does anyone spend most of their free time at home surfing the web? has anyone missed family get togethers, stayed in because he/she was surfing the web?
i know i keep going back to websites like cnn.com over and over, even though i don't expect a new headline every 20 minutes. since nothing new is at cnn, time to check the other 6 or 7 news websites i visit. nothing new there, better check back at cnn. i am sure some people think of porn the same way as i think of news.
i'll have to admit it, the first thing i do when i get home is turn on the computer.
Plus, it looks like Virginia is one of the states that requires a credit check and clean credit history. So if you did not pay your rent, or missed a credit card payment, they will not give you a law license. The link about has more info.
Secondly, try telling that to your county tax assessor, they'd appreciate the good laugh. What you have on your property, what its worth, how its situated, how its used, anything that could, among other things, affect the value of the property of your neighbors, is inherently the public's business, because your use of that property affects the public directly.
I don't understand this. If I decide to add a deck to the back of my house, how am I directly affecting the public. If I can have a cup of coffee on my deck instead of in my kitchen, did I just change how my nieghbors live?
Just because you are the only one allowed to use your property doesn't mean you can do with your property whatever you want.
This is true, and for good reason. We don't want people installing their own septic tanks if the water level is too high, and getting everyone sick. We don't want people buying a house in the middle of a senic residential subdivision and opening up a buisness and increasing traffic flow. But all this can be handled with zoning laws. It does not require publicizing what land and improvements everyone builds.
This is why both survey information as well as past tax assessments of your property are kept in your county court house, available for inspection to all comers for free.
I am all for taxes. I think we need taxes to level the playing field, to raise money to provide oppertunity to the poor, to pay for roads and schools.
But the correct tax is income tax. Not property tax. Property tax is inherently evil because property tax means nobody really owns land.
If I work for 10 years, and save up enough money to buy an acre of land, and a house, and then decide I want to semi-retire, I should be able to do so. But if my acre of land and house has a $4,500 tax, that means I have to find a job just to pay for the right to own property. That is evil.
It's roughly the size of an SUV and it is designed to operate to a depth of about 4 miles.
4 miles... that is slightly over 20,000 feet?
What is crush depth for subs?
I wonder if the next generation of war subs will not have any people, but will be robots. To think, wars fought and decided 20,000 feet under the sea, but by robots, no people.
Our world leaders could have their wars, and we would never know!
There is another cool use for this robot. I bet if they keep going deeper in the water, and learn how to make robots that can withstand greater pressure, when NASA decides to make probes for planets with higher gravity of pressure, they can use this data in creating their probes. Maybe these robots will be the great grand fathers of robots that go to jupiter or saturn.
All judges should have law degrees, which most do not.
Really?
Although some jurisdictions allow non-lawyers to be judges, this is relatively rare (as far as I know). And lawyers are required to hold J.D. degrees.
I was writing about traffic court judges. Sorry, I should have made that more clear. Many are either elected, or are appointed by local mayors. It might vary by city, but around here, the local mayors appoint people based on the spoils system. They pick people who helped them get elected, local townspeople who want the prestege of being a judge.
Since most traffic court judges never do anything more than collect a fine, it is not like they have to rule on evidance, what is admissable, or things like that. I doubt anyone ever suppressed evidence in a traffic court case by motioning a lack of discovery (government sharing of evidence with the defense, which is required). And I doubt a traffic court judge has ever had to rule on voir dire. But these are events that even the most basic drug dealer or theft case would have.
And you are correct, all lawyers have to hold a law degree, and in most places that is the J.D. degree, although some places will admit people with a LL.B. into the bar.
I can't remember, but was Louisiana the only state which allowed non J.D.'s to sit for the bar? Maybe that was the 80's. And I think California and Michigan are the only two states that will allow non bar-accredited students to sit for the bar exam.
he simply made the judge doubt the memory of the police officer and not prove his innocence. There is a big difference between taking advantage of a loophole and actually having done no wrong
look, you can talk about loopholes.
you can talk about high priced lawyers.
but the american system of justice, when it works the right way, is that all people are innocent until proven guilty.
it comes down to one question. would you rather let a guilty person go free, or lock up an innocent person. in the usa, we have a system where we don't want to lock up the innocent.
look at what happened in illinois a couple years back. when the state did some dna testing on inmates, they found out they had over 100 people on death row who were innocent. these people got conivected because they had bad lawyers, the police needed to arrest someone, so they picked up a crack head or someone unemployed.
people should be free. we don't want the patriot act. we don't want people being arrested and held without being charged. we don't want the police going through reading lists, casting fishing nets, and without having any reason, looking for anyone to arrest. it is like a cop who decides to go by the local highschool, see who graduated in the bottom 10%, figuring the dumb ones are the troublemakers, and then following them around until he finds one of them in the woods smoking a joint.
then again, with cities like boston and chicago putting up 3000 cameras that can look inside of cars, that is the direction we are going.
i feel sorry for the people without any money. if they ever get charged with anything, they are fucked. look at the husband of the wife who dissapeared. the police started interviewing him, there were reports he was the #1 suspect. then one day, his wife shows up in las vegas. she got cold feet. if the police wanted to, they could have strung up that man and ruined him. there was a story about a man who worked for the usa, at a wepons lab, around the time the anthrax was mailed to the senate. he was the #1 suspect. the fbi tore apart his house, they tore open his mattress, they put holes in his walls, all looking for evidence. the fbi then went to his girlfriends house, and did the same thing. they could not find nothing, but they still call him the #1 suspect. he is free, but always followed. and the police keep threatening him, of more searches, of harrasing his friends.
i'll give one last example. look at monica lewinsky. people should read about what the fbi did to her. they grabbed her off the streat, forced her into a hotel room, and told her if she did not describe her relationship with the president (the blowjobs), they would arrest her and she would never be free again. one fbi agent told her, i think i should call your dad, to let him know what you did. talk to us or i'll call. and for the first 6 hours, when she asked for a lawyer, they would not give her one, and instead threatened to call her parents, friends, and to let the media know what she did. they put her through hell, and never charged her with anything.
I've been told by numerous people, including my college roomate who went to court about a traffic ticket, that most of the time, just because someone is willing to go to the court about getting a ticket, they almost always win. Like, just being willing to spend the time to go is enough for reasonable doubt in a lot of situations.
i have been to court many times. i went a couple times because i was given a traffic ticket, a few times with friends who were given traffic tickets, and for entertainment.
i would say that 85% of people who go to court are convicted or plead guilty. here is why...
the very first words the judge will tell everyone is this. "if you plead not guilty, i will send you back to your seat. i will hear all other cases first. your case will be last. we will then have the officer give his testimony, which i will consider truthful and accurate. if i convict you in a trial, then i will not give you any lenancy. if you plead guilty, and you don't have a criminal history, i will most likely give you supervision, which means your conviction is sealed and after 1 year it is removed. if you are found guilty, i will not give you supervision".
what that means, if you get supervision, your insurance company will not know you had a ticket, and will not raise your insurance rates. that could save hundreds of dollars.
here are other reasons people never win...
a judge will believe a police officer over you
the radar gun is considered accurate
the county wants your money
My personal opinion is traffic court should be run like a real court. All judges should have law degrees, which most do not. There should be public defenders in traffic court, everyone who can not afford a lawyer should be given access to a public defender. In most cases, 10 minutes with a public defender before going in front of the judge is all that is needed, he can tell you your chances. If you are innocent, maybe he can talk you into pleading not guilty and not being intimidated. And for God's sake, judges should spend more than 20 seconds per case. I know they often put 150 people on a docket for one day, but how can a judge really hear that many cases. It is more like a long line to pay the bouncer his cover charge.
