another scheme to give rich kids an advantage! Thank god. They've got so much going against them...
1: Original lesson plans are not specially ordered or commissioned. Teachers are paid to teach. That requires lesson plans, but it doesn't require teachers to formulate new, original plans.
2: (Ignored for now)
3: All teachers I know of work on a contract. I've read through a couple of them. The requirement is that they work a certain time interval and accomplish their duties within that time. No mention is made of any creations done during that time or any time outside that interval. Usually, the contract states that they will be provided materials for teaching.
Seeing as two of the three requirements for "Work For Hire" are not met here, it simply doesn't apply.
If a teacher was required to produce a specific plan, then yes. If a teacher produced a plan during their school day (unlikely), then yes. Otherwise, no.
No. You paid the teachers to teach your children between the hours of 8am and 3pm (give or take).
You did not pay for the teacher to spend 3pm to 4pm grading projects and 7pm to 9pm developing a new lesson plan.
I work from 9am to 5pm. If anyone tried to tell me that the (open source) code I write between 7pm and 9pm belongs to my employer, I'd tell them where they can shove it.
Most teachers have a contracted work day (7:30pm to 3:30pm locally).
In this area, this means that they are "on the clock" during that time and free to leave to do their own thing beyond that. They can be obligated to attend meetings beyond these hours, but only when officially scheduled. It's common for teachers to stay an hour after "contract" to work on grading or lesson plans, and its equally common for them to go home and do yet more work that night.
Since teachers unions are outlawed here and striking is illegal, the only recourse the teachers have against abusive treatment by parents and administrators is to "Work To Contract", meaning that they work the hours they are paid for.
This is only slightly less debilitating than a full strike. Students get cookie-cutter lessons and quickly fall behind schedule. Schools double or triple their paper usage as teachers fill students time with worksheets instead of learning activities. Assignments don't get graded. Grades don't get done on time. Sporting events are rescheduled. Plays and concerts are canceled.
It happens every five or so years. Apparently, that's how long it takes parents to remember just how much work teachers put in beyond what their contracts say they should.
No, a significant portion of the budget goes to buying lesson programs.
If teachers are using these plans, unmodified, for the bulk of their lessons then they are crap teachers and your father should really do something to try and fix that (its his job, by the way). Of all the teachers I know, none of them use canned lessons without changing them and adapting them significantly.
I know districts that require teachers to submit lesson plans and follow them, but any district that forces teachers to follow plans that are not their own is simply Doing It Wrong[tm]. In those cases, the fault is not with the teachers, but with the administrators for using such a policy, the school board for picking such a stupid administrator, and mostly the public for willingly choosing to give their children a bad education.
I'm sure that "High School Sports Coach" will become quite lucrative.
And then of course we have the math and science teachers. I'm sure they'll be fine with the two students they get each yet. It's not enough that there is a shortage of them considering they can get paid much more in commercial/industrial settings with less schooling and no need to deal with selfish parents. What they really need is to have the public's disdain for them monetized for them.
I understand people's hatred of unions (damn them for trying to rip power from the wealthy!), but for most people, hatred of the teachers unions are less about wanting better teachers and more about being upset at a small number of bad teachers. Many states outlaw teachers unions and many of those that don't prevent the unions from having any teeth (by preventing strikes, forcing arbitration, and so forth).
People like to trot out examples of how unions have protected bad (sometimes criminal) teachers, and I won't say I disagree that those are bad situations. However, its not nearly as bad as the number of teachers who would be fired for being gay, Democratic (or Republican), male in a "female" position (or vice versa), a bad coach, not a coach, or simply in a non-marriage relationship.
I wish the world were a nice enough place that we could ditch unions and get rid of bad teachers. However, I live in the real world. For every bad teacher I've seen protected by a union, I've seen another forced out of their position by the union and other teachers and administrators. And for each of them, there are probably two or three teachers who parents wanted removed for almost criminal reasons.
