In the case of Spanish speakers, I converse with them in Spanish. In the case of some of my friends' parents, they translate for me. Many that I've met can speak English passably but still have a hard time reading it.
So you're either claiming that these people really didn't meet the requirements for citizenship, or that they are natural citizens who can't read English, which I can't buy. I grew up in Southern California where Anglos are a minority. I schooled, lived, and worked with many first-generation American Latinos and none of them had any problem reading or speaking English.
This seems like you're claiming that if you don't read something in its original language, there is no way to understand it through translation. Is this indeed your argument? . . . One way to learn about the issues is to talk about them within your community.
If you cannot listen to a speech when it is given, and hear the candidate's wording, tone, inflection, and emotion, you have far less chance of determining whether that person is telling the truth. Reading or listening to any translation is just that; you get a version filtered through the translator's bias (conscious or not). Languages do not translate word for word. Discussions in a "community" where immigration reform and amnesty are the issues hardly makes one informed on all the issues.
If there is a significant population that would be excluded due to language, and the cost isn't prohibitive, then they should be accomodated if we truly want a democracy.
If the rules are being followed, there is no significant portion of citizens who would be affected by English-only ballots. Most places in this country still have English-only ballots. Define "prohibitive". Is that a few thousand or 500 billion? Where do you draw the line? Do you pay for translation, proofing, printing, and, in the case of E-voting, programming, testing, and certification if one person in the state prefers a ballot in Sanskrit? And don't include me in "we" when you talk about democracy. The founding fathers wanted a republic, and that is what we are. Tyranny of the majority is not something I want.
I am not aware of any requirement to be able to read English to vote, and as already pointed out there is no similar requirement to be a citizen. [And all the other arguments that said the same thing.]
There is such a requirement for naturalized citizens who encompass nearly all people who are qualified to vote and might prefer a different language. In a half-century, I have met many people (in several countries), and several Americans who were foreign-born, but even they were able to speak and read English. There is this little problem that ballots require you be able to read them in order to vote - at least so far. No doubt you'd prefer little pictures of the candidates and icons for the initiatives so we can give three-year-olds the vote.
should we eliminate braille ballots too?
What's that smell? Herring? There are laws that adequately address voting access for the disabled and the laws have been in place for decades. Refusing to read English is not a disability.
My view is that a good first step to becoming enlightened is to do things for the good of others without requiring someone to pass a law first.
Well, until I'm enlightened by something that makes more sense than that, I will continue to do my best to harm no one and to do unto others as I wish them to do unto me. That includes not taking others' money for some merely personal feel-good issue. If I were to emmigrate and become a citizen of another country, I certainly wouldn't be asking for a special ballot either. I think that you speak for a group of one and that I have been trolled.
When using "thumb drives", USB drives, or whatever you want to call them, the entry in fstab should contain *-noatime*. Otherwise every time you read the *drive*, you also write to the *drive* and reduce the flash device's life by one write.
This is an utterly absurd generalization. I've met many people who have a hard time communicating in English yet have a surprisingly deep understanding of the issues.
And you would know that how? How do all these people you know who can't read or understand English gain this deep understanding of American political issues when they can't understand a candidate's speech or read the party's platform in the original language?
On the other hand I've met many native English speakers that have no clue about political issues, let alone desire to learn.
So? My opinion is the same. Anyone unwilling to meet the requirements, understand, or educate themselves on the issues should not vote, English-speaking or not. At least the English speakers meet one minimal requirement. You want to lower the bar even further?
Keep in mind that other countries tend to have vastly higher voter turnouts than the U.S.
Again, so? Those other coutries generally have ballots in a single language and don't pander to people unwilling to meet the process half way.
I don't pay taxes to make bigots and simpletons feel comfortable either, yet that's where my taxes go. Our tax system works that way; change it or get used to it. Free speech works the same way.
Apparently, that's supposed to be an insult of some sort. Well, nationalism is not the same as bigotry, so if there's a simpleton in this argument, that's apparent too. One of the requirements for citizenship is a working knowledge of English. There is no reason to provide voting materials in any other language. If you can cite a federal law requiring ballots in foreign languages, I'm always willing to be enlightened. Free speech? Hey, go for it - petition for an ammendment to the Constitution allowing illiterates to vote. I'll be working to make sure it doesn't pass.