this is a bullshit article. there were maps before google. how can a map get someone out of a ticket? did the cop not know where he was? did the cop think he was in a 30mph zone when he was in a 40 mph zone? this is free advertising for google.
it is a con, to try and get people to think of a good use for an intrusive technology. my property, its maps, and what it looks like is my business and nobody elses.
anyways... here is my court story:
what most people don't know is the traffic court judge is not there to be a judge. he is more lika an administrator for the city, whos job is to collect as much money as possible.
in my town the traffic court judge is not even a lawyer. i went to court for a ticket because i did not have my insurance card in my car. i was late to court, and the judge would not hear my case, i was fined $550.
before i continue, i should mention the reason i was late to court. the county changed the court from the building where the court has been the past 25 years, to a different location. while i was pulling on locked court doors, on the opposite side of town court was in session.
so i went to see the clerk of the court. this is the man who has ALL the power. well, the chief judge is the true power, a real lawyer, and has administrative power over all judges, but it is the clerk who is is gatekeeper. the clerk cleared out the conviction, reset a court date and all was dandy, so i thought.
next time, i showed up at court a good hour early. i had everything i needed to prove my case, a letter from my insurance company stating i had insurance the day i was pulled over, and my current insurance card.
they call my name...
me: your honor, i have a letter from my insurance compamy...
the judge inturrupts me
judge: wait, i am not here to listen to your insurance case, i'm going to first decide why i should hear your case. i don't know if i am the right court to review a conviction.
me: your honor, you are the court of original jurisdiction, and the clerk vacated the past conviction.
judge: i am not convinced. motion to rehear denied.
so, there i was, a judge who fucked me in under 15 seconds. before i could say another word, the court called the next case. i went back to the clerks office, dejected and ready to pay. somehow, the clerk remembered me. he asked, "how come you still have the fine, you showed me your insurance letter last time, the judge should have dismissed the ticket". i explained to him what happened.
and what happened next blew my mind. the clerk took out a pink colored pad of paper, about 3 inches by 4 inches, scribbled his signature on it, told me to go to office 427 and haand it to the woman, who would then get me 5 minutes with the chief judge. i started by handing the chief judge my insurance papers, because i know these guys are busy and would rather quickly skim evidance than listen to me for half an hour. in under a minute i explained what happened.
the chief judge went in his computer, reset my court date again, this time telling me who the judge was going to be and that he would call the judge to tell him about my case personally.
next time i showed up to court, there was a different judge. my case was dismissed. the judge even appologized for my wasted time.
Unions are not the problem - unions run by arseholes that do not work in the interests of their members like in the anecdote above are. A union is there to stop people getting exploited or sacked unfairly and to protect the interests of it's members when dealing with employers - anything beyond that is playing politics.
That is exactly my impression of Unions as well.
A good union should not try and screw the company. A good union should protect the workers so they don't all get screwed. If a company could deal with workers on a 1 by 1 basis, they could intimidate and hire and fire who they want. Look at how walmart treats its employees. If there was a union at walmart, maybe instead of people making $6 an hour, they would make something a little more, maybe they could cross the poverty line. And maybe walmart could not intimidate people to work days they had scheduled off. And walmart would not look at their workers as interchangable, hire and fire at will. There would be some job secuirty. Finally, maybe the union could force walmart to give workers 40 hours a week, rather than having twice as many workers working 20 hours a week. There is flexibility to give the company what it needs, and treat workers with respect at the same time.
A union should be able to negotiate a fair contract with the company. The problem is, what is fair? Once upon a time, fair used to be Company makes $X, lets split is, the CEO will get more because he is our leader, in return the CEO will give is a livable wage, health insurance, a pension, and not work us like slaves.
Then the CEO started wanting EVERYTHING. It no longer was a question of "what is fair", it was a question of "how much can I take". And the unions did the same thing, except is was not how much can the workers take, it was how much can the union take. So now, you have CEO's making multiples of what they made 30 years ago, and you have unions with reps making sure nobody does more work than the minimum quota.
That union I mentioned in my original post was not all bad. They had some good parts in the contract. If the company had to lay off people, the company could not hire anyone unless they first offered the old jobs back to those who were laid off. Plus, the union would pay 50% or some % of the salary of the laid off person for 6 months after unemployment benefits ran out.
I wish unions did not embrace the tactics of the CEO. Maybe that is todays buisness environment, you fight for as much as you can possibly get. But it seems to me that unions and companies could exist in a state where everyone was better off.
Given that GM had a 1.1 billion dollar loss during the first quarter of this year, it would seem they need to find a way to turn around the company quickly. What will become of our auto industry once China starts producing cars en masse with employees that cost around $0.25 / hour?
We had a solution to this problem. It is called tariffs. We charge a tax on all goods that are imported into the USA to protect goods manufactured inside the USA.
We don't let China sell $8,000 cars in the USA. We charge the China company a tax for the right to sell in the USA.
I have a friend who is into wines, big time. He has one of those fancy wine dehumidifiers/refrigerators with the glass case. He reads about wine, goes to wine tastings, he knows his wines. Anyways, he went to France last year, and he called me when he got back. He said the same French wine he buys in the USA was less than 1/3rd the price in France. He said he does not buy that wine often because it is so expensive, but he purchased 6 bottles to bring back home. He buys many more wines produced in California than anywhere else. Seems tariffs are working well in that situation.
Generally when given the option Americans would rather buy a cheaper product than pay more for American-made goods.
This is not true for me. I only buy American cars, I have NEVER owned a foriegn made car. But does that matter any more when much of the money in that car comes from parts that were made outside the USA? What good is it buying a Chevy if it is manufactured in Mexico?
It is estimated about $1,400 of the amount you pay for a GM vehicle goes straight to health-insurance costs for a GM employee.
I don't have a problem with that. What is that? 4% of the total cost of a new car? $1400 per employee for health care is nothing compared to the $2,000,000 bonus the CEO got? How many people could that 2 million cover? And that is not touching one penny of the CEOs salary.
Yes, If I was making contracts I would put the dumbest shit in it. I would do my best to make sure they don't read it either.
You must have been the HR person who kept pushing paper after paper in front of me to sign. You said "This is just a formality, just sign there, and there, and initial there. Good. Very good, you will be perfect here".
I did not think anything of it, until I got my first check and had a "fines" category. Seems that I did not park in the "employee" section, across the street, behind the dunkin doghnuts, just a short 1/2 mile walk to work. The stores parking lot was reserved for customers only.
Then there was the fine because someone saw me eating lunch at McDonalds. They said those kinds of neglectful eating choices raises the insurance premiums on everyone. I scratced my head wondering what they were talking about, I did not have any health insurance. Hmmm... Could I have raised their rates just because I smelled like a Big Mac?
Okay, the second one was Bullshit, but it did happen in michigan. One company has a no-smoking policy. Ever. Smoke at home, and get fired. Then there was the guy who worked for Budwieser, who was spotted drinking a Coors beer after work one day. He was fired too. It is amazing the shit that can get into a work contract.
