Actually, I don't disagree with much of what you said. Except that, the republican party didn't become the "religious nut/warmonger/gun nut/military spending" party, except to the media. There are a lot of republicans that see their party being pulled to the left, just as there are conservative democrats who became republicans as their party become more liberal. I wasn't so much as trying to say Republican = conservative, but how disappointed conservatives were in the party. I EXPECT the democrats to want to tax and spend. They used to have some good ideas too.
And I agree about Libertarian party. You have to expect that people will be able to self-control and we know they won't. Unfortunately it seems with the closeness of the last few elections, that Amercians are becoming more and more dependent on the government. And I don't know if they would vote for someone who would take away the pork barrel.
That's generally done when the person has either bad credit or can't really afford the loan. If you have to take a secondary loan for a down payment, you have NO business buying that house! Ditto with the 100% financing. You're just going to hurt yourself and your credit if something happens such as a spouse dying, getting laid off, etc. When we bought our house in the mid-90's we were told we could get a higher loan that I knew we could afford. So we went for a smaller house. With all that's happened, layoffs and stagnent salaries, I'm REALLY GLAD we got something we could afford.
And certainly Palin has never expressed that belief.
Sure about that?
I read that article very carefully. It smacks as being another "spaghetti" article. In that, "let's throw it against the wall and see what sticks." You see it all the time. The headline blares, "Did Mr. X avoid charges of child molestation?" or the first paragraph opens with something similarly controversial. Then when you read the article, the accusation is never actually proven or it was suggested by some anonymous accuser. But they know most readers will not read the full article and will come away with the accusation in their heads.
In this article, the music teacher that allegedly heard her make the comment is unnamed. And the second person, Munger, is described as "Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska."
Wow--a person with an ax to grind and she allegedly confesses her religious beliefs so he can exploit them. Who could have saw that coming? This is like the accusation that she wanted to ban book which was found to be false and that she never asked for a book to be banned. (Which the L.A. Times is STILL repeating, now with the suggestion that the librarian was stood up to her.) This has been debunked, but still the liberal leaning news sources are still running with it.
Then the L.A. Times being the Times basically suggests that because she didn't ram her personal beliefs down everyone's throats that she's basically a wimp. "Palin's critics say she holds back from trying to codify her faith-based views when she senses it will cost her politically."
And in fact her chief spokesman as governor, McAllister, said that "he never heard Palin make such remarks about dinosaurs and that Palin preferred not to discuss her views on evolution publicly."
"I've never had a conversation like that with her or been apprised of anything like that," McAllister said. He added that "the only bigotry that's still safe is against Christians who believe in their faith."
And the Republicans have done that much better?
Never said that...in fact, in a separate message I said that Bush AND Congress spent our money like drunken salors. Fiscal conservatives were pissed off that once finally getting both a republican president and congress in, they spent as badly as the dems, in some cases worse. Not talking about the war either...I think Bush may have vetoed 1 or 2 spending bills his whole 8 years! And that was one of my arguments--Bush is NOT a conservative--he is a moderate, just as McCain is a liberal republican, not a moderate. I've thought of him as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) for years. But the North East liberals in the republican party are convinced that a conservative cannot win. And they pushed McCain ahead by letting the more liberal states vote first. By the time the more conservative got to vote, there was no choice. Everyone else, either literally or on paper, had pulled out.)
But the claim about only taxing the those making over 250K...it's funny, but my pitiful salary magically becomes worth 250K at tax time apparently because MY taxes go up too. When dems say they're going to tax the so-called rich, you'd better reach for your wallet.
You know, I don't buy this in the least. Not that I buy the "maverick" crap either, but McCain isn't really a guy that Republicans love. If it weren't for what an awful job that GW Bush did the last 8 years, they'd never have a guy as moderate as him in their #1 slot. You'd see Romney with Huckabee instead. The simple fact is that McCain is enough of a moderate that Republican primary voters saw him as a change from the status quo.
No...a bunch of liberal republicans in the North East saw him as a change. I'm not going to belabor the point, but GW Bush is NOT a conservative. He's a moderate and McCain is basically a liberal RINO (Republican in name only) except perhaps when it comes to the war on terror. It's amazes me what's supposed to pass for conservative these days. Why do you think McCain is such pals with Lieberman and has been able to get along with so many democrats? And Bush, along with Congress all spent our money like drunken sailors and THAT is NOT a conservative proposition.
Conservatives are for less government intrusion and smaller government. They're for protecting our borders and against illegal immigration an amnesty programs. When Bush was governor of Texas and Texas government had windfall profits, instead of lowering property taxes or giving the public a rebate (as Palin has done), he created a "tax-free" shopping day. Big whoop--you get to spend more money to say between 6.5% and 8.25%. This is basically a back to school sale: you can only buy low ticket ($100 or less each) items and are restricted to what type of items, such a clothes, shoes, backpacks, etc. It's more of a windfall for businesses and people in surrounding states who cross the border to take advantage of the discount. Meanwhile Texans are STILL paying inflated property taxes. And, as president, the only reason he wasn't able to sign some illegal worker amnesty program into law was because we got attacked on 9-11 and the public wouldn't stand for it.
