Which one makes more sense, that the system is actually working the way it's supposed to, or that someone who has been corrupt in the past being corrupt in the present?
Depends on who you're talking about. But it's not just Grassley that's raising questions, he's just the one that decided to make the most political hay out of exposing yet another instance of the Obama administration handing out favors to their supporters. Those involved with LightSquared include:
Obama’s good friend and political donor Donald Gips, his former White House personnel chief, who now serves as U.S. ambassador to South Africa. Records show that Gips maintained an interest, worth as much as $500,000, as the FCC was weighing LightSquared’s request.
Obama himself was an early investor
Investment manager George W. Haywood, an invitee to luxury social events at the White House and more intimate gatherings like a night of poker and beer.
One of Obama's biggest fundraisers, Julius Genachowski, a campaign “bundler” and broadband cheerleader, now chairman of the FCC.
LightSquared’s current majority owner, hedge fund manager Philip Falcone, made large donations to the Democratic Party while his broadband request was pending before the FCC. He and LightSquared executives met with White House officials. Neither Falcone nor the White House would comment on what was discussed.
Ed Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania and onetime chair of the Democratic National Committee was hired to lobby for LightSquared.
Former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt's firm has also been hired by LightSquared.
Jeffrey J. Carlisle, the company’s vice president for regulatory affairs, served with Genachowski and Gips on Obama’s transition team.
Grassley's request isn't even trying to influence the FCC's decision, he's just asking that they release information about the application that he's already entitled to receive. It's about the FCC hiding information.
Among the 1% sitting on the most wealth are lots of heirs who did nothing to earn their wealth. And the rest of them didn't come by their wealth without some dishonesty along the way. You just don't get that rich by behaving like a saint.
Jealous much? You can make these kinds of claims because it makes it easy to justify your envy. Claiming all the rich are dishonest is no more valid than claiming all the poor are lazy.
There needs to be a waiting period on Freedom of the Press. A cooling-off time when they can check facts.
And a speech license. Don't forget the speech license. And a "criminal speech background check", too. Can't have convicted liars going around with a loaded fountain pen.
The Constitution itself is necessarily somewhat underdetermined. It simply isn't exhaustive enough to unambiguously define the correct outcomes for all potential questions that might arise when it was written, never mind those raised by technological and social changes unknown to the writers.
Bah! What a bunch of crap. It doesn't need to be unambiguous, because the entire thing flows from the basic principal that the Federal government is only needed for resolving major conflicts. It states even explicitly that "Anything that is not spelled out in here is totally up to the states, or it's a right of the people" (so to speak).
The problem at this point isn't so much "Originalism", it's the stare decisis that even the originalists adhere to. It tends to override any common sense originalist interpretations in even the most egregious cases.
The whole series was really fascinating, and the society that grew out of their ideals pretty fascinating (even if just as fantastic as the technologies from Blue Mars. But they had similar advantages that the American colonists did: The population was selected as people who were either the best educated, most capable, most adventurous, non-conformist in their native populations, etc., and they had a lot of virgin resources and the best technology available for taking advantage of them.
Only in that both groups include a lot of leftists. Personally, I find it hard to agree or disagree with OWS, in that their message is incoherent; some groups have put out messages claiming to speak for the protesters, but aside from the general idea "Rich people suck", I'm not sure the statements really are representative. Personally I prefer to consider myself part of the 52% (that's the 53% who pay taxes, minus the top 1% of rich bastards. OK, may be approximate due to non-taxpaying rich bastards)
Pretty rational position on the whole movement, I think. But my biggest problem with the movement (and the whole "beat up on the 1%" class warfare meme as a whole), is that it doesn't seem to distinguish between those members of the class that are honest and work hard for the money, and those members that have robbed and defrauded and colluded with government bureaucrats and politicians to basically steal to gain and retain their wealth. There are both kinds of wealthy people among the 3.6 million people that currently fall into that group, and it's a mistake to claim that all of them should be derided.