Here is something that really did happen to me. I saved the best for last. I was working in factory one summer. It was a stupid job assembling shit. There was a quota per day, 200 parts assembled. with no more than 2 rejects. I think my third or fourth day, once I was out of training and figured out what they wanted done, I assembled 800 parts with 3 that were rejected. Understand, this job was mindless, a repetative hell. A 12 year old could have done it (and probably is in China).
And I got in trouble. Why? The Union contract stated the low end quota, of 200 parts. They did not want anyone doing more. So the Union rep pulled me to the side, and said "if you keep up that shit, I'll send you home". The first 90 days are a probation, and not only can the employer fire you for any reason, the Union can reject you too by not accepting you into the union, and since it is a closed shop, that means the company can not hire that person. It is fucked up, ain't it?
There is all kinds of dumb shit that can get in a contract. What we need is something simple. Pay a livable wage. Provide a pension for retirement, and health care. Treat workers with respect.
Poetic justice, maybe they should talk to Borland how this feels.
There is a difference. Microsoft has more lawyers. Wasn't M$ sued by the government, M$ lost, and was ordered to split into 2 seperate companies? What happened? Appeal, appeal, appeal. And wait for a new administration, and new attorney general.
Microsoft is not following the law, they are not even obeying the law. They are using the judiciary to rewrite the laws with selective interpretation.
Think about how involved M$ is with government. How much money do they donate each year to canidates they want? Then when it comes time to appoint judges, there is M$ again. Sooner or later, M$ will end up in a court with a judge they hand selected. It is the same method the Mafia used, get their thugs in positions of government.
If Microsoft was held accountable for every contract they broke, they would cease to exists.
"Accepting such a position with a direct Microsoft competitor like Google violates the narrow noncompetition promise Lee made when he was hired as an executive," Microsoft said in its lawsuit. "Google is fully aware of Lee's promises to Microsoft, but has chosen to ignore them, and has encouraged Lee to violate them."
Wait... if I want to work for you, I have to promise not to work for them sometime in the future? Okay... And I have to name my firstborn child Billy?
Tom Burt, a lawyer for Microsoft, said Lee announced Monday that he was leaving for the Google job and had given no indication that he planned to honor an agreement not to work for a direct competitor for one year.
"To the contrary, they're saying, 'In your face,'" Burt told The Associated Press.
Your honor... yada yada yada... IN YOUR FACE!!! HA! Now there is a new legal argument. I wonder if this groudbreaking lawsuit will be referred to from now on as the "facial"?
Google shot back with a statement saying: "We have reviewed Microsoft's claims and they are completely without merit. Google is focused on building the best place in the world for great innovators to work. We're thrilled to have Dr. Lee on board at Google. We will defend vigorously against these meritless claims."
Okay, it is starting to sink in. Mr Lee has an agreement with Microsoft saying he will not work for a competitor. A competitor hires him. But does the competitor have any contract with Microsoft? Who should get sued?
In its lawsuit, Microsoft said it was seeking a court order forcing Lee and Google to abide by terms of confidentiality and noncompetition agreements that Lee signed at Microsoft.
Oh fuck. Now you did it. Luccciieeee!!!
Okay, time for some Seminals finest analysis. Fuck you Microsoft. You are a dirty bastard who has lived past its expiration date. Die, die, die, you miserable corporation. Sink back into the depths of hell from which you came.
Translation...
Microsoft has no right to mandate what kind of work someone does. Microsoft did not train this person, Microsoft did not make this person a better person. Mr Lee is the one who made microsoft better. He shared his mind and ideas with them. If Microsoft patented them, which I am sure they did, then there is no conflict of interest. This guy can go and and think new thoughts for Google.
So - if I understand you correctly, you are saying that your complex essentially wants to be a "downlink" station from the satellites, right? In other words, you have a large dish (10-12 foot) K or C-Band (or something else newer, probably), pointed at some general bird in the sky with the channels you want from a higher tier provider (ie, the people who provide the access to DishTV), you pay them and get it cheap, then wire everyone to the dish with repeaters, amps, etc - and give each one a "custom" "cable" box, right?
I can share some of the research we did.
Here is an example of ala-cart service, for individuals. If you have a large block that buys as one collective, you can negotiate a better price:
Even as an idividual, there are pleanty of $1 a month channels- Sci-Fi, Comedy Central, E!TV, and others. They even have a $12.49 per month package of 21 channels including CNN, Sci-Fi, Fox News, Disney, and lots of others. There is good choice.
Just so people don't accuse me of selling a service, here is another one:
They have a HDTV package for $19 a month, including ESPN, Fox News, lots of popular stations. The only problem is they are in three areas in the USA (Arizona I believe).
Back to our research. We then discovered all the free channels with a large C-band dish-
Many of them are stations I never heard of, but there is Animal Planet, 7 channels of Bloomberg which I had in college and remember as a headline news type channel, 3 channels of C-Span for the government junkies (I love C-Span for book tv), CBS HDTV east and west, 5 CNBC's, 4 CNN's, 6 Discovery tv (including one that is HDTV and one that is spanish), 7 MTV's although none are from the USA but I have seen MTV from Russia and it was almost all USA music videos the only differance was the DJ's spoke russian, 7 PBS and one of them is HDTV. I am not going to list them all, but those are some good channels and they are all FREE.
If that is what I think you are doing, that is pretty sweet - talk about screwing the "man" and telling him where to stick it!
We don't think we are screwing the man at all. It is more like stopping Comcast from screwing us. We've all lived with bad service, and an overpriced product. If there were 10 different cable companies, and they had to compete, prices would be 25% of what they are today. But there is a monopoly.
All in all, kudos to you and your (hopefully) merry group - I hope it works out for you, and you get what *you* want (hmm - alternatively - have you thought about mixing the two - get the sat feed, turn each channel into.torrents, then give each unit a box to view the.torrents, and other 'net video offerrings - combine it with cheap T1 service from Speakeasy or similar - so sweet)...
That would require more work than we are willing to do. Since we are an association, we pay dues, and we want to minimize our fees. For example, they decided to open the swimming pool 3 hours later this summer than last (1pm instead of 10am on weekdays). Why? To save a few bucks of cost- pool attendant being the largest.
We just want to get a large sattelite or two, and run cable to everyones home.
We have also talked with a lawyer. There is a state law where we live that says any cable a cable company lays down on private property is the property of the land owner and not the cable company. We are trying to find out if we can cut off the feed from comcast and run our own over the existing cables.
What I do know is we will find a solution that is better than comcast!! I'll also say another thing. If I did not live in an association, I would talk to my next
If you know of an industry where there is any job security, please share it with us.
In my family, I have people who retired from GM as a factory worker, who still has enough money to buy a new car every 4 years.
Next door is a nurse who is retired. Same thing, she has new cars and has money.
When I was 19 I worked in a bookstore one year during college. One of the women who worked there part time was 60 years old and was a retired teacher. I asked he if she needed the money, thinking how sad that a 60 year old woman needs to work. She said she did not need any money, had more than enough, but she was lonely and wanted to be around people. Since she was a teacher, she loved books.
My friends dad was a truck driver, and he is retired, and living comfortably in a 4br 2.5bath house.
What two things do all these people have in common? An automotive factory worker, a teacher, a nurse, and a truck driver? They all started working in the 1960's and each and every one of them has a pension in addition to social security.