McCain picked Palin for one reason...conservatives were going to walk this election and he HAS to hold on to that base or he will lose. They didn't get a choice in the nomination matter because by the time most of the people in the more conservative states got to vote, it was already decided. The blue-bloods in the Republican party had decided and suddenly people who might have given McCain a challenge for the nomination such as Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson were no-shows.
Obama has his own problems: he's peeved off a lot of women by not picking Hillary, there are some conservative democrats out there who feel the party has swung too far to the left. And, yes, there are some democrats who are not going to vote for a black man. (So much for inclusiveness.) They'll probably not vote for McCain either, but will just stay home. I think even more so than before it will be how many can get their party's members out than it will on the so-called independents. I always think that independent voter thing is mostly a bunch of crap. It's usually someone who doesn't publicly want to commit and/or someone who doesn't like either and will probably not even go to the polls.
See the problem with answering questions honestly is that americans don't want to hear the truth. Carter proved that out when he asked the americans to tighten their belts and live within their means. They called his speech a "malaise" because Americans didn't want to hear it or accept it. So Reagan was voted in when he said "Carter is wrong, you can have anything you want!"
Oh BULL CRAP! Is that what they're tying to tell you in high school or college these days? There was not many people living outside of their means, unless you include buying groceries! Carter was dumped becase:
Inflation was in double digits. Ditto with loans and mortgage rates. Then there was the debacle of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, the oil embargo where gas prices doubled and there were lines waiting for gas. He was seen as weak on foreign policy and the economy was in the tank.
There was a joke back then you took a pull tab from a beer (this was back in the day when the pop top came off!) You'd wrap the tab around a penny and that was called a "Jimmy Carter dollar in a Billy Carter money clip." (Billy Carter, the president brother, came out with his own brand of beer during his brother's presidency. He was bascially considered a joke and later admitted to being an alcoholic.)
How long do you think that's going to last now that the McCain campaign has flown in a bunch of high-priced Washington lawyers to interfere with the troopergate investigation?
Hmm....cite the source for that please.
As I understand it Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan is an "at will" position. That means she doesn't even HAVE to have a reason to fire him. Also, he was offered a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he turned down.
What's smart about believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that man and the dinosaurs walked the Earth together?
No...what's dumb is believing that everyone who esposes creationism thinks that. And certainly Palin has never expressed that belief.
What's so smart about believing that democrats only want to tax those making over $250,000/year? They bring out that bedtime fairy tale every election.
Or maybe, just maybe, they changed their name because (quoting from Wikipedia): "MandrakeSoft was forced to change its name as a result of losing litigation to the Hearst Corporation over the name Mandrake" and the current form is because "In 2005, MandrakeSoft acquired the assets of Lycoris, and purchased Conectiva".
And here I just thought they wanted to go mainstream!
...would undoubtably smell as sweet, but wouldn't make it past marketing.
I supsect that was the reason Mandrake Linux decided to forgo the name of a deadly plant for Mandriva. But does anyone use Mandriva? And what is a Mandriva anyway?
One thing the name GIMP does is it does stick in your head. If it was Photo___ or some other common name, would we even remember it? I do agree I wish it had less negative connotations. Maybe they should shorten it to IMP and make a little devil logo.
Has "Anonymous" admitted to doing this? My question is, are we sure that Scientologists didn't do this in their name to smear Anonymous? That would be a good way to "out" members of Anonymous by using a federal investigation. That's a problem Scientology has--they don't know who's behind this group and so they got people fighting them they would LOVE to find out names and addresses on! Even on the web site, the seem to want to insure that protesters not engage or confront, which I assume would mean also not doing things that would get you or group members arrested.
They seemed pretty focused on Scientology, not politics. It just doesn't seem like something they would do and bring this down on their heads unless they suddenly feel invincible.
Why? It's not fun. It's basically a tech demo pretending to be a game.
And this was my question. I was planning to buy or order this yesterday either. But I read several of the comments on Amazon. Mostly about DRM, but others who said it was nothing like the game that was promised. Said one reviewer (paraphrase) the game was based on stats, so even if you're creature had 6 legs it wouldn't run any faster than a one-legged creature with higher stats. Also you could make winged creatures, but they couldn't fly. Speculation was made that this would probably come in future add-ons, making you spend more money.
