BTW I am not a Muslim. I am an atheist, and I know that nearly all religions have been used to justify terrible crimes.
Hmmm. Lets take a long hard look at the crimes against humanity commited by atheists, shall we?
Ten million Ukrainians killed by Stalin in the farm collectivization. Six million Jews by Hitler and two to three million Cambodians by Pol Pot. This is a very short list from the 20th century.
This history books on the library shelves don't do any good unless you read them.
When you take the time and look at the news, the molestors are not found outside the school walls, but inside. Each year there are more cases of teacher-student sexual misconduct of all types (heterosexual and homosexual) than there are child abductions.
What this amounts to is a way to waste taxpayer money while ignoring the root of the problem (corruption inside the system).
It's not just about money. Having run for the State House in Michigan in 1992, I can tell you that it is about preserving a two-party hedgemony. A Republican or Democrat could get on the ballot by simply going to the County Clerks office and plunking down $100. Then each candidate (Rep/Dem) would be put on the primary ballot in August with the winner showing up on the General Election ballot. A few hundred dollars does not cover the cost of holding an election in a district, so money is not the issue.
When I ran, I was an Independent candidate. I had to collect 2% of all the votes cast in district during the last Governors election on a petition. It came out to just over 500 signatures. During that time while collecting them, I came to the conclusion that the system would work better if the folks in office had to go out and face the voters. They were a pretty anger bunch in 1992, I'll bet they're even more hostile today.
If I had been the incumbent, all I would have had to do was sign an Affidavit of Incumbency and I would have been on the ballot automatically.
It isn't about money. It's all about access.
It will be undone by the competing standards for transmitting the signal (CDMA, GSM etc). It will still be impossible to move your phone from one service providers network to another (unless you are in Europe); which means you get to buy another phone.
When they create a changeable module that will let you move the phone from provider A to provider B for substantially less than the cost of the phone, then cell phone sales/usage will go through the roof.
Instead of applauding their innovations and acknowledging their right of first use on ideas they made up,...
Had the US Patent Office granted Henry Ford a patent for the assembly line, the world would be a very different place indeed. But then again, under the way we are doing things now one of Henry's competitors would patent it and then sue him for using his own idea.
The core of the problem is that we have a legal system that does not understand nor fully comprehend the impact of its decisions and has allowed anyone who can think up and idea (even after the fact), grab an attorney and go out and blackmail buisnesses into paying them off.
The net effect of this is to chill the competitive business environment. When a business finds a new and successful method of doing business it forces their competition to a) copy them and try to do it better b) find a different way to beat the competition or c) fold up and go out of business.
The way that patents are being awarded for business methods is more akin to the Microsoft Business Model. Dismiss the innovation, create a pile of FUD over the innovation and then buy up the innovator and close them down/assimilate them into the collective.
Stifiling isn't it.
This reminds me of an article I once read regarding a Princeton physics student and his research project into building an atomic bomb. He did all of his research in the public domain and was able to successfully create a nuclear device on paper. While the student received an A on his project, it was never returned to him as the US government decided to classify the work.
The information that currently exists in the public domain isn't frightening to the thousands of drones that run the public and private sectors. What is frightening to them is when someone connects all the dots and creates something useful.
In a stunning moment of self-realization, they come to understand just how vulnerable they actually are and instead of planning to mitigate the possible damage caused by a hostile act; they instead choose to grab the offending work and dig a big hole and stick it in. After all, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind and no energy need be expended worrying over it.
I seem to recall a study done some years back that claimed that people who managed other peoples money, had a more difficult time managing their own. On that basis, someone with bad credit might just be a more valuable employee.
The whole idea of credit checks for non-loan issues troubles me. A few years back, I bought a house and, as luck would have it, was able to arrange the closing at the same time my auto insurance was set to expire. In the course of insurance shopping, I was denied car insurance by a rather large east coast insurance company that bears the name of the state capitol of Connecticut. Their rationale was that bad credit implies that the potential insured person may not pay.
More recently, a coworker was shopping for car insurance online at Progressive. As part of their rate generating process, they pull a credit report. Since he did not have an large credit history, they quoted him a high rate. At no point, did Progressive (or the company that denied me) pull a driving record. They based their insurability on a credit check.
Why do so many companies do credit checks on new employees/customers/etcetera?
Because it is quick, cheap, and allows them to make a hand-waving excuse that will prevent a person from suing based on a rejection.
The simple upshot is that a credit history has no bearing on the quality of an employee. A criminal background check, however, might be more revealing. Personally, I would walk away from the employer, good credit or not. If an employer is willing to examine personal information on that level and make a decision based on it is no place that is worth working for.
BTW I am not a Muslim. I am an atheist, and I know that nearly all religions have been used to justify terrible crimes.