It is a shame when today, skilled workers are not gaurenteed a pension. There should be a law which says that anyone who puts in over 10 years sweat and work into a company will get some kind of pension from that company. Maybe a good rule would be for every year worked, the company must pay a pension of 2.5% of that years salary, adjusted for inflation. A 30 year career would yeild 75% of the that persons salary. Add in social security, and most can retire comfortably.
I wonder what has changed from the 1960's-80's and today. Why is it today most companies don't want to offer health insurance or pensions, or make people pay into their own private funds. What has changed? Companies could afford it back then, but today they outsource work, they close factories, and they don't want to pay workers. But the CEO's get HUGE bonuses, it is nowhere in line with the bonuses they got 30 years ago.
The only way to fix it is to pass new laws. No more outsourcing of jobs. All companies must have a pension package. No lay offs unless the union okay's it. And every company must have a union, or the workers must collectivly agree on pay and terms.
if he's complaining about the lack of CS students, then perhaps he should pay graduates more, stop outsourcing to India and relying on H1b visas... then people might just believe there's a future in CS... he and several others like him are the root cause of the problem...
You hit the nail on the head. When I was in college, my roomate who was a buisness major switched to computer science when he saw an article in US News and World Report which said that computer science majors would start at $40,000 a year. The only major that started higher was chemical engineering. Buisness was somewhere in the middle at $29,000 or so, with art at the bottom with $18,500.
Now people are avoiding computer science because there is no growth seen. There is percieved shrinkage in the USA. HP lays off 11,000. Sun fired 4,000 a few years ago. Who wants to work in an industry where they have no job security?
It is not like someone can get a degree in computer science, get a job at GE starting at $40,000, and work there the next 30 years and retire with a pension. Most comp sci people I know work on a contract basis. One year at a single company is considered a long time by some people. Then there is the pain in the ass of finding a new gig.
How does someone plan buying a house under those conditions? What do you tell the bank? Umm... I have had 5 different contracts the past 3 years.
Then there is the question of sanity. Who will live longer. They comp sci guy, who works 60 hour weeks, under stress, then even when he has no work, he is stressed looking for work. I see an early death due to heart attack. Or is it better to be a PE teacher, making $35,000 a year and spending time outdoors lobbing softballs and playing tennis?
The problem the comp sci students are going to face is the same problem the auto workers are facing. Companies don't give a crap about americans, even though the companies started in the USA, the CEO and board of directors are American, and they sell their product to Americans. They will move their factories and tech support and anything they can to Mexico or India or anywhere they can find cheap labor. The CEO's are pretty much trators and they are crapping on the USA.
1) Four years of one of the most time intensive majors in colleges
Well, at least 10 years ago, the degree was meaningless. I knew a guy who was a highschool drop out, over 40 years old with a shitty work history. His wife was the breadwinner, he stayed home fucking around with the computers. He lied to everyone about having a home buisness, some years he would get lucky and set up a network for an office and make $20,000, the next year he would make $0.
When the MSCE was first offered, he did nothing. When a family friend got a $75 an hour temp job, he started studying and passed all 5 exams in under 6 months.
He got a temp job making $80 an hour. And he milked the timesheet, there was no week where he did not charge 20 hours or more for overtime. I saw some weekly checks that were over $6,000. His crappy $12,000 car that did 35 miles per gallon was replaced with a $40,000 SUV that did 14 miles per gallon.
And here is the kicker. Is everyone ready?
He would work it so the contracts lasted 6 or 7 or 8 months. One lasted a year. But as soon as his contract was up, he would go and file for unemployment. There is a requirement that says people on unemployment must look for work and keep a log. So he used monster, to look for CIO jobs, knowing none would hire him, but he would email a resume, and write it on his log so if the state asked, he could say he was looking for work. As soon as unemployment was up, he would get another job with a temp agency.
This all ended many years ago, when the $80 an hour jobs went down to $25, then dissapeared. Funny thing is he would not take the $25 an hour. Now it is back to the old way. His wife is working, he is home fucking around with computers. And if she ever bitches for him to get a $12.50 an hour job at some local factory, he will remind her of the $80 an hour he got, how his home buisness is hit or miss, and how she has to now ride out through the lows.
Who's building the infrastructure (lines, repeaters, etc.) to move the signal from the community dish to each home?
The people who live here would pay for the infrastructure.
What the people originally wanted to do was collectivly purchase a large contract from Dish tv, so dish would provide every house with service for about 40% off. Comcast responded when we told them we were taking bids, they offered a bullshit package. Comcast then started mailing hate mail to everyone, the typical lies that dish tv will go out when it rains, and how we are all dumb for wanting it. All they did was piss people off even more, increase the hatered people feel for comcast, and made us more determined to find a solution where we don't get ripped off.
Then some members started doing research. They discovered that if the community had a large dish, the community could purchase access to channels ala-cart for about 10% the cost of comcast (comcast does not even offer the ability to buy ala-cart, only one dish package does). We decided this is the option we want to go with.
The chairman says this: "Fundamentally, the government should be trying to provide tools for parents to help them control what's coming into their living rooms and what their kids are exposed to."
Why? Shouldn't the parents just not buy products that don't offer them the controls they want? All TVs and desktop computers I've encountered have an off switch and there's nothing the government can do to get people to use them. How are more switches, knobs, dials, control panels, etc. going to help anything?
if it was the 1950's and only one parent had to work, then we would not need government intervention. not to mention, there is so much offensive programming on television today. have you seen some of the rap videos on MTV. those are real good values for a 10 year old to learn.
it is like the monday night football TO and desperate houswives promo. that never should have been on tv. how many dads want to watch football with their kids? and to have a kid exposed to that is horrible. what lessons were taught? a black guy decides his responsibility to his team is meaningless when he can have a peice of tail who he has met for the first time. they should have had part 2 of that episode next week- the woman gets aids and dies.
i'll give one last example. i was watching a sit com, one that is pretty funny. one night, they decided to have an episode where they showcased a gay guy. wtf? episodes should have warnings ahead of time. nobody wants to see that crap.
i think i am going to look for an advocacy group, one that wants to remove offensive skits from tv. one that will sue the television companies, and file complaints with the FCC on my behalf. a special interest group that will tell the government my community does not want homosexuals, lesbians, or anything offensive on tv. and get rid of all the alcohol advertising. can't a dad and his son watch a baseball game without seeing 100 different advertisments for beer?
until then, we need more government regulations. i don't care about violence, that is good clean fun. but get the sex off tv.
plans to loosen rules so neither phone nor cable companies will be required to share their Internet connections with competitors like America Online, a change that essentially would create a duopoly in many local markets.
i dunno. if the phone companies and cable companies created their networks without any public funds or help, i can see them not wanting to share thier services. but these two industries were helped by public funding, so i can see the public wanting to open access to that infrastructure.
i know one thing, we don't want monopolies. and that is exactly what cable companies want.
why the hell should a cable company sue a town if the town votes to have public wireless service? the people of the town in effect are creating their own ISP, and running it for pennies on the dollar. instead of paying $50 per person to the cable company, a town of 45,000 might pay $1.25 per person.
there is something my subdivision wants to do, and we are running into problems with legal threats from the comcast. we want to install one large satelite dish, and buy programming- espn, fox news, sci fi, disney, there are about 30 channels the subdivision agreed on. it would cost $5.75 per home. there are some channels we can get that are not available on cable, like about 10 free public access channels (not included in the 30 mentioned above, one channel is a university that broadcasts its lectures).
it seems to me that companies are going one step further than forming monopolies. they are now suing people to force them to buy their service. if comcast could burry directtv, they would do it in a heartbeat. does anyone remember those offensive ad's? a little kid pulls on the suit of a well dressed man while his father looks uneasy, then the kid says "my daddy says you use a dish? why are you the boss of the company?". the anwser is the dish is half the price with more channels. duh. then comcast lied, saying whenever there was a rainy day, there was no tv service. my friend has directtv, and it has never gone out, not in any storm, unlike my comcast which sucks!.
i want cable companies to stay barely alive, so the people who run these companies won't take their managment style to other companies. they are like used car salesmen.