This also sounds more like a game of "creationism" vs. evolution. I thought you gave the creature some basic anatomy and the creature would change, but not necessarily the way you might expect it to. For example, if it lives on a mountainous region, it might gain legs adapted for climbing mountains. If there were tall trees it needed to eat from, it might grow a longer neck, learn to climb trees, fly, etc.
As it is, it sounds like the Sims in outer space. As much as I think the Sims are great, we don't need another version of that.
Three activations would in our case mean she uses them in one blow. One for her comp at her place, one for the lappy she lugs arround and one for her comp at my place.
I could be wrong, but I don't think it will let you activate all three. It's not like it's giving you 3 licenses. It's usually that you've made changes to a system or have moved it from one computer to another so you have to activate again. So when you activate on another computer, it's going to deactivate the first one.
Jesus. If you want to drive offshoring, that's the way to do it. Make American IT more expensive and less efficient than everywhere else in the world, and the work will flee this country and leave us longing for the days of H1-Bs and mere outsourcing.
We're almost at that point anyway! Unfortunately, we have a country that's more interested in supplying businesses with cheap labor and making it almost impossible to compete with 3rd world countries where the average yearly salary is $3,556.63!
I'm willing to bet that many "senior pros" out there do NOT have computer science degrees. I think I'd rather have my peers setting the bar than a clueless HR department who posts jobs like they're ordering a pizza with all the toppings!
I'm not trying to be all "look for the union label" here; I don't even know that it would solve anything at this point. You'd have to have an administration who was willing to set tariffs on overseas products coming to the US. They'd have to make it more profitable for a company to stay here than leave. Part of the problem with IT, however, is that many jobs can be done from just about anywhere. That's good if you want to buy a house in the Bahamas and work from there. But it also means American companies don't even have to import workers, just send them a paycheck. I think the main folly companies have is that they just trust all these workers not to divulge secrets to their government or other companies. It may be (at least in IT) that the thing that brings IT jobs back home would be if there were terrorist attacks to where the companies couldn't trust their overseas employees.
It isn't a matter of (college) education levels or who's more qualified. It's a matter of the union protecting the jobs of it's members. So that Joe Blow from Texas can't just walk into Michigan and take the job of a Michigan union member. You may agree or disagree with that. But it's not about education--in fact (at least it used to be this way) most craft/trade people learned on the job under supervison rather than getting a formal degree. And yes it meant working for a long time with graduated, partial pay until they "graduated." It was the way a working man or woman could get a job that paid a decent salary without having to get a 4-year degree. The electrical engineer with the PhD isn't going to want to get his hands dirty.
What exactly is "fair"? Go ahead, try to justify, why an American is entitled to a wage higher, than a Mexican, who -- upon coming to this country (legally or otherwise) not only manages to earn a living for himself, but to also support extended family back home? Oh, I know, must be an American's birthright -- that same right, with which British monarchs justified their rule over the colonies...
No a "fair wage" SHOULD be based on normal supply and demand. When you let the country be flooded by illegal workers you cause wages in that field to drop. There's a reason not as many Americans are in housing or other construction--it's not because the work is too hard. It's because you used to be able to make a decent living at it. Then companies started hiring illegals and the wages dropped to about half of what they were. Illegals also often live several to a house or apartment and don't pay income tax. Most of that money goes home to support their family where the cost of living is cheaper. If they're sick they go to our emergency rooms and we all end up paying for their health care. Now I just got turned DOWN trying to get personal health insurance. But these people clog our hospitals with their fake ids and no chance that they'll ever have to pay a bill. You can bet if I had to go in for something major, they'd hunt me down if I didn't pay what I owed. They could find me because I have a legal SS#.......
And they'd be happy to do so too, sweetheart. More, when an illegal gets a job with a fake SS-card [yahoo.com], the SS-taxes are deducted from their pay-check, but they are not going to get the SS-benefits. They are taxed without being represented, and yet, these people are happy to work on these conditions -- why aren't the Americans willing to work for the same money, while still getting the SS-benefits, and the representation?
Jane, you ignorant slut! (There's another Wikipedia reference for you since you seem to like them.)
First off that "fake" SS number is often stolen from someone. What part about identity theft don't you get? Taxed without being represented? What? They're not ENTITLED to be represented. They're not supposed to BE HERE. They are here ILLEGALLY...they pay NO income taxes, their kids go to our schools free of charge, they get free medical care...how is representation going to make it better than they got it now? If I got free medical care and didn't have to pay any income taxes--I COULD work for less. They aren't going to need our SS benefits because they'll be back in Mexico, where the cost of living is a lot less, living on $USD! Money from Mexicans abroad is now second only to oil as a source of foreign revenue. The Mexican government has no incentive to work on making their country a better place for their people to live--they'd just rather send their poverty problem over here and reap the benefits of the incoming USDs.