I had one teacher who was brought before the school board to argue for his job. His crime? "Not providing a supportive environment." The real problem: He had been named the head coach for boys basketball two years earlier and hadn't had a winning season yet. Another teacher was almost fired for "inappropriate behavior around females". Of course, no girl actually accused him of anything. It's just that he was the coach of the girls basketball team and a bunch of parents felt that the head coach should be a woman. Another was almost fired because she started dating a new man and that was viewed as "being an inappropriate role model" despite the fact that it was done as privately as possible (in a small town).
I've known teachers who were fired for being gay. I know teachers who were fired for wearing the "wrong clothes" on weekends. Many of the teachers I know right now pick bars to go to based on the fact that none of their children's parents will be there. They are basically forced to hide every aspect of their personal lives because nothing is off limits to insane parents. Often, the only protection they have is the pooled legal resources of the local teachers union.
The problem here is the public and how they treat teachers. The last thing they ever consider is to trust teachers more. If you raised the public's opinion of teachers, you'd have less attrition. Don't be so ignorant that you think that good teachers can't see who the bad teachers are. If you give them trust and quit tying them all up with the same rope, they'll get rid of the bad teachers for you.
I don't know about you, but my job cannot claim copyright or ownership of any of the work I do outside the office. And of the couple dozen teachers I know, only a couple of them write up their lesson plans during "contract hours" (the hours they are contracted to work).
If someone makes a lesson plan at 9pm at night, why in hell does the government have any say in how its used?
Now, I'm a fan of openness and sharing and I'd love to see a Public Domain (or GPLed) repository of good lesson plans, but your argument that the government has any ownership of these ideas is based on the (laughably) misguided idea that teachers write lesson plans during the day.
And, as for your "supply and demand" comment, I could argue the exact opposite: If teachers were paid more, more qualified people would consider it as a career option instead of anything else. The rate of attrition for teachers suggests that view is perhaps a little more reasonable.
No clergy can be compelled to sanction any marriage. Catholic priests do it all the time, and for reasons less serious than homosexuality (pre-marital sex, un-baptised partner, "immoral" past, unwilling to promise to raise the children as catholics).
...and they'll still have problems in states like Virginia which decided to pass laws which refuse to honor such contracts when they are between two homosexuals.
If you're saying to yourself: "Wait. How can they do that? Doesn't the constitution prevent them from picking and choosing which contracts they honor?"
Welcome to Virginia, where a delusional sense of historical importance mixes with long-standing bigotry to create a state where many* people think they should be above the Constitution.
Virgina: Its for (heterosexual) lovers.
[*] Note: I am from Northern (aka "Fake") Virginia, where diversity is tolerated and even celebrated. Sadly, we're only about 45% of the state at the moment. Give us another decade so we can try to fix some of our social problems.
It was always a single player RPG. From the very start. It was never intended to be anything else. It is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate (party-based combat RPG), not NWN.
I have trouble believing you're so blind as to fail to see the difference between these two.
Stephen Colbert is a satirist, and Rush can only joke about trying to be one. Stephen Colbert has repeatedly shown that not only does he know that he's playing an over-the-top character for one TV show, but that said character is almost a polar opposite of his own beliefs. In fact, his show plays on that fact and if you watch more than cherrypicked clips, you'll see that he "breaks the fourth wall" quite often.
Steven Colbert is not the character he plays and that is the whole point of the show. The fact that you don't have any clue about this tells me that you have no business talking about this subject.
Finally, unlike Rush, who seems to be even more fascist and abrasive outside his own show, Colbert has given plenty of interviews where he acts like himself, a normal, cheery and totally down to earth person. Actually, he gives them four times a week for about a half hour before every one of his shows. While the cameras and sound guys get set up for the show, Colbert comes out and talks with the audience as himself. When I was there, he actually looked a little sad and upset because, as he explained very humbly to us, he had decided to rewrite most of the show a couple hours earlier and that decision left us out in the spring rain for an extra half hour, and in a cramped waiting room for forty minutes.