I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.
I would guess most people don't see an OS, they see a computer. When they get pissed at the OS, they are really pissed at the computer. So they throw it away. In their thinking, the Compaq running Windows XP is very different from the Dell running Windows XP. After all, the computer boxes look different.
Maybe people think of their computer like a VCR. If it stops working, you don't get the $2 cleaning fluid tape, you throw it away and buy another.
It is too bad these people don't donate their old computers.
I am a person who believes it is a SCAM when colleges buy bran spanking new computers every 2 years, and use property tax to do it. Whenever I have walked around a computer lab, all I see is Word and papers being written, IE and the web being surfed, and the very occasional comp sci student writing code. All this could be done on PIII's. Hell, PII's would work, although it would take a few minutes to load software.
There is a saying in the advertising world. Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. It is a shame, because often people buy hardware they will never utilize. If someone wants to check email, what good is the newest computer? Salespeople don't sell based on your needs. They want to make the largest commision possible, or push whatever product their managers told them to get out the door. And they lie to do it. I was at Best Buy, just walking around. Most of the time, the salespeople in the Computer section are so busy that it is impossible to get one (good thing in my opinion). But this time one saw me, and came up. He said "What computer do you have?". I lied, I did not want a hard sell, I just wanted to browse, so I said I had a P4 2.0ghz with XP. The sales guy said "Oh, I guess that is okay, but if you want the latest security, and more speed, our P4's have XP with the latest security updates, and they will run the latest games better".
The SOB tried to sneak in a "latest secuirty updates" in the middle of his sales pitch, to put a seed of fear in my mind about my current OS. Gee... thanks for saying anyone can download the latest patches. Gee... thanks for trying to sell me an e-machines.
The friendly article mentioned that "people are increasingly unwilling to take out their 'software tweezers' to clean their machines", maybe it's time for manufacturers to install a HardReset button (like in a PDA) with a 1 GB ReadOnly Flash drive, which resets everything back to factory.
Oh God NOOO!!!! Please, no! These assholes who sell computers are already sending CD's with images only. I have a laptop which the recovery CD's are not the OS which I can configure, but an Image of the hard drive, which sets up the partitions the way Microsoft wants. I can't install the OS with a partition left over for Linux.
Give us the freaking OS we paid for. If I buy a computer, and the OS is forced on my, that I must buy it if I want the PC, then at least give me the OS on a CD and not an image.
The broad question is, does the fact that you can remain compatible with today's applications and data on hardware that is almost a decade old, impede PC sales?"
The anwser is, why should I care about my old PIII550 impeding PC sales. Anything that drives down the prices of computers is a good thing.
The truth is a PIII with Windows 2000 will do everything just fine, or at least anything I have ever needed to do.
Word 2000 for documents... lightining fast. Check!
Excel 2000 for spreadsheets... no problem. Check!
InterWin DVD Player... plays DVDs no problem. Check!
Internet Explorer... no problem. Check!
Firefox... 5 seconds slower than IE, but after loading, no problem. Check!
QuickTime... no problem. Check!
Nero... no problem, both DVD's and CD's. Check!
DVD Decrypter (backup only, no piracy)... about 20-35 minutes to rip 5 gigabytes. Check!
MP3's... played on both WinAmp and WMP... lighting fast, no problem. Check!
Compiling Java Programs... 20-50 seconds. No problem, never stalls. Check!
MySQL... Very fast. No problems. Check!
Running a Web Server... Tomcat compiles JSP's and servers HTML very fast. No problems. Check!
Windows 2000 works perfectly fine for me on my PIII 550. As a matter of fact, my machine is dual CPU, but I only have one CPU. I have been toying with the idea of buying the second PIII to see how much of a boost Windows 2000 will give. I only have 256 megs in my current machine, and ram is a bit pricey. If it was like the 2001 when 128 megs of PC100 sdram was selling for $7, I would have all 4 Dimms filled and have 512 megs.
Oh, for those wondering about DVD watching, I only have a 16 meg video card. Every DVD I have played is flawless and never choppy.
I don't understand the people who run out to spend $4000 on the latest P4 glow in the dark case with 256meg video card system just to play some game. There has not been a $45 game that I have seen yet that I would be willing to pay $4000 for. Or even $1000. If people want games, they might as well buy a playstation for $200-300, it is designed for games. And if I am correct, the playstation is nothing but a stripped down Windows 2000 OS with a PIII700 (or maybe that is the X-Box), either way, it shows what that kind of CPU can do.
If I was going to get a new computer, I think I would get a dell server (no OS included), they have them in P4 2.2-2.5ghz with 128-256megs, and they sell them for $250-350. Every now and then they have a deal where they toss in a free second CPU, or double the ram for free, or give away a second hard drive for free. I would wait for one of those deals.
And I don't think I would ever run Windows XP, just because I hate Windows Media Player v9. Plus, I don't like my computer telling me I can't do something. Windows 2000 is more willing to work the way I want than Windows XP. I see the direction MS is going, and I don't like it.
And for those who use Windows 2000 as their OS. How do you work around the problem of not getting the Service Pack, but wanting the security updates. I HATE that miscorsoft bundled so many security updates in the Service Pack. Why couldn't they have let users hand pick which security updates are wanted/needed?? I don't want to install 1000 packages, I might want 6 or 7 that I think are trully needed.
you don't see the jobs and skills training that Exxon brought in...
Exxon did not bring in any jobs or skills training.
The only thing Exxon did was build a small airport, so they could fly workers and executives from the USA to the African nation. Every single worker on the oil drill was a foriegner, not one was a member of that African nation.
Your bias goes so deep that you even accuse Exxon of helping the king kill people
It was helicopters that belonged to Exxon. The King requested the use of those helicopters, and it was pilots who were employed by Exxon that flew the dictators Army gunners. Exxon could have said "no, we can't let you use the helicopters". The king would have had 2 choices. #1) not use the helicopters, or #2) forcefully use the helicopters and ruin his contract.
It would be suicide for any global publicly-traded corporation to support the slaughter of innocent people.
Didn't Debeers pay governments in Africa to send para-military forces to murder and kill all villagers in places where diamonds were discovered, so debeers would own all the rights to those mines?
No, you are the one who does not care. You cash your paycheck and don't think twice about where the money came from and where it is going. I don't know if you are a christian, but avarice/gluttony is one of the deadly sins.
Sounds more like the dictatorship Equatorial Guinea in west Africa, not Mozambique
You might be right. The 60 Minutes segment was aired over a couple years ago. Equatorial Guinea rings a bell for some reason. The one thing I remember vividly about the 60 Minutes reporting was the poverty of the capital, and then not too far away, the utter extravagance of the Kings/Dictators residence. One scene would be of people, trying to get enough food to eat, the next would be of the King having a feast, too much food for him to possibly eat, and all being wasted. They would show peasants walking barefoot. The next shot was the Kings son in Paris buying $1000 shoes and $10,000 suits. Then 60 Minutes showed where the money came from...