But I digress -- what's wrong with "cheap Mexicans", exactly? Oh, I know, it goes like this:
Oh BS. What about all the people trying to come here LEGALLY who have to wait for years? Why should a group of people be able to jump the line? If those here illegally were blocked from coming in--not just from Mexico--companies would have to raise wages to hire Americans and/or petition for more people to be legally allowed in on the books, which would also raise the standard of living--for BOTH legal immigrants and Americans!
And it's not just about wages. We have thousands of crimes committed each year by gang members who are flowing across the border, and who are often victimizing their own people as coyotes. Also diseases are popping up that we pretty much had previously eradicated because there is no one to screen who's coming in and what vaccinations, if any, they have had.
And let me add to this. Business mags are making noise on how much Chinese labor prices are going up! (Don't know if "mi" will believe this since it didn't come from Wikipedia!)
"The mean annual wage for a typical urban Chinese employee grew by a blistering 18.72% in 2007, to 24,932 yuan ($3,556.63), or 99.32 yuan ($14.17) per day, the National Bureau of Statistics said, adding that it was the fastest growth in six years and higher than the 14% on average of the preceding six years."
OMG, they're making $14.17 a DAY! How WILL the overseas companies ever cope! Keep in mind that's the wage for the urbanite, where wages are higher, not the people living out in the country.
Well then, maybe they need to stay in their own country and not get tainted by our money either.
There are plenty of people who are working their asses off to get here so they can one day be an American. I have no patience for those who want to jump the line, take our money and then are disrespectful of OUR culture.
Well, I'm not going to beat you over that. That responsibility was also a great burden on the man and is almost impossible to accomplish these days. There are a lot of couples who would like to have one parent or the other at home to raise the kids, but can't afford to. And no one can say that a child raised by even a good day-care center is better off than being raised by a loving parent!
But in any marriage, what a loving husband needs to do is make sure his wife knows where papers are kept, the financial situation, bank accounts, etc. if he's the one who deals with that. It's hard enough to get your brain 'straight' when you lose a spouse, but doubly hard if that surviving spouse doesn't know where things are kept, bills due, etc. And that can go either way, although the wife is much more likely to outlive her husband. Even with a will, there is a lot of legal paperwork to fill out regarding property. I can't imagine what my mom would have gone through if she had also had to try and find everything scattered over the house instead of it being all together in a safe deposit box.
Fortunately for us, we're still in a position to attract skilled immigrants to make up the labor shortfall...That gives us the benefit of their labor, without having to have paid their costs as they were growing up.
Some are skilled, some are not and many are here illegally. There is no labor shortfall--only a wage shortfall. When you've got companies that are allowed to take their business overseas to use what amounts to slave labor without fear of tariffs. Or using illegal labor here, which has driven down wages. These are not jobs that American's won't take. These are jobs that Americans expect a fair wage to be set.
And illegal immigrants are hardly cost-free. We're paying for their medical, their children's education and medical. They're paying no income tax, they send the bulk of their money back over the border and have no plans to become American citizens. That's hardly a recipe for a successful country.
The reason for this? She is a lazy bitch who never worked a real job in her life and relied on whatever man she was with to provide for her. Her first husband (my grandfather) left her. Her second was a great old guy who finally died of Parkinson's and left her a wad of cash. the third guy was a bum and a hustler and took that money when he ran to Mexico - literally.
Oh I MUST jump into this one.
You're grandmother may be old and she even be a bitch. But you have NO right to call her lazy because she expected a man to provide for her. In the days she was growing up, it was a rare thing to have a job after marriage. Women weren't expected to go get college educations and plan careers. They were expected to stay home, clean house and raise kids (like I assume your father!) And anyone who has raised kids knows work. Women of that era were not taught to go over finances or save or invest. That was left up to the man. Unfortunately if the man was a jerk or even if he wasn't and the woman outlived him, she became vulnerable to be taken in by someone trying to swindle them.
My mother is about 5 years older than your grandmother. Fortunately, although she didn't work after marriage she took over the household finances (Dad just freaked about filling out tax forms and pretty much anything dealing with financial.) So at least when my dad passed away she was able to know what bills needed paying. But a lot of women of that era aren't so fortunate and a lot think they're "no good with numbers" because that's what they've been told by family or society.
I especially hope that you're not a woman writing this. Because a lot of women of your grandmother's age and afterwards (and even before) fought to make sure YOU didn't end up having to depend on a man or anyone else for your sustenance.
I don't mean to start a flame war here (ok maybe just a little) but seriously, how can anyone take a candidate seriously when they shamelessly pander to the stupid lobby?
Your first concern seems to pertain on her (hot) looks and yet you want to talk about HER "pandering to the stupid lobby"?
Slashdot Mirror
Or...maybe it's because they view Obama supporters as more gullible and likely to respond?