I guess you just don't get it. Colbert was friendlier than most local news anchors I've met and far more aware of the fact that he was performing a comedy routine than you seem to be.
Whether or not he is a reasonable person in his true heart of hearts, the only face he ever shows in public is that of the bombastic, self-aggrandizing jerk. That's what he needs to be judged by.
Hold on.
The only face Anthony Daniels has ever shown in public is that of a naive, ignorant, and cowardly simpleton who simultaneously fails at being both competent and humorous.
So, that's how I should judge him, right? Oh? He was playing a character in a movie? Well, he's never shown me any other side of himself, so I should feel free to blast him personally for his behavior and hold him up as a pinata for others to beat on?
Just because you have only seen Colbert in character doesn't mean that his in-character persona must be close to his real one.
Go to a taping of one of his shows. Before the show he comes out to talk to the audience. Not being a judgmental ass (or an idiot who doesn't understand satire), I figured that he wasn't really like the character he plays. However, I was surprised at just how down-to-earth and friendly he is. He truly is humbled by the gifts and honors (however tongue-in-cheek) that he gets.
In this case, I'm pretty safe. I live near DC working on a 5 year government contract which is based on money that's already been delivered. If I get taken down by the economy, then we're in deep, deep trouble.
The thing that annoys me is that despite the fact that I have no worries about my job, I seem to be one of the few people who is capable of worrying about anyone but myself.
Oh waaah. You're taxes are going up and they're being spent to prop up corrupt businessmen who gambled with our national economy as if it were some frat-party drinking game. At least you're not upside-down on your mortgage and in danger of losing your job in a couple months. You can deal with the fact that you can't afford a Lexus this year and pay up to help a dozen families stay in their home while we fix all the damage a bunch of investment-banker tools inflicted on the country.
(Note: this is the non-specific "you". I don't believe that you, MillionthMonkey, are one of those jackasses)
Yes, of course that would work. Of course it would cost a little less money. The situation is not so different from the Great Depression. As all the idiots on Fox "News" were talking about this week: "the New Deal lengthened and deepened the Great Depression".
And they're right.
One way to solve these sorts of situations is just to let them fall down. Sure it hurts for a bit, but it's better to take the pain for a short time than suffer for a long time, right? Sure, times will be rough, but you just need to brace yourself and use a little common sense: don't buy a new car this year, hold off on renovating your beach house, and be a little more conservative in how you invest your disposable income.
Wait. What do you mean you don't have a beach house? You're only investment is your 401k? And your only car is already 12 years old? Well, that's gonna make it harder to stop that imminent foreclosure, but at least you can be kept warm at night knowing that your hunger is helping the country save a little bit of money.
It must feel good to be able to sit there, saying that the best solution is to let a section of the economy totally fail. I mean, its not like you're the one taking the hit, right? You're not losing your job or your house. You're not the one who actually has to endure hardship. And neither am I. I just bought a house. I'm going on vacation. I'm doing fine, but I'm not so much of an ass that I don't realize that many lower and middle-class people out there would lose many years of happiness in the name of helping the wealthy "suffer" through the economic troubles we're in.
Yes, the New Deal made the Great Depression a little worse, but it also kept people from dying of hunger or maybe only losing every bit of wealth and happiness they had been building up in their life.
Does AIG suck hardcore: Yes. Do the deserve help? Absolutely not, but the lower middle class does and they are the ones who would pay for your "let them fail" plan. I have zero sympathy for anyone in the upper-middle and upper classes who whines about how this is affecting their lives and how they feel their money is being wasted.
Vaccines do work as advertised. They usually give immunity to the illness. No one has ever said they are 100% effective. Some people's immune systems simply don't keep the immunity. Others seem to just ignore the vaccine. However, that's a small minority.