French-bashing aside, why should we model ourselves after the French?
Is that bigotry or nationalism I hear? Our (assuming you're USian) country's systems are built upon European roots. We have already modeled ourselves after them. Other countries do not waste money pandering to voters who are unwilling to fulfill minimal requirements. Why should we - unless wasting taxpayer money somehow gives you a warm fuzzy and a pretty, gold-plastic, Mr. Non-Bigot badge? (Don't forget to accuse me of hate speech in the reply. That always works.)
You'd have to be pretty dense not to notice the origin of the software if the document the vendor hands you for validation says exactly where it comes from.
We deliver code to the government all the time, and the government expects it to be ours. From the article:
Because OpenSSL has a BSD-style license, many vendors simply grabbed the source code and incorporated it into their proprietary products. Those vendors wanted literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees.
Stepping back, we are not talking at the same level. The article isn't about charging for free software, it's about charging for validating that the free software is secure enough for medical data. . . . There isn't some ripoff happening . ..
We certainly seem to be on different levels. To me, your original and subsequent comments suggest that the government should validate OpenSSL and then pay vendors to repackage it and sell it to the government. The OpenSSL libraries, or an equivalent, were the only requirement for the project being discussed in the article.
I have a really tough time defending the feds in any case, and I see your point about duplication of effort, but your own estimate for validation was [?] man weeks. Is that worth "hundreds of thousands" of dollars to license free (as in beer and as in libre) software, or is it a ripoff? I'll bet on the latter. I once worked for a contractor who did a project for the government (not a DoD contract), and since the code was available under the FOIA, repackaged it and sold it again to the Chinese. American companies are not above ripoffs (see Enron, WorldCom, Qwest, Arthur Andersen, Northwestern Power, CA, Haliburton, and any number of defense contractors who've been fined for overcharges.).
I've worked on a number of federal government contracts. I'm well aware of what contract officers do, and they don't inspect code to determine its origin. Why should the government validate the free software (which is what you are apparently suggesting) and then pay the vendor to hand them a repackaged copy of said software, which is what the article is talking about? The software is free to begin with. If you're not in Congress, you must be CEO of EDS.
The fault here is in the government not having a pre-approved solution for the vendors to use.
Are you seriously suggesting that the government should validate software and then buy a repackaged version from a vendor? Are you a member of Congress?
Of course I'm a Canadian, so we're the masters of virulent anti-American bias.
Oh, no! We didn't realize. And the borders are wide open. Quick, someone tell Tom Ridge to change the threat level to orange! The Canadians are miffed, too!
And even if your family CAN speak English, it doesn't mean they will at home, and you will likely learn whatever language you hear around the host as your primary (or only) language.
I don't know of any requirement (except manufactured ones in California) to provide ballots in languages other than English. If a person does not have a working understanding of English, they should not be voting in this country, since they will not have an understanding of the issues and do not have a willingness to assimilate.
Not to mention that many people who can read English may be much more comfortable in another language.
I don't pay taxes to enhance the comfort level of people who might prefer voting in other languages. Sorry. Emmigrate to France, tell them you want a ballot in English, and see what happens.
Well, they actually had paper trails, and it didn't change a thing. As it turned out, the courts ruled the recount illegal.
The recount was ruled illegal because it was a selective (partial) recount and not completed within the limits allowed by Florida law. There have been thousands of recounts nationwide. Many places require an automatic recount if the margin of victory is small. Let's not extrapolate the whole from one apparently misunderstood incident.
I'm far more interested in what the EFF's official stance is . ..
Why? Do you feel the ACM is violating Diebold's right to make a profit from American elections? The ACM and EFF are really dissimilar in purpose and function. I don't see that the EFF has a dog in this fight.
It also makes it easier those who can't read english
I keep seeing this argument, and it makes no sense. In this country, you can't vote unless you are a citizen (at least so far). One of the requirements for citizenship is "an ability to read, write, and speak English."
paper trail to keep tabs on the system replacing paper voting seems a tad pointless. Maybe waiting would be better.