*ducks*
Actually, I don't disagree with much of what you said. Except that, the republican party didn't become the "religious nut/warmonger/gun nut/military spending" party, except to the media. There are a lot of republicans that see their party being pulled to the left, just as there are conservative democrats who became republicans as their party become more liberal. I wasn't so much as trying to say Republican = conservative, but how disappointed conservatives were in the party. I EXPECT the democrats to want to tax and spend. They used to have some good ideas too.
And I agree about Libertarian party. You have to expect that people will be able to self-control and we know they won't. Unfortunately it seems with the closeness of the last few elections, that Amercians are becoming more and more dependent on the government. And I don't know if they would vote for someone who would take away the pork barrel.
That's generally done when the person has either bad credit or can't really afford the loan. If you have to take a secondary loan for a down payment, you have NO business buying that house! Ditto with the 100% financing. You're just going to hurt yourself and your credit if something happens such as a spouse dying, getting laid off, etc. When we bought our house in the mid-90's we were told we could get a higher loan that I knew we could afford. So we went for a smaller house. With all that's happened, layoffs and stagnent salaries, I'm REALLY GLAD we got something we could afford.
And certainly Palin has never expressed that belief.
Sure about that?
I read that article very carefully. It smacks as being another "spaghetti" article. In that, "let's throw it against the wall and see what sticks." You see it all the time. The headline blares, "Did Mr. X avoid charges of child molestation?" or the first paragraph opens with something similarly controversial. Then when you read the article, the accusation is never actually proven or it was suggested by some anonymous accuser. But they know most readers will not read the full article and will come away with the accusation in their heads.
In this article, the music teacher that allegedly heard her make the comment is unnamed. And the second person, Munger, is described as "Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska."
Wow--a person with an ax to grind and she allegedly confesses her religious beliefs so he can exploit them. Who could have saw that coming? This is like the accusation that she wanted to ban book which was found to be false and that she never asked for a book to be banned. (Which the L.A. Times is STILL repeating, now with the suggestion that the librarian was stood up to her.) This has been debunked, but still the liberal leaning news sources are still running with it.
Then the L.A. Times being the Times basically suggests that because she didn't ram her personal beliefs down everyone's throats that she's basically a wimp. "Palin's critics say she holds back from trying to codify her faith-based views when she senses it will cost her politically."
And in fact her chief spokesman as governor, McAllister, said that "he never heard Palin make such remarks about dinosaurs and that Palin preferred not to discuss her views on evolution publicly."
"I've never had a conversation like that with her or been apprised of anything like that," McAllister said. He added that "the only bigotry that's still safe is against Christians who believe in their faith."
And the Republicans have done that much better?
Never said that...in fact, in a separate message I said that Bush AND Congress spent our money like drunken salors. Fiscal conservatives were pissed off that once finally getting both a republican president and congress in, they spent as badly as the dems, in some cases worse. Not talking about the war either...I think Bush may have vetoed 1 or 2 spending bills his whole 8 years! And that was one of my arguments--Bush is NOT a conservative--he is a moderate, just as McCain is a liberal republican, not a moderate. I've thought of him as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) for years. But the North East liberals in the republican party are convinced that a conservative cannot win. And they pushed McCain ahead by letting the more liberal states vote first. By the time the more conservative got to vote, there was no choice. Everyone else, either literally or on paper, had pulled out.)
But the claim about only taxing the those making over 250K...it's funny, but my pitiful salary magically becomes worth 250K at tax time apparently because MY taxes go up too. When dems say they're going to tax the so-called rich, you'd better reach for your wallet.
You know, I don't buy this in the least. Not that I buy the "maverick" crap either, but McCain isn't really a guy that Republicans love. If it weren't for what an awful job that GW Bush did the last 8 years, they'd never have a guy as moderate as him in their #1 slot. You'd see Romney with Huckabee instead. The simple fact is that McCain is enough of a moderate that Republican primary voters saw him as a change from the status quo.
No...a bunch of liberal republicans in the North East saw him as a change. I'm not going to belabor the point, but GW Bush is NOT a conservative. He's a moderate and McCain is basically a liberal RINO (Republican in name only) except perhaps when it comes to the war on terror. It's amazes me what's supposed to pass for conservative these days. Why do you think McCain is such pals with Lieberman and has been able to get along with so many democrats? And Bush, along with Congress all spent our money like drunken sailors and THAT is NOT a conservative proposition.
Conservatives are for less government intrusion and smaller government. They're for protecting our borders and against illegal immigration an amnesty programs. When Bush was governor of Texas and Texas government had windfall profits, instead of lowering property taxes or giving the public a rebate (as Palin has done), he created a "tax-free" shopping day. Big whoop--you get to spend more money to say between 6.5% and 8.25%. This is basically a back to school sale: you can only buy low ticket ($100 or less each) items and are restricted to what type of items, such a clothes, shoes, backpacks, etc. It's more of a windfall for businesses and people in surrounding states who cross the border to take advantage of the discount. Meanwhile Texans are STILL paying inflated property taxes. And, as president, the only reason he wasn't able to sign some illegal worker amnesty program into law was because we got attacked on 9-11 and the public wouldn't stand for it.