The libertarian always looks at a law from an isolated egotistical position instead of a higher broader definition.
That's just a bunch of tortured rhetoric for criticizing libertarians for believing in individual liberties, when you would prefer that all individuals to be subservient to collectivist ideals. The biggest problem with that viewpoint is that somewhere along the way, you have to resort to shutting up the non-conformists through violent force.
That's just a reference to the corporation THE UNITED STATES as contrasted with the political compact, codified by the Constitution, between the federal government and the sovereign States. It's not a change to the compact of the significance you imply, only that the Corporation of THE UNITED STATES did not exist before 14th Amendment. But it's an entirely separate entity.
And there's absolutely no justification whatsoever that they can make for why this is needed.
Actually many, MANY justifications for needing this clarification.
But the most important one is probably this:
The sponsor is Kay Hagan. Listed in her Top 20 contributors are companies like Bank of America, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Time Warner. The cosponsors are Michael Bennet (Comcast, Qwest, DISH Network, Level 3, Time Warner), Michael Enzi (Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and John Isakson (Home Depot, Delta, AFLAC, Cox, Citigroup, & GE). So, you know, no one that would be interested in lowering their IT costs a bit. If anyone knows where I could get numbers based on what percentage of employees at those companies are wage versus salary, I’d like to see them.
No, it just fucks over a lot of IT workers. There is absolutely NO REASON why they should be classified as exempt.
If a company wants their people to work overtime, they should have to pay for that extra time. Plain and simple.
So if you're worth that, negotiate with your employer. Nothing wrong with that.
Oh, wait, you think the federal government should act as your personal nanny and bully everyone you deal with into giving you what you want. Because you're so weak and there's only a few big, overbearing companies that every hire IT workers and they all collude to keep your salaries low even if it hurts them, right?
You know what, maybe they should force employers to always pay time-and-a-half for all their employees all the time. That means more work for contractors like me, because that's where employers will turn. They can see the value of paying a higher rate for a contractor that works all the hours they need, when their employees won't do that.
They'll get a better IT guy, anyway, one that will take responsibility for things, work well with people, and do what it takes to solve problems, over someone like you that thinks it's always up to the federal government to take care of everyone, and that won't take responsibility for their own lives, much less their own work, and blames all the problems on others and always wants to pass the buck instead of making sure things happen themselves.
Yea, IT workers like you certainly should never be classified as "professional".
Ok, so if I am making under 27.63 and still considered exempt by my employee then what?
They may be able to continue to justify your classification anyway, but it may be harder for them to do that now, if you were to file a complaint with the NLRB (or your local state labor/employment agency) claiming you should be non-exempt, and eligible for time-and-a-half overtime. Of course if you're not required to work overtime, it's completely irrelevant.
The advantage is that it avoids confusion over the issue. Currently the rules simply state that "professional" or executive and certain other types of employees can be defined as exempt. So maybe some companies decide that all their IT folks are exempt, others decide that Analysts and Sysadmins are exempt, but code monkeys are non-exempt.
This isn't a new mandate - it clarifies some of the exemptions from the existing FLSA mandates on minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime pay.
By the way, this isn't about working overtime at your normal rate. It's about working overtime for free.
No, it really is about working overtime at time-and-a-half. The bill just says that if you're an IT worker making at least $27.63 an hour, you're automatically "exempt" from FLSA.
Oh, and BTW, you guys need to unionize (I'm out of the fight, I retire in 2 years). And a thought just occurred to me -- if I were required to work overtime at my normal rate, I'd just refuse to work overtime.
More work for me then. And if you're just 2 years to retirement, you probably make a really good rate. I'll take it.
Now, does this mean that a company CAN'T pay them overtime or that they're NOT REQUIRED to pay them overtime? There's a big difference.