Exactly. E-voting is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. The whole thing is nothing more than hysteria whipped up by the media because a handful of geriatrics in Florida voted for the first time in fifty years and couldn't remember how.
I've used butterfly ballots for decades, and I never had a problem with them. You don't have to worry about the little metal ballot holder booting or crashing or reporting correctly. If there is a disputed vote, the cards can be counted manually. Like toasters, voting devices don't need to be computerized.
Being a scientist myself, I had to control my laughter and climb back into my chair before posting this.
But are you a "defence scientist"? Unless you have a degree in fence removal, please be more considerate. Oh, rats, they've fixed the spelling, but it still says, "defence security solutions".
I've had my fair share of programs that would refuse to close on OSX, and processes that wouldn't go away on Solaris and Linux. In pretty much every case, it's due to the process being stuck on a pending I/O operation that cannot be canceled.
Under Solaris, Linux, or IRIX, I have no problem popping up a console window doing a ps, then kill -TERM [pid]. If it's stubborn, kill -9 [pid]. Even a hung rcp or ftp can be killed by killing the parent process. AFAIK there is no equivalent in Windows. Far too many times, I have been forced to use the power switch to shut down, only to be confronted with that insufferable "Windows was not shut down properly" message on the next boot.
Kudos for him though, that he really knows his OS inside out . ..
Admittedly (and thankfully) I haven't had to deal with Windows at a low level in several years, and I haven't paid much attention to its development, so the comment in the article that gets my attention is:
"I also pointed out that a pre-emptible kernel is a lot more responsive to a high priority thread," said Russinovich, moving on to his next target. "The Linux kernel 2.6 was made fully pre-emptible."
When did Windows become fully pre-emptible? Certainly Win2K is not, considering the grief I have to go through to shut it down or kill errant programs.
This reminds me, is there a comprehensive list of vendors somewhere who provide linux drivers with their hardware?
I haven't found any single list, but Red Hat and Mandrake at least have lists of supported hardware. I used the Mandrake database to make sure the digital camera I wanted was supported before I bought it (and the scanner, etc.).
I've tries several differnet verision of Linux. What I've found is that I keep switching back to Windows to work with PSpice or Xilinx software, etc. For home users Linux really doesn't belong YET.
I use Linux at home, Mandrake to be specific, and I have for years. It also works well as a conduit to the machines at work when I work from home. The security and reduced frustration, as well as the cost savings keep me from looking back. If memory serves (which it does occasionally), SPICE was developed long before Windows produced its first BSOD, and there must be versions for every platform in existence.
I do what other home users do. I do email, surf the web, write letters, do my banking, burn CDs, use the scanner, get and manipulate pictures from the digital camera, make a nuisance of myself on Slashdot. I have my little three-machine network including a quarantined Windows box. Maybe you're just not willing to wean yourself from Windows YET. If going cold turkey is too hard, you can always dual-boot, you know.:)
Unions have to do with things precisely because they are, for the most part, mechanisms for workers to work less and earn more. They serve as engines of mediocrity . ..
I think I already pointed out that the CEOs of large American companies are a union of good old boys, so we agree.
Given that GDPs across Europe are laughably low, probably.
Really? Who is the CEO of Chrysler? He seems to be doing a better job than his predecessor.
That's a straw man--those guys obviously don't deserve high incomes, because they failed.
It's not a straw man argument at all - it's proof that these insanely compensated CEOs of huge companies are just people and often do not even have good judgement or even basic common sense (let alone morals). GE, Arthur Andersen, Tyco, Martha Stewart Living. Do I really need to go on?
I merely noted that it's not unreasonable that a man who commands hundreds of thousands of employees might contribute, say, a thousand-fold what each of them does.