McCain picked Palin for one reason...conservatives were going to walk this election and he HAS to hold on to that base or he will lose. They didn't get a choice in the nomination matter because by the time most of the people in the more conservative states got to vote, it was already decided. The blue-bloods in the Republican party had decided and suddenly people who might have given McCain a challenge for the nomination such as Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson were no-shows.
Obama has his own problems: he's peeved off a lot of women by not picking Hillary, there are some conservative democrats out there who feel the party has swung too far to the left. And, yes, there are some democrats who are not going to vote for a black man. (So much for inclusiveness.) They'll probably not vote for McCain either, but will just stay home. I think even more so than before it will be how many can get their party's members out than it will on the so-called independents. I always think that independent voter thing is mostly a bunch of crap. It's usually someone who doesn't publicly want to commit and/or someone who doesn't like either and will probably not even go to the polls.
See the problem with answering questions honestly is that americans don't want to hear the truth. Carter proved that out when he asked the americans to tighten their belts and live within their means. They called his speech a "malaise" because Americans didn't want to hear it or accept it. So Reagan was voted in when he said "Carter is wrong, you can have anything you want!"
Oh BULL CRAP! Is that what they're tying to tell you in high school or college these days? There was not many people living outside of their means, unless you include buying groceries! Carter was dumped becase:
Inflation was in double digits. Ditto with loans and mortgage rates. Then there was the debacle of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, the oil embargo where gas prices doubled and there were lines waiting for gas. He was seen as weak on foreign policy and the economy was in the tank.
There was a joke back then you took a pull tab from a beer (this was back in the day when the pop top came off!) You'd wrap the tab around a penny and that was called a "Jimmy Carter dollar in a Billy Carter money clip." (Billy Carter, the president brother, came out with his own brand of beer during his brother's presidency. He was bascially considered a joke and later admitted to being an alcoholic.)
How long do you think that's going to last now that the McCain campaign has flown in a bunch of high-priced Washington lawyers to interfere with the troopergate investigation?
Hmm....cite the source for that please.
As I understand it Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan is an "at will" position. That means she doesn't even HAVE to have a reason to fire him. Also, he was offered a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he turned down.
What's smart about believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that man and the dinosaurs walked the Earth together?
No...what's dumb is believing that everyone who esposes creationism thinks that. And certainly Palin has never expressed that belief.
What's so smart about believing that democrats only want to tax those making over $250,000/year? They bring out that bedtime fairy tale every election.
That's okay--the dead people voting for the democrats make up for it!
It's all about the Pentiums, baby...
Or maybe, just maybe, they changed their name because (quoting from Wikipedia): "MandrakeSoft was forced to change its name as a result of losing litigation to the Hearst Corporation over the name Mandrake" and the current form is because "In 2005, MandrakeSoft acquired the assets of Lycoris, and purchased Conectiva".
And here I just thought they wanted to go mainstream!
...would undoubtably smell as sweet, but wouldn't make it past marketing.
I supsect that was the reason Mandrake Linux decided to forgo the name of a deadly plant for Mandriva. But does anyone use Mandriva? And what is a Mandriva anyway?
One thing the name GIMP does is it does stick in your head. If it was Photo___ or some other common name, would we even remember it? I do agree I wish it had less negative connotations. Maybe they should shorten it to IMP and make a little devil logo.
Someone in Redmond must have gotten up early for a cofee and to read Slashdot. The pictures on the blog are gone now--he was made to take them down.
Has "Anonymous" admitted to doing this? My question is, are we sure that Scientologists didn't do this in their name to smear Anonymous? That would be a good way to "out" members of Anonymous by using a federal investigation. That's a problem Scientology has--they don't know who's behind this group and so they got people fighting them they would LOVE to find out names and addresses on! Even on the web site, the seem to want to insure that protesters not engage or confront, which I assume would mean also not doing things that would get you or group members arrested.
They seemed pretty focused on Scientology, not politics. It just doesn't seem like something they would do and bring this down on their heads unless they suddenly feel invincible.
Why? It's not fun. It's basically a tech demo pretending to be a game.
And this was my question. I was planning to buy or order this yesterday either. But I read several of the comments on Amazon. Mostly about DRM, but others who said it was nothing like the game that was promised. Said one reviewer (paraphrase) the game was based on stats, so even if you're creature had 6 legs it wouldn't run any faster than a one-legged creature with higher stats. Also you could make winged creatures, but they couldn't fly. Speculation was made that this would probably come in future add-ons, making you spend more money.