The power of vaccines, as others have pointed out, is in herd immunity. If vaccines are given to 95% of the people, then there is only a small group of people who are available to spread the disease. Whatever percentage (for instance: 8%) of the people where the vaccine gave only partial protection to, those people are protected by the vast numbers of others whose immune systems will keep the disease from spreading easily. They, as a group, will not be much less susceptible to the disease.
Now, if the number of of vaccinated people drops low enough (say 80%) then there is a sufficient population for the disease to travel and find those people who didn't get immunity from the vaccine and infect them.
As I related earlier: My nephew contracted Pertussis at 18 months from a group of people who felt no need to get the DTP vaccine. Had they been vaccinated, even if it failed in some of them, they wouldn't have been able to form a cluster dense enough to ensure that my nephew was infected. They're laziness and ignorance caused my nephew to suffer.
But it's their right to choose a path that infected a half dozen children with pertussis, right? When weighed against each other, their right to avoid a single needle is much more important than my nephews desire to not rely on hearing aids when he turns 50, right?
Chicken Pox is a less dangerous disease, to be sure. However, Chicken Pox has a higher rate of "complications" than vaccines. While most people think the worst that can happen during a chicken pox infection is some faint scarring, bad things can happen when the virus infects tissue in and around the face, including the throat, nose, and eyes.
Not to mention that the chicken pox virus lays dormant for an indeterminate period of time, possibly reappearing as shingles some time later and causing significant amounts of pain.
Do people die? I figure there have to be a few, but generally no. Do we need to just accept this suffering because we like being libertarian? That seems silly.
While I'm on the fence about mandating a chicken pox vaccine, I also can't think of just why anyone would say: "No thanks, I'll take the disease." or perhaps worse: "Nah, I'll probably be dead before my child has to suffer the nearly-untreatable pain of shingles."
That's a great attitude to take. However, it only works when its held by selfish freeloaders like you.
What would happen if someone in your family were in a serious accident and needed surgery? Where do you think the blood they use comes from?
Donating blood isn't a risk-free activity. Many people find the process to be uncomfortable or even painful. A number of people have had serious complications. There have even been rare occasions where people have died. However, even knowing these risks, people still do it. Why? Because if by taking a tiny risk every six weeks, I am able to save the life of one of your family members, then I am beyond happy.
Because I'm not a selfish prick who thinks that I owe nothing to society.
Open your eyes. If you think that you're not surrounded by people doing selfless acts to make your family safer, happier, and healthier, then you're too stupid to make commentary on society and ethics.
Now, I reserve the word "evil" for greater transgressions than you've committed, but I am sickened by anyone who sits around taking all the luxuries provided by society and then whining when someone scolds them for not trying to do their part.
Slashdot Mirror
No. I'm quite happy with Midori.
Teachers need to be paid more.
Yes, teachers earn above average salary. As in, just barely above average salary. And they require at least four years of post-secondary education from an accredited university, multiple certification tests, and specialized training beyond their content area. It's more common than not to have teachers with either a Masters degree or more-than-a-Masters in college credits. And they are (almost always) forced to take yearly classes to improve their teaching skills.
And for that, they earn slightly above average wages (slightly below average when you remove overpaid and under-qualified private teachers and "specialist" teachers) and get subjected to statements like the old gem:
"Those who can't do, teach."
Right. I remember taking classes with the MBA crowd in college. I'm sure there were some talented people there, but I never met them. Most of them spent their time drinking and screwing people who weren't their girlfriend (or fiancee). They do their four or five years, exit with their cakewalk 3.0 GPA and avoid all learning for the rest of their lives.
And they have higher average salaries than teachers.
I will openly admit that I spent four years in college, got my BS and left. And when I spend time around teachers, I feel ashamed that I make twice as much as they do. And I get 26 vacation days a year. That's only a couple weeks short of what the teachers here get.
Looking back over this post, it's actually much worse than I first thought. My first response assumed that teachers would just accept this new pay mechanism and not adjust to it.
The reality is that this would turn teaching into the worst kind of popularity competition: the kind where you're paid if you win.