Until the Second Coming and Jesus takes a job as CEO of some company, I will laugh at that. It is patently unreasonable to expect some silver-spoon inheriting, ego-driven buffoon in an Armani suit to be worth much of anything - let alone a thousand workers. No doubt Paris Hilton will one day be CEO of the family business and worth thousands of average workers. From personal experience with the CEO of one of the largest American defense contractors, I can say that he was a glad-handing, short-sighted, greedy, micro-managing, ethically disadvantaged, contract renegging liar who didn't deserve the golden parachute he got when he was fired (er, resigned to spend time with his family) for tanking the company's stock. To repeat: insanely compensated CEOs are just greedy people, they're not gods. If they were really working in the best interests of the company, they wouldn't be looting it in the first place.
It's quite possible for a CEO to contribute more than 1,000 times what his employees contribute, particularly if they are union.
I don't see that unions have anything to do with it, especially considering the good-old-boy union of CEOs who make up the boards of all the large companies. Why is it that European companies don't have the insane CEO compensation that America has? Are European CEOs really so much less competent?
I just don't find it inconceivable that a man exponential levels above the grunts can contribute exponentially more than they can
You should consider yourself lucky never to have been exposed to the microencephalic upper management drones that really believe an MBA makes them "exponential levels above the grunts" (or maybe you have). Do you really believe that the CEOs of Enron, Worldcom, Qwest, Northwestern Power, and even Disney among others deserved the insane compensation they received for ruining their companies? They are mere mortals like everyone else, and generally worth less than a real worker who produces for the company - not drains it financially.
Well, considering that Internet Explorer is an "integral part of the operating system" they are only a hair shy of telling people to switch to an operating system that isn't vulnerable to so many damn critical remote vulnerabilities.
The advisory did mention that just changing browsers doesn't mean you're safe. It pointed out that IE may still be opened under certain circumstances or by other applications. So, yeah, it does seem like they're edging closer to saying it in plain English.
Re:why hire somebody like this?
on
Wired on McBride
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What I find curious is why a company would hire somebody with McBride's background.
If you're a dying company in Lindon, Utah with no money, you put an ad in the Nickel Shopper for a CEO. Darl knocks the meadow muffins off his boots, walks down the block, and applies for the job. End of story.
Slashdot Mirror
(Yes, reliable. It only crashes when you are doing something, so it gets rebooted often enough ;)
That's it. My reading comprehension is gone. I'm going to bed now and hopefully not dream of anything remotely related to this Daliesque image.
In the case of Spanish speakers, I converse with them in Spanish. In the case of some of my friends' parents, they translate for me. Many that I've met can speak English passably but still have a hard time reading it.
So you're either claiming that these people really didn't meet the requirements for citizenship, or that they are natural citizens who can't read English, which I can't buy. I grew up in Southern California where Anglos are a minority. I schooled, lived, and worked with many first-generation American Latinos and none of them had any problem reading or speaking English.
This seems like you're claiming that if you don't read something in its original language, there is no way to understand it through translation. Is this indeed your argument? . . . One way to learn about the issues is to talk about them within your community.
If you cannot listen to a speech when it is given, and hear the candidate's wording, tone, inflection, and emotion, you have far less chance of determining whether that person is telling the truth. Reading or listening to any translation is just that; you get a version filtered through the translator's bias (conscious or not). Languages do not translate word for word. Discussions in a "community" where immigration reform and amnesty are the issues hardly makes one informed on all the issues.
If there is a significant population that would be excluded due to language, and the cost isn't prohibitive, then they should be accomodated if we truly want a democracy.
If the rules are being followed, there is no significant portion of citizens who would be affected by English-only ballots. Most places in this country still have English-only ballots. Define "prohibitive". Is that a few thousand or 500 billion? Where do you draw the line? Do you pay for translation, proofing, printing, and, in the case of E-voting, programming, testing, and certification if one person in the state prefers a ballot in Sanskrit? And don't include me in "we" when you talk about democracy. The founding fathers wanted a republic, and that is what we are. Tyranny of the majority is not something I want.
I am not aware of any requirement to be able to read English to vote, and as already pointed out there is no similar requirement to be a citizen. [And all the other arguments that said the same thing.]