Neither of those are monarchies, though
I remeber the dictator referred to himself as King. Maybe that is where I came up with that. He referred to his son as the prince. And his brother was an Army General, before the King threw him in jail. Whatever the case, the King rose to power when he assasinated the former dictator, an immediate member of his family. So it appeared the dictatorship was all in one family for some time.
Go in, tear out dictators, install Democracy. It's the only way the people have a voice.
No, that is not the right thing to do. The people who live there must make whatever changes they want. They must be the ones to organize, to decide their own future. It does not work, when the USA goes into a country and tells the people "we are giving you democoracy". Who knows, maybe the people would figure out a better system than democoracy. What if they became a communist nation, with everyone living in equality, where every citizen was gaurenteed a share of the oil profits. There is so much money in oil, who knows, to people who live off $1 per day, the oil might have made them relativly wealthy compared to how they live now. Maybe the people would want to use the money to start schools, that are free and open to all their citizens with no tuition charged. Maybe everyone would get free health care. Who knows what they would do, but there is a chance they might reject capitalism, where one person makes moeny off others.
Exxon went in and profited from the situation? No kidding! What would you suggest? Another useless oil embargo where no oil company can go in and drill for oil? You know that would last all of five seconds.
What I suggest is not using USA money to help a King who acts like a dictator, who steals from his own people. The oil does not belong to the King. This is a dirty deal between an American company and a greedy King. The USA has every right to tell its companies, you can not help support or fund a person who would sell all his natural resources, and then use that money to supress his own people. That does not mean that we go in there fighting them. We just don't support them with money. Let the King find a way to drill the oil himself, maybe he would be forced to educate enough of his own citizens. Maybe that would lead to people questioning how the oil is being used, where the money is going. I agree, Exxon buying the oil for $.02 on the dollar is a steal for Exxon. But imagine if the people who lived there could drill it themseleves. They would have 50 times as much revenue. How do the United Arab Emirates drill their oil? I think I remember reading that every single citizen of that country is a millionair because the country shares the oil profits with every citizen.
It's *his* Kingdom. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do to it. And they're *his* people, they will live as well or as poorly as he allows him to.
It is not his Kingdom any more than the people allow him to keep his title. There have been good Kings throught history; Kings the people loved and adored. It is true that most would let greed take over, and would become lustful of power. But some Kings have trully loved their people, and have had long lines of monarchs that were good to the people.
Erik, you are making the mistake of thinking other countries would be better off as democoracies or capitalist nations. Maybe they would, maybe they would not. Some countries have strong ties to tradition, and their culture is incompatible with a capitalsim. If I lived in Africa and was poor, and lived off a few farm animals and whatever crops I could grow, I think I would preffer that lifestyle to a capitalism system where a factory forces everyone off their land, and into working for pennies.
If this King was good, what he would have done is taken the deal with Exxon for the first 3 or 4 years. He would have built schools, hospitals, and basic services his people need. He would have put together a team to learn how to drill oil for themselevs. And after the contract with Exxon expired, the King would have used his own people to drill for oil. Maybe in one generation, the King could have built enough schools and universities and telephone lines, that his people would be competing with India for outsourcing contracts.;)
Slashdot Mirror
does anyone spend most of their free time at home surfing the web? has anyone missed family get togethers, stayed in because he/she was surfing the web?
i know i keep going back to websites like cnn.com over and over, even though i don't expect a new headline every 20 minutes. since nothing new is at cnn, time to check the other 6 or 7 news websites i visit. nothing new there, better check back at cnn. i am sure some people think of porn the same way as i think of news.
i'll have to admit it, the first thing i do when i get home is turn on the computer.
what is a good way to break the addiction?
I don't think Virginia will.
http://www.vbbe.state.va.us/faq.html#4
Plus, it looks like Virginia is one of the states that requires a credit check and clean credit history. So if you did not pay your rent, or missed a credit card payment, they will not give you a law license. The link about has more info.
I don't understand this. If I decide to add a deck to the back of my house, how am I directly affecting the public. If I can have a cup of coffee on my deck instead of in my kitchen, did I just change how my nieghbors live?
Just because you are the only one allowed to use your property doesn't mean you can do with your property whatever you want.
This is true, and for good reason. We don't want people installing their own septic tanks if the water level is too high, and getting everyone sick. We don't want people buying a house in the middle of a senic residential subdivision and opening up a buisness and increasing traffic flow. But all this can be handled with zoning laws. It does not require publicizing what land and improvements everyone builds.
This is why both survey information as well as past tax assessments of your property are kept in your county court house, available for inspection to all comers for free.
I am all for taxes. I think we need taxes to level the playing field, to raise money to provide oppertunity to the poor, to pay for roads and schools.
But the correct tax is income tax. Not property tax. Property tax is inherently evil because property tax means nobody really owns land.
If I work for 10 years, and save up enough money to buy an acre of land, and a house, and then decide I want to semi-retire, I should be able to do so. But if my acre of land and house has a $4,500 tax, that means I have to find a job just to pay for the right to own property. That is evil.
4 miles... that is slightly over 20,000 feet?
What is crush depth for subs?
I wonder if the next generation of war subs will not have any people, but will be robots. To think, wars fought and decided 20,000 feet under the sea, but by robots, no people.
Our world leaders could have their wars, and we would never know!
There is another cool use for this robot. I bet if they keep going deeper in the water, and learn how to make robots that can withstand greater pressure, when NASA decides to make probes for planets with higher gravity of pressure, they can use this data in creating their probes. Maybe these robots will be the great grand fathers of robots that go to jupiter or saturn.
Really?
Although some jurisdictions allow non-lawyers to be judges, this is relatively rare (as far as I know). And lawyers are required to hold J.D. degrees.
I was writing about traffic court judges. Sorry, I should have made that more clear. Many are either elected, or are appointed by local mayors. It might vary by city, but around here, the local mayors appoint people based on the spoils system. They pick people who helped them get elected, local townspeople who want the prestege of being a judge.
Since most traffic court judges never do anything more than collect a fine, it is not like they have to rule on evidance, what is admissable, or things like that. I doubt anyone ever suppressed evidence in a traffic court case by motioning a lack of discovery (government sharing of evidence with the defense, which is required). And I doubt a traffic court judge has ever had to rule on voir dire. But these are events that even the most basic drug dealer or theft case would have.
And you are correct, all lawyers have to hold a law degree, and in most places that is the J.D. degree, although some places will admit people with a LL.B. into the bar.