Ignoring the fact that students are notoriously horrible at judging the quality of their teachers until much later in life (and sometimes: never), and that dozens of studies have shown that students behave better and show greater appreciation of attractive teachers regardless of their ability as a teacher, this idea is almost humorously bad on its face. Worded another way:
Teachers should be paid based on how many students say they like them.
Oh, sure, it won't matter when Jebidiah Bob Hickson comes through school. He'd get treated just like everyone else. But when Alistair Moneysocks writes a three page paper about how the Great Pyramids of Gibraltar were used to talk with the Prince of Atlantis, the teacher's not going to think twice about flunking his absurdly rich and profitable ass.
Yay! We've come up with yet another scheme to give rich kids an advantage! Thank god. They've got so much going against them...
Did you go to that page?
1: Original lesson plans are not specially ordered or commissioned. Teachers are paid to teach. That requires lesson plans, but it doesn't require teachers to formulate new, original plans.
2: (Ignored for now)
3: All teachers I know of work on a contract. I've read through a couple of them. The requirement is that they work a certain time interval and accomplish their duties within that time. No mention is made of any creations done during that time or any time outside that interval. Usually, the contract states that they will be provided materials for teaching.
Seeing as two of the three requirements for "Work For Hire" are not met here, it simply doesn't apply.
If a teacher was required to produce a specific plan, then yes. If a teacher produced a plan during their school day (unlikely), then yes. Otherwise, no.
Those who can't teach, get MBAs.
No. You paid the teachers to teach your children between the hours of 8am and 3pm (give or take).
You did not pay for the teacher to spend 3pm to 4pm grading projects and 7pm to 9pm developing a new lesson plan.
I work from 9am to 5pm. If anyone tried to tell me that the (open source) code I write between 7pm and 9pm belongs to my employer, I'd tell them where they can shove it.
Most teachers have a contracted work day (7:30pm to 3:30pm locally).
In this area, this means that they are "on the clock" during that time and free to leave to do their own thing beyond that. They can be obligated to attend meetings beyond these hours, but only when officially scheduled. It's common for teachers to stay an hour after "contract" to work on grading or lesson plans, and its equally common for them to go home and do yet more work that night.
Since teachers unions are outlawed here and striking is illegal, the only recourse the teachers have against abusive treatment by parents and administrators is to "Work To Contract", meaning that they work the hours they are paid for.
This is only slightly less debilitating than a full strike. Students get cookie-cutter lessons and quickly fall behind schedule. Schools double or triple their paper usage as teachers fill students time with worksheets instead of learning activities. Assignments don't get graded. Grades don't get done on time. Sporting events are rescheduled. Plays and concerts are canceled.
It happens every five or so years. Apparently, that's how long it takes parents to remember just how much work teachers put in beyond what their contracts say they should.
No, a significant portion of the budget goes to buying lesson programs.
If teachers are using these plans, unmodified, for the bulk of their lessons then they are crap teachers and your father should really do something to try and fix that (its his job, by the way).
Of all the teachers I know, none of them use canned lessons without changing them and adapting them significantly.
I know districts that require teachers to submit lesson plans and follow them, but any district that forces teachers to follow plans that are not their own is simply Doing It Wrong[tm]. In those cases, the fault is not with the teachers, but with the administrators for using such a policy, the school board for picking such a stupid administrator, and mostly the public for willingly choosing to give their children a bad education.
Great idea. [end sarcasm]
I'm sure that "High School Sports Coach" will become quite lucrative.
And then of course we have the math and science teachers. I'm sure they'll be fine with the two students they get each yet. It's not enough that there is a shortage of them considering they can get paid much more in commercial/industrial settings with less schooling and no need to deal with selfish parents. What they really need is to have the public's disdain for them monetized for them.
I understand people's hatred of unions (damn them for trying to rip power from the wealthy!), but for most people, hatred of the teachers unions are less about wanting better teachers and more about being upset at a small number of bad teachers. Many states outlaw teachers unions and many of those that don't prevent the unions from having any teeth (by preventing strikes, forcing arbitration, and so forth).