It's not even that. It's just clarifying that IT workers that make at least $27.63 an hour are explicitly defined as "exempt" under FLSA instead of "non-exempt". If you're a non-exempt employee, FLSA requires your employer to pay you time-and-a-half overtime whenever you work more than 40 hours in a work week. Often exempt employees are paid their regular rate as overtime, sometimes if you're salaried you don't get any.
This really just codifies the way employers have been classifying IT workers anyway, and avoids a lot of court cases.
i think the Dutch model would be far more attractive:
force the network operators to allow 3de party providers on their network at reasonable fee's
They actually have that rule here for the POTS lines. Verizon hated it, so they did everything they could to avoid it, often by simply decided not to upgrade any older switches that didn't allow for that capability. That meant the were unable to offer DSL or anything beyond basic voice lines to those customers, but apparently having the lock-in was more valuable to them than being able to up-sell services.
When they started rolling out FIOS, they ripped out all the copper, and the fiber doesn't have the sharing requirement at all. Thanks, FCC.
Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol.
America, fuck yeah.
Not that it would have made any difference anyway - Kyoto was doomed to failure by design. Actually, it probably would have made some difference, as the US generally makes very good faith efforts to actually stick to the treaties it signs (by comparison, check out how well the signatories have done meeting their targets). So the recession in the US would probably be considerably worse than it is, and China would have become the biggest source of CO2 emissions even sooner.
It's more a story of bad security practices than brilliant exploits by 12 year olds.
That _is_ the entire story. Nobody is saying that XYZ 1337 hacker group is evil and needs to be stopped. The security community is saying that it is about time that large organizations take security seriously.
This is the UN we're talking about. They don't take anything seriously except themselves. And it's reciprocal for the rest of us.
The problem that I have with the multiverse concept for me is that ever time the 'verse branches, the amount of energy in the multiverse must essentially double. That may not violate any laws of the multiverse, but it is incompatible with what we know about the universe.
Not necessarily. The multiverse might be smart enough to branch, merge, and only store the deltas.
AT&T knew this merger would never happen. It was all a big distraction. What happens next is AT&T blusters a bit, then the FCC, which already has localities scrambling because of the deadlines for next generation emergency services radio. Well, why not just quietly pass them some lucrative monopoly contracts for supplying lots of new network services and devices for localities all over the country? Just a consolation, right? Or, just the thing they really wanted in the first place, only now everyone will think AT&T lost, instead of complaining about giving them such a huge amount of business on the taxpayer dime.
Call me paranoid if you want, but you might want to wait a few weeks and see what happens.
Slashdot Mirror
Which one makes more sense, that the system is actually working the way it's supposed to, or that someone who has been corrupt in the past being corrupt in the present?
Depends on who you're talking about. But it's not just Grassley that's raising questions, he's just the one that decided to make the most political hay out of exposing yet another instance of the Obama administration handing out favors to their supporters. Those involved with LightSquared include:
Grassley's request isn't even trying to influence the FCC's decision, he's just asking that they release information about the application that he's already entitled to receive. It's about the FCC hiding information.
What's wrong with asking for transparency?
Believe it or not, sometimes congressmen really do respond to their constituents.
Among the 1% sitting on the most wealth are lots of heirs who did nothing to earn their wealth. And the rest of them didn't come by their wealth without some dishonesty along the way. You just don't get that rich by behaving like a saint.
Jealous much? You can make these kinds of claims because it makes it easy to justify your envy. Claiming all the rich are dishonest is no more valid than claiming all the poor are lazy.
fleecing the rest of us
Well, if you're a sheep ...
There needs to be a waiting period on Freedom of the Press. A cooling-off time when they can check facts.
And a speech license. Don't forget the speech license. And a "criminal speech background check", too. Can't have convicted liars going around with a loaded fountain pen.
So, what part of "congress shall make no law" do you not understand?
Circles and arrows, too!
The Constitution itself is necessarily somewhat underdetermined. It simply isn't exhaustive enough to unambiguously define the correct outcomes for all potential questions that might arise when it was written, never mind those raised by technological and social changes unknown to the writers.