I can't remember, but was Louisiana the only state which allowed non J.D.'s to sit for the bar? Maybe that was the 80's. And I think California and Michigan are the only two states that will allow non bar-accredited students to sit for the bar exam.
look, you can talk about loopholes.
you can talk about high priced lawyers.
but the american system of justice, when it works the right way, is that all people are innocent until proven guilty.
it comes down to one question. would you rather let a guilty person go free, or lock up an innocent person. in the usa, we have a system where we don't want to lock up the innocent.
look at what happened in illinois a couple years back. when the state did some dna testing on inmates, they found out they had over 100 people on death row who were innocent. these people got conivected because they had bad lawyers, the police needed to arrest someone, so they picked up a crack head or someone unemployed.
people should be free. we don't want the patriot act. we don't want people being arrested and held without being charged. we don't want the police going through reading lists, casting fishing nets, and without having any reason, looking for anyone to arrest. it is like a cop who decides to go by the local highschool, see who graduated in the bottom 10%, figuring the dumb ones are the troublemakers, and then following them around until he finds one of them in the woods smoking a joint.
then again, with cities like boston and chicago putting up 3000 cameras that can look inside of cars, that is the direction we are going.
i feel sorry for the people without any money. if they ever get charged with anything, they are fucked. look at the husband of the wife who dissapeared. the police started interviewing him, there were reports he was the #1 suspect. then one day, his wife shows up in las vegas. she got cold feet. if the police wanted to, they could have strung up that man and ruined him. there was a story about a man who worked for the usa, at a wepons lab, around the time the anthrax was mailed to the senate. he was the #1 suspect. the fbi tore apart his house, they tore open his mattress, they put holes in his walls, all looking for evidence. the fbi then went to his girlfriends house, and did the same thing. they could not find nothing, but they still call him the #1 suspect. he is free, but always followed. and the police keep threatening him, of more searches, of harrasing his friends.
i'll give one last example. look at monica lewinsky. people should read about what the fbi did to her. they grabbed her off the streat, forced her into a hotel room, and told her if she did not describe her relationship with the president (the blowjobs), they would arrest her and she would never be free again. one fbi agent told her, i think i should call your dad, to let him know what you did. talk to us or i'll call. and for the first 6 hours, when she asked for a lawyer, they would not give her one, and instead threatened to call her parents, friends, and to let the media know what she did. they put her through hell, and never charged her with anything.
i have been to court many times. i went a couple times because i was given a traffic ticket, a few times with friends who were given traffic tickets, and for entertainment.
i would say that 85% of people who go to court are convicted or plead guilty. here is why...
the very first words the judge will tell everyone is this. "if you plead not guilty, i will send you back to your seat. i will hear all other cases first. your case will be last. we will then have the officer give his testimony, which i will consider truthful and accurate. if i convict you in a trial, then i will not give you any lenancy. if you plead guilty, and you don't have a criminal history, i will most likely give you supervision, which means your conviction is sealed and after 1 year it is removed. if you are found guilty, i will not give you supervision".
what that means, if you get supervision, your insurance company will not know you had a ticket, and will not raise your insurance rates. that could save hundreds of dollars.
here are other reasons people never win...
My personal opinion is traffic court should be run like a real court. All judges should have law degrees, which most do not. There should be public defenders in traffic court, everyone who can not afford a lawyer should be given access to a public defender. In most cases, 10 minutes with a public defender before going in front of the judge is all that is needed, he can tell you your chances. If you are innocent, maybe he can talk you into pleading not guilty and not being intimidated. And for God's sake, judges should spend more than 20 seconds per case. I know they often put 150 people on a docket for one day, but how can a judge really hear that many cases. It is more like a long line to pay the bouncer his cover charge.
it is a con, to try and get people to think of a good use for an intrusive technology. my property, its maps, and what it looks like is my business and nobody elses.
anyways... here is my court story:
what most people don't know is the traffic court judge is not there to be a judge. he is more lika an administrator for the city, whos job is to collect as much money as possible.
in my town the traffic court judge is not even a lawyer. i went to court for a ticket because i did not have my insurance card in my car. i was late to court, and the judge would not hear my case, i was fined $550.
before i continue, i should mention the reason i was late to court. the county changed the court from the building where the court has been the past 25 years, to a different location. while i was pulling on locked court doors, on the opposite side of town court was in session.
so i went to see the clerk of the court. this is the man who has ALL the power. well, the chief judge is the true power, a real lawyer, and has administrative power over all judges, but it is the clerk who is is gatekeeper. the clerk cleared out the conviction, reset a court date and all was dandy, so i thought.
next time, i showed up at court a good hour early. i had everything i needed to prove my case, a letter from my insurance company stating i had insurance the day i was pulled over, and my current insurance card.
they call my name...
me: your honor, i have a letter from my insurance compamy...
the judge inturrupts me
judge: wait, i am not here to listen to your insurance case, i'm going to first decide why i should hear your case. i don't know if i am the right court to review a conviction.
me: your honor, you are the court of original jurisdiction, and the clerk vacated the past conviction.
judge: i am not convinced. motion to rehear denied.
so, there i was, a judge who fucked me in under 15 seconds. before i could say another word, the court called the next case. i went back to the clerks office, dejected and ready to pay. somehow, the clerk remembered me. he asked, "how come you still have the fine, you showed me your insurance letter last time, the judge should have dismissed the ticket". i explained to him what happened.
and what happened next blew my mind. the clerk took out a pink colored pad of paper, about 3 inches by 4 inches, scribbled his signature on it, told me to go to office 427 and haand it to the woman, who would then get me 5 minutes with the chief judge. i started by handing the chief judge my insurance papers, because i know these guys are busy and would rather quickly skim evidance than listen to me for half an hour. in under a minute i explained what happened.
the chief judge went in his computer, reset my court date again, this time telling me who the judge was going to be and that he would call the judge to tell him about my case personally.
next time i showed up to court, there was a different judge. my case was dismissed. the judge even appologized for my wasted time.
Unions are not the problem - unions run by arseholes that do not work in the interests of their members like in the anecdote above are. A union is there to stop people getting exploited or sacked unfairly and to protect the interests of it's members when dealing with employers - anything beyond that is playing politics.
That is exactly my impression of Unions as well.
A good union should not try and screw the company. A good union should protect the workers so they don't all get screwed. If a company could deal with workers on a 1 by 1 basis, they could intimidate and hire and fire who they want. Look at how walmart treats its employees. If there was a union at walmart, maybe instead of people making $6 an hour, they would make something a little more, maybe they could cross the poverty line. And maybe walmart could not intimidate people to work days they had scheduled off. And walmart would not look at their workers as interchangable, hire and fire at will. There would be some job secuirty. Finally, maybe the union could force walmart to give workers 40 hours a week, rather than having twice as many workers working 20 hours a week. There is flexibility to give the company what it needs, and treat workers with respect at the same time.
A union should be able to negotiate a fair contract with the company. The problem is, what is fair? Once upon a time, fair used to be Company makes $X, lets split is, the CEO will get more because he is our leader, in return the CEO will give is a livable wage, health insurance, a pension, and not work us like slaves.
Then the CEO started wanting EVERYTHING. It no longer was a question of "what is fair", it was a question of "how much can I take". And the unions did the same thing, except is was not how much can the workers take, it was how much can the union take. So now, you have CEO's making multiples of what they made 30 years ago, and you have unions with reps making sure nobody does more work than the minimum quota.
That union I mentioned in my original post was not all bad. They had some good parts in the contract. If the company had to lay off people, the company could not hire anyone unless they first offered the old jobs back to those who were laid off. Plus, the union would pay 50% or some % of the salary of the laid off person for 6 months after unemployment benefits ran out.
I wish unions did not embrace the tactics of the CEO. Maybe that is todays buisness environment, you fight for as much as you can possibly get. But it seems to me that unions and companies could exist in a state where everyone was better off.
We had a solution to this problem. It is called tariffs. We charge a tax on all goods that are imported into the USA to protect goods manufactured inside the USA.
We don't let China sell $8,000 cars in the USA. We charge the China company a tax for the right to sell in the USA.