People like to trot out examples of how unions have protected bad (sometimes criminal) teachers, and I won't say I disagree that those are bad situations. However, its not nearly as bad as the number of teachers who would be fired for being gay, Democratic (or Republican), male in a "female" position (or vice versa), a bad coach, not a coach, or simply in a non-marriage relationship.
I wish the world were a nice enough place that we could ditch unions and get rid of bad teachers. However, I live in the real world. For every bad teacher I've seen protected by a union, I've seen another forced out of their position by the union and other teachers and administrators. And for each of them, there are probably two or three teachers who parents wanted removed for almost criminal reasons.
I had one teacher who was brought before the school board to argue for his job. His crime? "Not providing a supportive environment." The real problem: He had been named the head coach for boys basketball two years earlier and hadn't had a winning season yet. Another teacher was almost fired for "inappropriate behavior around females". Of course, no girl actually accused him of anything. It's just that he was the coach of the girls basketball team and a bunch of parents felt that the head coach should be a woman. Another was almost fired because she started dating a new man and that was viewed as "being an inappropriate role model" despite the fact that it was done as privately as possible (in a small town).
I've known teachers who were fired for being gay. I know teachers who were fired for wearing the "wrong clothes" on weekends. Many of the teachers I know right now pick bars to go to based on the fact that none of their children's parents will be there. They are basically forced to hide every aspect of their personal lives because nothing is off limits to insane parents. Often, the only protection they have is the pooled legal resources of the local teachers union.
The problem here is the public and how they treat teachers. The last thing they ever consider is to trust teachers more. If you raised the public's opinion of teachers, you'd have less attrition. Don't be so ignorant that you think that good teachers can't see who the bad teachers are. If you give them trust and quit tying them all up with the same rope, they'll get rid of the bad teachers for you.
I don't know about you, but my job cannot claim copyright or ownership of any of the work I do outside the office. And of the couple dozen teachers I know, only a couple of them write up their lesson plans during "contract hours" (the hours they are contracted to work).
If someone makes a lesson plan at 9pm at night, why in hell does the government have any say in how its used?
Now, I'm a fan of openness and sharing and I'd love to see a Public Domain (or GPLed) repository of good lesson plans, but your argument that the government has any ownership of these ideas is based on the (laughably) misguided idea that teachers write lesson plans during the day.
And, as for your "supply and demand" comment, I could argue the exact opposite: If teachers were paid more, more qualified people would consider it as a career option instead of anything else. The rate of attrition for teachers suggests that view is perhaps a little more reasonable.
That's already the case.
No clergy can be compelled to sanction any marriage. Catholic priests do it all the time, and for reasons less serious than homosexuality (pre-marital sex, un-baptised partner, "immoral" past, unwilling to promise to raise the children as catholics).
...and they'll still have problems in states like Virginia which decided to pass laws which refuse to honor such contracts when they are between two homosexuals.
If you're saying to yourself: "Wait. How can they do that? Doesn't the constitution prevent them from picking and choosing which contracts they honor?"
Welcome to Virginia, where a delusional sense of historical importance mixes with long-standing bigotry to create a state where many* people think they should be above the Constitution.
Virgina: Its for (heterosexual) lovers.
[*] Note: I am from Northern (aka "Fake") Virginia, where diversity is tolerated and even celebrated. Sadly, we're only about 45% of the state at the moment. Give us another decade so we can try to fix some of our social problems.
When the turned it into a single-player RPG?
It was always a single player RPG. From the very start. It was never intended to be anything else. It is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate (party-based combat RPG), not NWN.
I have trouble believing you're so blind as to fail to see the difference between these two.