Bah! What a bunch of crap. It doesn't need to be unambiguous, because the entire thing flows from the basic principal that the Federal government is only needed for resolving major conflicts. It states even explicitly that "Anything that is not spelled out in here is totally up to the states, or it's a right of the people" (so to speak).
The problem at this point isn't so much "Originalism", it's the stare decisis that even the originalists adhere to. It tends to override any common sense originalist interpretations in even the most egregious cases.
The whole series was really fascinating, and the society that grew out of their ideals pretty fascinating (even if just as fantastic as the technologies from Blue Mars. But they had similar advantages that the American colonists did: The population was selected as people who were either the best educated, most capable, most adventurous, non-conformist in their native populations, etc., and they had a lot of virgin resources and the best technology available for taking advantage of them.
Crap, I forgot the point I was going to make.
Only in that both groups include a lot of leftists. Personally, I find it hard to agree or disagree with OWS, in that their message is incoherent; some groups have put out messages claiming to speak for the protesters, but aside from the general idea "Rich people suck", I'm not sure the statements really are representative. Personally I prefer to consider myself part of the 52% (that's the 53% who pay taxes, minus the top 1% of rich bastards. OK, may be approximate due to non-taxpaying rich bastards)
Pretty rational position on the whole movement, I think. But my biggest problem with the movement (and the whole "beat up on the 1%" class warfare meme as a whole), is that it doesn't seem to distinguish between those members of the class that are honest and work hard for the money, and those members that have robbed and defrauded and colluded with government bureaucrats and politicians to basically steal to gain and retain their wealth. There are both kinds of wealthy people among the 3.6 million people that currently fall into that group, and it's a mistake to claim that all of them should be derided.
The libertarian always looks at a law from an isolated egotistical position instead of a higher broader definition.
That's just a bunch of tortured rhetoric for criticizing libertarians for believing in individual liberties, when you would prefer that all individuals to be subservient to collectivist ideals. The biggest problem with that viewpoint is that somewhere along the way, you have to resort to shutting up the non-conformists through violent force.
That's just a reference to the corporation THE UNITED STATES as contrasted with the political compact, codified by the Constitution, between the federal government and the sovereign States. It's not a change to the compact of the significance you imply, only that the Corporation of THE UNITED STATES did not exist before 14th Amendment. But it's an entirely separate entity.
Letting the locals make their own laws? Isn't that racist, or something?
Hear, hear!
And there's absolutely no justification whatsoever that they can make for why this is needed.
Actually many, MANY justifications for needing this clarification.
But the most important one is probably this:
See this blog and survey.
No, it just fucks over a lot of IT workers. There is absolutely NO REASON why they should be classified as exempt.
If a company wants their people to work overtime, they should have to pay for that extra time. Plain and simple.
So if you're worth that, negotiate with your employer. Nothing wrong with that.
Oh, wait, you think the federal government should act as your personal nanny and bully everyone you deal with into giving you what you want. Because you're so weak and there's only a few big, overbearing companies that every hire IT workers and they all collude to keep your salaries low even if it hurts them, right?
You know what, maybe they should force employers to always pay time-and-a-half for all their employees all the time. That means more work for contractors like me, because that's where employers will turn. They can see the value of paying a higher rate for a contractor that works all the hours they need, when their employees won't do that.
They'll get a better IT guy, anyway, one that will take responsibility for things, work well with people, and do what it takes to solve problems, over someone like you that thinks it's always up to the federal government to take care of everyone, and that won't take responsibility for their own lives, much less their own work, and blames all the problems on others and always wants to pass the buck instead of making sure things happen themselves.
Yea, IT workers like you certainly should never be classified as "professional".
Ok, so if I am making under 27.63 and still considered exempt by my employee then what?
They may be able to continue to justify your classification anyway, but it may be harder for them to do that now, if you were to file a complaint with the NLRB (or your local state labor/employment agency) claiming you should be non-exempt, and eligible for time-and-a-half overtime. Of course if you're not required to work overtime, it's completely irrelevant.