This also sounds more like a game of "creationism" vs. evolution. I thought you gave the creature some basic anatomy and the creature would change, but not necessarily the way you might expect it to. For example, if it lives on a mountainous region, it might gain legs adapted for climbing mountains. If there were tall trees it needed to eat from, it might grow a longer neck, learn to climb trees, fly, etc.
As it is, it sounds like the Sims in outer space. As much as I think the Sims are great, we don't need another version of that.
Three activations would in our case mean she uses them in one blow. One for her comp at her place, one for the lappy she lugs arround and one for her comp at my place.
I could be wrong, but I don't think it will let you activate all three. It's not like it's giving you 3 licenses. It's usually that you've made changes to a system or have moved it from one computer to another so you have to activate again. So when you activate on another computer, it's going to deactivate the first one.
Jesus. If you want to drive offshoring, that's the way to do it. Make American IT more expensive and less efficient than everywhere else in the world, and the work will flee this country and leave us longing for the days of H1-Bs and mere outsourcing.
We're almost at that point anyway! Unfortunately, we have a country that's more interested in supplying businesses with cheap labor and making it almost impossible to compete with 3rd world countries where the average yearly salary is $3,556.63!
I'm willing to bet that many "senior pros" out there do NOT have computer science degrees. I think I'd rather have my peers setting the bar than a clueless HR department who posts jobs like they're ordering a pizza with all the toppings!
I'm not trying to be all "look for the union label" here; I don't even know that it would solve anything at this point. You'd have to have an administration who was willing to set tariffs on overseas products coming to the US. They'd have to make it more profitable for a company to stay here than leave. Part of the problem with IT, however, is that many jobs can be done from just about anywhere. That's good if you want to buy a house in the Bahamas and work from there. But it also means American companies don't even have to import workers, just send them a paycheck. I think the main folly companies have is that they just trust all these workers not to divulge secrets to their government or other companies. It may be (at least in IT) that the thing that brings IT jobs back home would be if there were terrorist attacks to where the companies couldn't trust their overseas employees.
This is going down the wrong track....
It isn't a matter of (college) education levels or who's more qualified. It's a matter of the union protecting the jobs of it's members. So that Joe Blow from Texas can't just walk into Michigan and take the job of a Michigan union member. You may agree or disagree with that. But it's not about education--in fact (at least it used to be this way) most craft/trade people learned on the job under supervison rather than getting a formal degree. And yes it meant working for a long time with graduated, partial pay until they "graduated." It was the way a working man or woman could get a job that paid a decent salary without having to get a 4-year degree. The electrical engineer with the PhD isn't going to want to get his hands dirty.
What exactly is "fair"? Go ahead, try to justify, why an American is entitled to a wage higher, than a Mexican, who -- upon coming to this country (legally or otherwise) not only manages to earn a living for himself, but to also support extended family back home? Oh, I know, must be an American's birthright -- that same right, with which British monarchs justified their rule over the colonies...
No a "fair wage" SHOULD be based on normal supply and demand. When you let the country be flooded by illegal workers you cause wages in that field to drop. There's a reason not as many Americans are in housing or other construction--it's not because the work is too hard. It's because you used to be able to make a decent living at it. Then companies started hiring illegals and the wages dropped to about half of what they were. Illegals also often live several to a house or apartment and don't pay income tax. Most of that money goes home to support their family where the cost of living is cheaper. If they're sick they go to our emergency rooms and we all end up paying for their health care. Now I just got turned DOWN trying to get personal health insurance. But these people clog our hospitals with their fake ids and no chance that they'll ever have to pay a bill. You can bet if I had to go in for something major, they'd hunt me down if I didn't pay what I owed. They could find me because I have a legal SS# .......
And they'd be happy to do so too, sweetheart. More, when an illegal gets a job with a fake SS-card [yahoo.com], the SS-taxes are deducted from their pay-check, but they are not going to get the SS-benefits. They are taxed without being represented, and yet, these people are happy to work on these conditions -- why aren't the Americans willing to work for the same money, while still getting the SS-benefits, and the representation?
Jane, you ignorant slut! (There's another Wikipedia reference for you since you seem to like them.)
First off that "fake" SS number is often stolen from someone. What part about identity theft don't you get? Taxed without being represented? What? They're not ENTITLED to be represented. They're not supposed to BE HERE. They are here ILLEGALLY...they pay NO income taxes, their kids go to our schools free of charge, they get free medical care...how is representation going to make it better than they got it now? If I got free medical care and didn't have to pay any income taxes--I COULD work for less. They aren't going to need our SS benefits because they'll be back in Mexico, where the cost of living is a lot less, living on $USD! Money from Mexicans abroad is now second only to oil as a source of foreign revenue. The Mexican government has no incentive to work on making their country a better place for their people to live--they'd just rather send their poverty problem over here and reap the benefits of the incoming USDs.