Stephen Colbert is a satirist, and Rush can only joke about trying to be one. Stephen Colbert has repeatedly shown that not only does he know that he's playing an over-the-top character for one TV show, but that said character is almost a polar opposite of his own beliefs. In fact, his show plays on that fact and if you watch more than cherrypicked clips, you'll see that he "breaks the fourth wall" quite often.
Steven Colbert is not the character he plays and that is the whole point of the show. The fact that you don't have any clue about this tells me that you have no business talking about this subject.
Finally, unlike Rush, who seems to be even more fascist and abrasive outside his own show, Colbert has given plenty of interviews where he acts like himself, a normal, cheery and totally down to earth person. Actually, he gives them four times a week for about a half hour before every one of his shows. While the cameras and sound guys get set up for the show, Colbert comes out and talks with the audience as himself. When I was there, he actually looked a little sad and upset because, as he explained very humbly to us, he had decided to rewrite most of the show a couple hours earlier and that decision left us out in the spring rain for an extra half hour, and in a cramped waiting room for forty minutes.
I guess you just don't get it. Colbert was friendlier than most local news anchors I've met and far more aware of the fact that he was performing a comedy routine than you seem to be.
Whether or not he is a reasonable person in his true heart of hearts, the only face he ever shows in public is that of the bombastic, self-aggrandizing jerk. That's what he needs to be judged by.
Hold on.
The only face Anthony Daniels has ever shown in public is that of a naive, ignorant, and cowardly simpleton who simultaneously fails at being both competent and humorous.
So, that's how I should judge him, right? Oh? He was playing a character in a movie? Well, he's never shown me any other side of himself, so I should feel free to blast him personally for his behavior and hold him up as a pinata for others to beat on?
Just because you have only seen Colbert in character doesn't mean that his in-character persona must be close to his real one.
Go to a taping of one of his shows. Before the show he comes out to talk to the audience. Not being a judgmental ass (or an idiot who doesn't understand satire), I figured that he wasn't really like the character he plays. However, I was surprised at just how down-to-earth and friendly he is. He truly is humbled by the gifts and honors (however tongue-in-cheek) that he gets.
Yes, think of the poor children in Fargo who... ...live in Fargo.
Get out now, little ones! There's another world outside! And it doesn't shut down after 8pm!
Well, I wake up to a giant ball of fire on the horizon every morning.
Agreed.
In this case, I'm pretty safe. I live near DC working on a 5 year government contract which is based on money that's already been delivered. If I get taken down by the economy, then we're in deep, deep trouble.
The thing that annoys me is that despite the fact that I have no worries about my job, I seem to be one of the few people who is capable of worrying about anyone but myself.
Oh waaah. You're taxes are going up and they're being spent to prop up corrupt businessmen who gambled with our national economy as if it were some frat-party drinking game. At least you're not upside-down on your mortgage and in danger of losing your job in a couple months. You can deal with the fact that you can't afford a Lexus this year and pay up to help a dozen families stay in their home while we fix all the damage a bunch of investment-banker tools inflicted on the country.
(Note: this is the non-specific "you". I don't believe that you, MillionthMonkey, are one of those jackasses)
Ah, but they would just be the poor people and we don't really care about poor people.
After all, it's their fault they're poor. If they wanted to be rich, they would have decided to make more money.
It's easy to say "Let them fail" when you're not one of the one's who's going to take the hit for it. Hooray for selfish wealth.
Yes, of course that would work. Of course it would cost a little less money. The situation is not so different from the Great Depression. As all the idiots on Fox "News" were talking about this week: "the New Deal lengthened and deepened the Great Depression".
And they're right.
One way to solve these sorts of situations is just to let them fall down. Sure it hurts for a bit, but it's better to take the pain for a short time than suffer for a long time, right? Sure, times will be rough, but you just need to brace yourself and use a little common sense: don't buy a new car this year, hold off on renovating your beach house, and be a little more conservative in how you invest your disposable income.
Wait. What do you mean you don't have a beach house? You're only investment is your 401k? And your only car is already 12 years old? Well, that's gonna make it harder to stop that imminent foreclosure, but at least you can be kept warm at night knowing that your hunger is helping the country save a little bit of money.