There is such a requirement for naturalized citizens who encompass nearly all people who are qualified to vote and might prefer a different language. In a half-century, I have met many people (in several countries), and several Americans who were foreign-born, but even they were able to speak and read English. There is this little problem that ballots require you be able to read them in order to vote - at least so far. No doubt you'd prefer little pictures of the candidates and icons for the initiatives so we can give three-year-olds the vote.
should we eliminate braille ballots too?
What's that smell? Herring? There are laws that adequately address voting access for the disabled and the laws have been in place for decades. Refusing to read English is not a disability.
My view is that a good first step to becoming enlightened is to do things for the good of others without requiring someone to pass a law first.
Well, until I'm enlightened by something that makes more sense than that, I will continue to do my best to harm no one and to do unto others as I wish them to do unto me. That includes not taking others' money for some merely personal feel-good issue. If I were to emmigrate and become a citizen of another country, I certainly wouldn't be asking for a special ballot either. I think that you speak for a group of one and that I have been trolled.
When using "thumb drives", USB drives, or whatever you want to call them, the entry in fstab should contain *-noatime*. Otherwise every time you read the *drive*, you also write to the *drive* and reduce the flash device's life by one write.
This is an utterly absurd generalization. I've met many people who have a hard time communicating in English yet have a surprisingly deep understanding of the issues.
And you would know that how? How do all these people you know who can't read or understand English gain this deep understanding of American political issues when they can't understand a candidate's speech or read the party's platform in the original language?
On the other hand I've met many native English speakers that have no clue about political issues, let alone desire to learn.
So? My opinion is the same. Anyone unwilling to meet the requirements, understand, or educate themselves on the issues should not vote, English-speaking or not. At least the English speakers meet one minimal requirement. You want to lower the bar even further?
Keep in mind that other countries tend to have vastly higher voter turnouts than the U.S.
Again, so? Those other coutries generally have ballots in a single language and don't pander to people unwilling to meet the process half way.
I don't pay taxes to make bigots and simpletons feel comfortable either, yet that's where my taxes go. Our tax system works that way; change it or get used to it. Free speech works the same way.
Apparently, that's supposed to be an insult of some sort. Well, nationalism is not the same as bigotry, so if there's a simpleton in this argument, that's apparent too. One of the requirements for citizenship is a working knowledge of English. There is no reason to provide voting materials in any other language. If you can cite a federal law requiring ballots in foreign languages, I'm always willing to be enlightened. Free speech? Hey, go for it - petition for an ammendment to the Constitution allowing illiterates to vote. I'll be working to make sure it doesn't pass.
French-bashing aside, why should we model ourselves after the French?
Is that bigotry or nationalism I hear? Our (assuming you're USian) country's systems are built upon European roots. We have already modeled ourselves after them. Other countries do not waste money pandering to voters who are unwilling to fulfill minimal requirements. Why should we - unless wasting taxpayer money somehow gives you a warm fuzzy and a pretty, gold-plastic, Mr. Non-Bigot badge? (Don't forget to accuse me of hate speech in the reply. That always works.)
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Oh, great. You just had to drag Bill Clinton into the argument. :)
You'd have to be pretty dense not to notice the origin of the software if the document the vendor hands you for validation says exactly where it comes from.
We deliver code to the government all the time, and the government expects it to be ours. From the article:
Stepping back, we are not talking at the same level. The article isn't about charging for free software, it's about charging for validating that the free software is secure enough for medical data. . . . There isn't some ripoff happening . . .
We certainly seem to be on different levels. To me, your original and subsequent comments suggest that the government should validate OpenSSL and then pay vendors to repackage it and sell it to the government. The OpenSSL libraries, or an equivalent, were the only requirement for the project being discussed in the article.
I have a really tough time defending the feds in any case, and I see your point about duplication of effort, but your own estimate for validation was [?] man weeks. Is that worth "hundreds of thousands" of dollars to license free (as in beer and as in libre) software, or is it a ripoff? I'll bet on the latter. I once worked for a contractor who did a project for the government (not a DoD contract), and since the code was available under the FOIA, repackaged it and sold it again to the Chinese. American companies are not above ripoffs (see Enron, WorldCom, Qwest, Arthur Andersen, Northwestern Power, CA, Haliburton, and any number of defense contractors who've been fined for overcharges.).