But I digress -- what's wrong with "cheap Mexicans", exactly? Oh, I know, it goes like this:
Oh BS. What about all the people trying to come here LEGALLY who have to wait for years? Why should a group of people be able to jump the line? If those here illegally were blocked from coming in--not just from Mexico--companies would have to raise wages to hire Americans and/or petition for more people to be legally allowed in on the books, which would also raise the standard of living--for BOTH legal immigrants and Americans!
And it's not just about wages. We have thousands of crimes committed each year by gang members who are flowing across the border, and who are often victimizing their own people as coyotes. Also diseases are popping up that we pretty much had previously eradicated because there is no one to screen who's coming in and what vaccinations, if any, they have had.
And let me add to this. Business mags are making noise on how much Chinese labor prices are going up! (Don't know if "mi" will believe this since it didn't come from Wikipedia!)
"The mean annual wage for a typical urban Chinese employee grew by a blistering 18.72% in 2007, to 24,932 yuan ($3,556.63), or 99.32 yuan ($14.17) per day, the National Bureau of Statistics said, adding that it was the fastest growth in six years and higher than the 14% on average of the preceding six years."
OMG, they're making $14.17 a DAY! How WILL the overseas companies ever cope! Keep in mind that's the wage for the urbanite, where wages are higher, not the people living out in the country.
Not arguing with you either....
Well then, maybe they need to stay in their own country and not get tainted by our money either.
There are plenty of people who are working their asses off to get here so they can one day be an American. I have no patience for those who want to jump the line, take our money and then are disrespectful of OUR culture.
Well, I'm not going to beat you over that. That responsibility was also a great burden on the man and is almost impossible to accomplish these days. There are a lot of couples who would like to have one parent or the other at home to raise the kids, but can't afford to. And no one can say that a child raised by even a good day-care center is better off than being raised by a loving parent!
But in any marriage, what a loving husband needs to do is make sure his wife knows where papers are kept, the financial situation, bank accounts, etc. if he's the one who deals with that. It's hard enough to get your brain 'straight' when you lose a spouse, but doubly hard if that surviving spouse doesn't know where things are kept, bills due, etc. And that can go either way, although the wife is much more likely to outlive her husband. Even with a will, there is a lot of legal paperwork to fill out regarding property. I can't imagine what my mom would have gone through if she had also had to try and find everything scattered over the house instead of it being all together in a safe deposit box.
Fortunately for us, we're still in a position to attract skilled immigrants to make up the labor shortfall...That gives us the benefit of their labor, without having to have paid their costs as they were growing up.
Some are skilled, some are not and many are here illegally. There is no labor shortfall--only a wage shortfall. When you've got companies that are allowed to take their business overseas to use what amounts to slave labor without fear of tariffs. Or using illegal labor here, which has driven down wages. These are not jobs that American's won't take. These are jobs that Americans expect a fair wage to be set.
And illegal immigrants are hardly cost-free. We're paying for their medical, their children's education and medical. They're paying no income tax, they send the bulk of their money back over the border and have no plans to become American citizens. That's hardly a recipe for a successful country.
The reason for this? She is a lazy bitch who never worked a real job in her life and relied on whatever man she was with to provide for her. Her first husband (my grandfather) left her. Her second was a great old guy who finally died of Parkinson's and left her a wad of cash. the third guy was a bum and a hustler and took that money when he ran to Mexico - literally.
Oh I MUST jump into this one.
You're grandmother may be old and she even be a bitch. But you have NO right to call her lazy because she expected a man to provide for her. In the days she was growing up, it was a rare thing to have a job after marriage. Women weren't expected to go get college educations and plan careers. They were expected to stay home, clean house and raise kids (like I assume your father!) And anyone who has raised kids knows work. Women of that era were not taught to go over finances or save or invest. That was left up to the man. Unfortunately if the man was a jerk or even if he wasn't and the woman outlived him, she became vulnerable to be taken in by someone trying to swindle them.
My mother is about 5 years older than your grandmother. Fortunately, although she didn't work after marriage she took over the household finances (Dad just freaked about filling out tax forms and pretty much anything dealing with financial.) So at least when my dad passed away she was able to know what bills needed paying. But a lot of women of that era aren't so fortunate and a lot think they're "no good with numbers" because that's what they've been told by family or society.
I especially hope that you're not a woman writing this. Because a lot of women of your grandmother's age and afterwards (and even before) fought to make sure YOU didn't end up having to depend on a man or anyone else for your sustenance.
I don't mean to start a flame war here (ok maybe just a little) but seriously, how can anyone take a candidate seriously when they shamelessly pander to the stupid lobby?
Your first concern seems to pertain on her (hot) looks and yet you want to talk about HER "pandering to the stupid lobby"?
Wow.