It must feel good to be able to sit there, saying that the best solution is to let a section of the economy totally fail. I mean, its not like you're the one taking the hit, right? You're not losing your job or your house. You're not the one who actually has to endure hardship. And neither am I. I just bought a house. I'm going on vacation. I'm doing fine, but I'm not so much of an ass that I don't realize that many lower and middle-class people out there would lose many years of happiness in the name of helping the wealthy "suffer" through the economic troubles we're in.
Yes, the New Deal made the Great Depression a little worse, but it also kept people from dying of hunger or maybe only losing every bit of wealth and happiness they had been building up in their life.
Does AIG suck hardcore: Yes. Do the deserve help? Absolutely not, but the lower middle class does and they are the ones who would pay for your "let them fail" plan. I have zero sympathy for anyone in the upper-middle and upper classes who whines about how this is affecting their lives and how they feel their money is being wasted.
In New Russia, post cancels you.
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Vaccines do work as advertised. They usually give immunity to the illness. No one has ever said they are 100% effective. Some people's immune systems simply don't keep the immunity. Others seem to just ignore the vaccine. However, that's a small minority.
The power of vaccines, as others have pointed out, is in herd immunity. If vaccines are given to 95% of the people, then there is only a small group of people who are available to spread the disease. Whatever percentage (for instance: 8%) of the people where the vaccine gave only partial protection to, those people are protected by the vast numbers of others whose immune systems will keep the disease from spreading easily. They, as a group, will not be much less susceptible to the disease.
Now, if the number of of vaccinated people drops low enough (say 80%) then there is a sufficient population for the disease to travel and find those people who didn't get immunity from the vaccine and infect them.
As I related earlier: My nephew contracted Pertussis at 18 months from a group of people who felt no need to get the DTP vaccine. Had they been vaccinated, even if it failed in some of them, they wouldn't have been able to form a cluster dense enough to ensure that my nephew was infected. They're laziness and ignorance caused my nephew to suffer.
But it's their right to choose a path that infected a half dozen children with pertussis, right? When weighed against each other, their right to avoid a single needle is much more important than my nephews desire to not rely on hearing aids when he turns 50, right?
Chicken Pox is a less dangerous disease, to be sure. However, Chicken Pox has a higher rate of "complications" than vaccines. While most people think the worst that can happen during a chicken pox infection is some faint scarring, bad things can happen when the virus infects tissue in and around the face, including the throat, nose, and eyes.
Not to mention that the chicken pox virus lays dormant for an indeterminate period of time, possibly reappearing as shingles some time later and causing significant amounts of pain.
Do people die? I figure there have to be a few, but generally no. Do we need to just accept this suffering because we like being libertarian? That seems silly.
While I'm on the fence about mandating a chicken pox vaccine, I also can't think of just why anyone would say: "No thanks, I'll take the disease." or perhaps worse: "Nah, I'll probably be dead before my child has to suffer the nearly-untreatable pain of shingles."
That's a great attitude to take. However, it only works when its held by selfish freeloaders like you.
What would happen if someone in your family were in a serious accident and needed surgery? Where do you think the blood they use comes from?
Donating blood isn't a risk-free activity. Many people find the process to be uncomfortable or even painful. A number of people have had serious complications. There have even been rare occasions where people have died. However, even knowing these risks, people still do it. Why? Because if by taking a tiny risk every six weeks, I am able to save the life of one of your family members, then I am beyond happy.
Because I'm not a selfish prick who thinks that I owe nothing to society.
Open your eyes. If you think that you're not surrounded by people doing selfless acts to make your family safer, happier, and healthier, then you're too stupid to make commentary on society and ethics.
Now, I reserve the word "evil" for greater transgressions than you've committed, but I am sickened by anyone who sits around taking all the luxuries provided by society and then whining when someone scolds them for not trying to do their part.