I've worked on a number of federal government contracts. I'm well aware of what contract officers do, and they don't inspect code to determine its origin. Why should the government validate the free software (which is what you are apparently suggesting) and then pay the vendor to hand them a repackaged copy of said software, which is what the article is talking about? The software is free to begin with. If you're not in Congress, you must be CEO of EDS.
The fault here is in the government not having a pre-approved solution for the vendors to use.
Are you seriously suggesting that the government should validate software and then buy a repackaged version from a vendor? Are you a member of Congress?
Of course I'm a Canadian, so we're the masters of virulent anti-American bias.
Oh, no! We didn't realize. And the borders are wide open. Quick, someone tell Tom Ridge to change the threat level to orange! The Canadians are miffed, too!
And even if your family CAN speak English, it doesn't mean they will at home, and you will likely learn whatever language you hear around the host as your primary (or only) language.
I don't know of any requirement (except manufactured ones in California) to provide ballots in languages other than English. If a person does not have a working understanding of English, they should not be voting in this country, since they will not have an understanding of the issues and do not have a willingness to assimilate.
Not to mention that many people who can read English may be much more comfortable in another language.
I don't pay taxes to enhance the comfort level of people who might prefer voting in other languages. Sorry. Emmigrate to France, tell them you want a ballot in English, and see what happens.
Well, they actually had paper trails, and it didn't change a thing. As it turned out, the courts ruled the recount illegal.
The recount was ruled illegal because it was a selective (partial) recount and not completed within the limits allowed by Florida law. There have been thousands of recounts nationwide. Many places require an automatic recount if the margin of victory is small. Let's not extrapolate the whole from one apparently misunderstood incident.
I'm far more interested in what the EFF's official stance is . . .
Why? Do you feel the ACM is violating Diebold's right to make a profit from American elections? The ACM and EFF are really dissimilar in purpose and function. I don't see that the EFF has a dog in this fight.
It also makes it easier those who can't read english
I keep seeing this argument, and it makes no sense. In this country, you can't vote unless you are a citizen (at least so far). One of the requirements for citizenship is "an ability to read, write, and speak English."
paper trail to keep tabs on the system replacing paper voting seems a tad pointless. Maybe waiting would be better.
Exactly. E-voting is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. The whole thing is nothing more than hysteria whipped up by the media because a handful of geriatrics in Florida voted for the first time in fifty years and couldn't remember how.
I've used butterfly ballots for decades, and I never had a problem with them. You don't have to worry about the little metal ballot holder booting or crashing or reporting correctly. If there is a disputed vote, the cards can be counted manually. Like toasters, voting devices don't need to be computerized.
Relax. Maybe the moderator thought it was worth more than a +Funny mod, which is worth nothing . . . Well, it's remotely possible.
Being a scientist myself, I had to control my laughter and climb back into my chair before posting this.
But are you a "defence scientist"? Unless you have a degree in fence removal, please be more considerate. Oh, rats, they've fixed the spelling, but it still says, "defence security solutions".
I've had my fair share of programs that would refuse to close on OSX, and processes that wouldn't go away on Solaris and Linux. In pretty much every case, it's due to the process being stuck on a pending I/O operation that cannot be canceled.
Under Solaris, Linux, or IRIX, I have no problem popping up a console window doing a ps, then kill -TERM [pid]. If it's stubborn, kill -9 [pid]. Even a hung rcp or ftp can be killed by killing the parent process. AFAIK there is no equivalent in Windows. Far too many times, I have been forced to use the power switch to shut down, only to be confronted with that insufferable "Windows was not shut down properly" message on the next boot.
Kudos for him though, that he really knows his OS inside out . . .
Admittedly (and thankfully) I haven't had to deal with Windows at a low level in several years, and I haven't paid much attention to its development, so the comment in the article that gets my attention is:
When did Windows become fully pre-emptible? Certainly Win2K is not, considering the grief I have to go through to shut it down or kill errant programs.This reminds me, is there a comprehensive list of vendors somewhere who provide linux drivers with their hardware?