The advantage is that it avoids confusion over the issue. Currently the rules simply state that "professional" or executive and certain other types of employees can be defined as exempt. So maybe some companies decide that all their IT folks are exempt, others decide that Analysts and Sysadmins are exempt, but code monkeys are non-exempt.
This isn't a new mandate - it clarifies some of the exemptions from the existing FLSA mandates on minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime pay.
By the way, this isn't about working overtime at your normal rate. It's about working overtime for free.
No, it really is about working overtime at time-and-a-half. The bill just says that if you're an IT worker making at least $27.63 an hour, you're automatically "exempt" from FLSA.
Oh, and BTW, you guys need to unionize (I'm out of the fight, I retire in 2 years). And a thought just occurred to me -- if I were required to work overtime at my normal rate, I'd just refuse to work overtime.
More work for me then. And if you're just 2 years to retirement, you probably make a really good rate. I'll take it.
Now, does this mean that a company CAN'T pay them overtime or that they're NOT REQUIRED to pay them overtime? There's a big difference.
It's not even that. It's just clarifying that IT workers that make at least $27.63 an hour are explicitly defined as "exempt" under FLSA instead of "non-exempt". If you're a non-exempt employee, FLSA requires your employer to pay you time-and-a-half overtime whenever you work more than 40 hours in a work week. Often exempt employees are paid their regular rate as overtime, sometimes if you're salaried you don't get any.
This really just codifies the way employers have been classifying IT workers anyway, and avoids a lot of court cases.
i think the Dutch model would be far more attractive: force the network operators to allow 3de party providers on their network at reasonable fee's
They actually have that rule here for the POTS lines. Verizon hated it, so they did everything they could to avoid it, often by simply decided not to upgrade any older switches that didn't allow for that capability. That meant the were unable to offer DSL or anything beyond basic voice lines to those customers, but apparently having the lock-in was more valuable to them than being able to up-sell services.
When they started rolling out FIOS, they ripped out all the copper, and the fiber doesn't have the sharing requirement at all. Thanks, FCC.
That, or people will find alternative forms of entertainment.
Like planking? The pole-sitting of the latest depression.
Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol. America, fuck yeah.
Not that it would have made any difference anyway - Kyoto was doomed to failure by design. Actually, it probably would have made some difference, as the US generally makes very good faith efforts to actually stick to the treaties it signs (by comparison, check out how well the signatories have done meeting their targets). So the recession in the US would probably be considerably worse than it is, and China would have become the biggest source of CO2 emissions even sooner.
You need to have something of value in order to compromise it. The UN is worthless,
Sure. But, just like Pinky and the Brain, they have a plan.
It's more a story of bad security practices than brilliant exploits by 12 year olds.
That _is_ the entire story. Nobody is saying that XYZ 1337 hacker group is evil and needs to be stopped. The security community is saying that it is about time that large organizations take security seriously.
This is the UN we're talking about. They don't take anything seriously except themselves. And it's reciprocal for the rest of us.
The problem that I have with the multiverse concept for me is that ever time the 'verse branches, the amount of energy in the multiverse must essentially double. That may not violate any laws of the multiverse, but it is incompatible with what we know about the universe.
Not necessarily. The multiverse might be smart enough to branch, merge, and only store the deltas.
AT&T knew this merger would never happen. It was all a big distraction. What happens next is AT&T blusters a bit, then the FCC, which already has localities scrambling because of the deadlines for next generation emergency services radio. Well, why not just quietly pass them some lucrative monopoly contracts for supplying lots of new network services and devices for localities all over the country? Just a consolation, right? Or, just the thing they really wanted in the first place, only now everyone will think AT&T lost, instead of complaining about giving them such a huge amount of business on the taxpayer dime.
Call me paranoid if you want, but you might want to wait a few weeks and see what happens.