Hmmm. Lets take a long hard look at the crimes against humanity commited by atheists, shall we?
Ten million Ukrainians killed by Stalin in the farm collectivization. Six million Jews by Hitler and two to three million Cambodians by Pol Pot. This is a very short list from the 20th century.
This history books on the library shelves don't do any good unless you read them.
When you take the time and look at the news, the molestors are not found outside the school walls, but inside. Each year there are more cases of teacher-student sexual misconduct of all types (heterosexual and homosexual) than there are child abductions. What this amounts to is a way to waste taxpayer money while ignoring the root of the problem (corruption inside the system).
"Looks like meat, tastes like meat, I'll bet there isn't any meat in here. Doubleplusgood!" - 1984
It's not just about money. Having run for the State House in Michigan in 1992, I can tell you that it is about preserving a two-party hedgemony. A Republican or Democrat could get on the ballot by simply going to the County Clerks office and plunking down $100. Then each candidate (Rep/Dem) would be put on the primary ballot in August with the winner showing up on the General Election ballot. A few hundred dollars does not cover the cost of holding an election in a district, so money is not the issue. When I ran, I was an Independent candidate. I had to collect 2% of all the votes cast in district during the last Governors election on a petition. It came out to just over 500 signatures. During that time while collecting them, I came to the conclusion that the system would work better if the folks in office had to go out and face the voters. They were a pretty anger bunch in 1992, I'll bet they're even more hostile today. If I had been the incumbent, all I would have had to do was sign an Affidavit of Incumbency and I would have been on the ballot automatically. It isn't about money. It's all about access.
Hear! Hear! Well spoke Bruce!
It will be undone by the competing standards for transmitting the signal (CDMA, GSM etc). It will still be impossible to move your phone from one service providers network to another (unless you are in Europe); which means you get to buy another phone. When they create a changeable module that will let you move the phone from provider A to provider B for substantially less than the cost of the phone, then cell phone sales/usage will go through the roof.
Instead of applauding their innovations and acknowledging their right of first use on ideas they made up, ...
Had the US Patent Office granted Henry Ford a patent for the assembly line, the world would be a very different place indeed. But then again, under the way we are doing things now one of Henry's competitors would patent it and then sue him for using his own idea.
The core of the problem is that we have a legal system that does not understand nor fully comprehend the impact of its decisions and has allowed anyone who can think up and idea (even after the fact), grab an attorney and go out and blackmail buisnesses into paying them off.
The net effect of this is to chill the competitive business environment. When a business finds a new and successful method of doing business it forces their competition to a) copy them and try to do it better b) find a different way to beat the competition or c) fold up and go out of business.
The way that patents are being awarded for business methods is more akin to the Microsoft Business Model. Dismiss the innovation, create a pile of FUD over the innovation and then buy up the innovator and close them down/assimilate them into the collective. Stifiling isn't it.
This reminds me of an article I once read regarding a Princeton physics student and his research project into building an atomic bomb. He did all of his research in the public domain and was able to successfully create a nuclear device on paper. While the student received an A on his project, it was never returned to him as the US government decided to classify the work.
The information that currently exists in the public domain isn't frightening to the thousands of drones that run the public and private sectors. What is frightening to them is when someone connects all the dots and creates something useful.
In a stunning moment of self-realization, they come to understand just how vulnerable they actually are and instead of planning to mitigate the possible damage caused by a hostile act; they instead choose to grab the offending work and dig a big hole and stick it in. After all, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind and no energy need be expended worrying over it.
I seem to recall a study done some years back that claimed that people who managed other peoples money, had a more difficult time managing their own. On that basis, someone with bad credit might just be a more valuable employee.
The whole idea of credit checks for non-loan issues troubles me. A few years back, I bought a house and, as luck would have it, was able to arrange the closing at the same time my auto insurance was set to expire. In the course of insurance shopping, I was denied car insurance by a rather large east coast insurance company that bears the name of the state capitol of Connecticut. Their rationale was that bad credit implies that the potential insured person may not pay.
More recently, a coworker was shopping for car insurance online at Progressive. As part of their rate generating process, they pull a credit report. Since he did not have an large credit history, they quoted him a high rate. At no point, did Progressive (or the company that denied me) pull a driving record. They based their insurability on a credit check.
Why do so many companies do credit checks on new employees/customers/etcetera?
Because it is quick, cheap, and allows them to make a hand-waving excuse that will prevent a person from suing based on a rejection.
The simple upshot is that a credit history has no bearing on the quality of an employee. A criminal background check, however, might be more revealing. Personally, I would walk away from the employer, good credit or not. If an employer is willing to examine personal information on that level and make a decision based on it is no place that is worth working for.
Or being insured by.