I haven't found any single list, but Red Hat and Mandrake at least have lists of supported hardware. I used the Mandrake database to make sure the digital camera I wanted was supported before I bought it (and the scanner, etc.).
I've tries several differnet verision of Linux. What I've found is that I keep switching back to Windows to work with PSpice or Xilinx software, etc. For home users Linux really doesn't belong YET.
I use Linux at home, Mandrake to be specific, and I have for years. It also works well as a conduit to the machines at work when I work from home. The security and reduced frustration, as well as the cost savings keep me from looking back. If memory serves (which it does occasionally), SPICE was developed long before Windows produced its first BSOD, and there must be versions for every platform in existence.
I do what other home users do. I do email, surf the web, write letters, do my banking, burn CDs, use the scanner, get and manipulate pictures from the digital camera, make a nuisance of myself on Slashdot. I have my little three-machine network including a quarantined Windows box. Maybe you're just not willing to wean yourself from Windows YET. If going cold turkey is too hard, you can always dual-boot, you know. :)
Unions have to do with things precisely because they are, for the most part, mechanisms for workers to work less and earn more. They serve as engines of mediocrity . . .
I think I already pointed out that the CEOs of large American companies are a union of good old boys, so we agree.
Given that GDPs across Europe are laughably low, probably.
Really? Who is the CEO of Chrysler? He seems to be doing a better job than his predecessor.
That's a straw man--those guys obviously don't deserve high incomes, because they failed.
It's not a straw man argument at all - it's proof that these insanely compensated CEOs of huge companies are just people and often do not even have good judgement or even basic common sense (let alone morals). GE, Arthur Andersen, Tyco, Martha Stewart Living. Do I really need to go on?
I merely noted that it's not unreasonable that a man who commands hundreds of thousands of employees might contribute, say, a thousand-fold what each of them does.
Until the Second Coming and Jesus takes a job as CEO of some company, I will laugh at that. It is patently unreasonable to expect some silver-spoon inheriting, ego-driven buffoon in an Armani suit to be worth much of anything - let alone a thousand workers. No doubt Paris Hilton will one day be CEO of the family business and worth thousands of average workers. From personal experience with the CEO of one of the largest American defense contractors, I can say that he was a glad-handing, short-sighted, greedy, micro-managing, ethically disadvantaged, contract renegging liar who didn't deserve the golden parachute he got when he was fired (er, resigned to spend time with his family) for tanking the company's stock. To repeat: insanely compensated CEOs are just greedy people, they're not gods. If they were really working in the best interests of the company, they wouldn't be looting it in the first place.
221b Baker Street is a clue, Sherlock.
It's quite possible for a CEO to contribute more than 1,000 times what his employees contribute, particularly if they are union.
I don't see that unions have anything to do with it, especially considering the good-old-boy union of CEOs who make up the boards of all the large companies. Why is it that European companies don't have the insane CEO compensation that America has? Are European CEOs really so much less competent?
I just don't find it inconceivable that a man exponential levels above the grunts can contribute exponentially more than they can
You should consider yourself lucky never to have been exposed to the microencephalic upper management drones that really believe an MBA makes them "exponential levels above the grunts" (or maybe you have). Do you really believe that the CEOs of Enron, Worldcom, Qwest, Northwestern Power, and even Disney among others deserved the insane compensation they received for ruining their companies? They are mere mortals like everyone else, and generally worth less than a real worker who produces for the company - not drains it financially.
Well, considering that Internet Explorer is an "integral part of the operating system" they are only a hair shy of telling people to switch to an operating system that isn't vulnerable to so many damn critical remote vulnerabilities.
The advisory did mention that just changing browsers doesn't mean you're safe. It pointed out that IE may still be opened under certain circumstances or by other applications. So, yeah, it does seem like they're edging closer to saying it in plain English.
What I find curious is why a company would hire somebody with McBride's background.
If you're a dying company in Lindon, Utah with no money, you put an ad in the Nickel Shopper for a CEO. Darl knocks the meadow muffins off his boots, walks down the block, and applies for the job. End of story.