I have a friend who is into wines, big time. He has one of those fancy wine dehumidifiers/refrigerators with the glass case. He reads about wine, goes to wine tastings, he knows his wines. Anyways, he went to France last year, and he called me when he got back. He said the same French wine he buys in the USA was less than 1/3rd the price in France. He said he does not buy that wine often because it is so expensive, but he purchased 6 bottles to bring back home. He buys many more wines produced in California than anywhere else. Seems tariffs are working well in that situation.
Generally when given the option Americans would rather buy a cheaper product than pay more for American-made goods.
This is not true for me. I only buy American cars, I have NEVER owned a foriegn made car. But does that matter any more when much of the money in that car comes from parts that were made outside the USA? What good is it buying a Chevy if it is manufactured in Mexico?
It is estimated about $1,400 of the amount you pay for a GM vehicle goes straight to health-insurance costs for a GM employee.
I don't have a problem with that. What is that? 4% of the total cost of a new car? $1400 per employee for health care is nothing compared to the $2,000,000 bonus the CEO got? How many people could that 2 million cover? And that is not touching one penny of the CEOs salary.
You must have been the HR person who kept pushing paper after paper in front of me to sign. You said "This is just a formality, just sign there, and there, and initial there. Good. Very good, you will be perfect here".
I did not think anything of it, until I got my first check and had a "fines" category. Seems that I did not park in the "employee" section, across the street, behind the dunkin doghnuts, just a short 1/2 mile walk to work. The stores parking lot was reserved for customers only.
Then there was the fine because someone saw me eating lunch at McDonalds. They said those kinds of neglectful eating choices raises the insurance premiums on everyone. I scratced my head wondering what they were talking about, I did not have any health insurance. Hmmm... Could I have raised their rates just because I smelled like a Big Mac?
Okay, the second one was Bullshit, but it did happen in michigan. One company has a no-smoking policy. Ever. Smoke at home, and get fired. Then there was the guy who worked for Budwieser, who was spotted drinking a Coors beer after work one day. He was fired too. It is amazing the shit that can get into a work contract.
Here is something that really did happen to me. I saved the best for last. I was working in factory one summer. It was a stupid job assembling shit. There was a quota per day, 200 parts assembled. with no more than 2 rejects. I think my third or fourth day, once I was out of training and figured out what they wanted done, I assembled 800 parts with 3 that were rejected. Understand, this job was mindless, a repetative hell. A 12 year old could have done it (and probably is in China).
And I got in trouble. Why? The Union contract stated the low end quota, of 200 parts. They did not want anyone doing more. So the Union rep pulled me to the side, and said "if you keep up that shit, I'll send you home". The first 90 days are a probation, and not only can the employer fire you for any reason, the Union can reject you too by not accepting you into the union, and since it is a closed shop, that means the company can not hire that person. It is fucked up, ain't it?
There is all kinds of dumb shit that can get in a contract. What we need is something simple. Pay a livable wage. Provide a pension for retirement, and health care. Treat workers with respect.
There is a difference. Microsoft has more lawyers. Wasn't M$ sued by the government, M$ lost, and was ordered to split into 2 seperate companies? What happened? Appeal, appeal, appeal. And wait for a new administration, and new attorney general.
Microsoft is not following the law, they are not even obeying the law. They are using the judiciary to rewrite the laws with selective interpretation.
Think about how involved M$ is with government. How much money do they donate each year to canidates they want? Then when it comes time to appoint judges, there is M$ again. Sooner or later, M$ will end up in a court with a judge they hand selected. It is the same method the Mafia used, get their thugs in positions of government.
If Microsoft was held accountable for every contract they broke, they would cease to exists.
Wait... if I want to work for you, I have to promise not to work for them sometime in the future? Okay... And I have to name my firstborn child Billy?
Tom Burt, a lawyer for Microsoft, said Lee announced Monday that he was leaving for the Google job and had given no indication that he planned to honor an agreement not to work for a direct competitor for one year.
"To the contrary, they're saying, 'In your face,'" Burt told The Associated Press.
Your honor... yada yada yada... IN YOUR FACE!!! HA! Now there is a new legal argument. I wonder if this groudbreaking lawsuit will be referred to from now on as the "facial"?
Google shot back with a statement saying: "We have reviewed Microsoft's claims and they are completely without merit. Google is focused on building the best place in the world for great innovators to work. We're thrilled to have Dr. Lee on board at Google. We will defend vigorously against these meritless claims."
Okay, it is starting to sink in. Mr Lee has an agreement with Microsoft saying he will not work for a competitor. A competitor hires him. But does the competitor have any contract with Microsoft? Who should get sued?
In its lawsuit, Microsoft said it was seeking a court order forcing Lee and Google to abide by terms of confidentiality and noncompetition agreements that Lee signed at Microsoft.
Oh fuck. Now you did it. Luccciieeee!!!
Okay, time for some Seminals finest analysis. Fuck you Microsoft. You are a dirty bastard who has lived past its expiration date. Die, die, die, you miserable corporation. Sink back into the depths of hell from which you came.
Translation...
Microsoft has no right to mandate what kind of work someone does. Microsoft did not train this person, Microsoft did not make this person a better person. Mr Lee is the one who made microsoft better. He shared his mind and ideas with them. If Microsoft patented them, which I am sure they did, then there is no conflict of interest. This guy can go and and think new thoughts for Google.
I can share some of the research we did.
Here is an example of ala-cart service, for individuals. If you have a large block that buys as one collective, you can negotiate a better price:
http://skyvision.com/programming/alacarte.html
Even as an idividual, there are pleanty of $1 a month channels- Sci-Fi, Comedy Central, E!TV, and others. They even have a $12.49 per month package of 21 channels including CNN, Sci-Fi, Fox News, Disney, and lots of others. There is good choice.
Just so people don't accuse me of selling a service, here is another one:
http://www.usdtv.com/
They have a HDTV package for $19 a month, including ESPN, Fox News, lots of popular stations. The only problem is they are in three areas in the USA (Arizona I believe).
Back to our research. We then discovered all the free channels with a large C-band dish-
http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-States.html
Many of them are stations I never heard of, but there is Animal Planet, 7 channels of Bloomberg which I had in college and remember as a headline news type channel, 3 channels of C-Span for the government junkies (I love C-Span for book tv), CBS HDTV east and west, 5 CNBC's, 4 CNN's, 6 Discovery tv (including one that is HDTV and one that is spanish), 7 MTV's although none are from the USA but I have seen MTV from Russia and it was almost all USA music videos the only differance was the DJ's spoke russian, 7 PBS and one of them is HDTV. I am not going to list them all, but those are some good channels and they are all FREE.
If that is what I think you are doing, that is pretty sweet - talk about screwing the "man" and telling him where to stick it!
We don't think we are screwing the man at all. It is more like stopping Comcast from screwing us. We've all lived with bad service, and an overpriced product. If there were 10 different cable companies, and they had to compete, prices would be 25% of what they are today. But there is a monopoly.
All in all, kudos to you and your (hopefully) merry group - I hope it works out for you, and you get what *you* want (hmm - alternatively - have you thought about mixing the two - get the sat feed, turn each channel into .torrents, then give each unit a box to view the .torrents, and other 'net video offerrings - combine it with cheap T1 service from Speakeasy or similar - so sweet)...
That would require more work than we are willing to do. Since we are an association, we pay dues, and we want to minimize our fees. For example, they decided to open the swimming pool 3 hours later this summer than last (1pm instead of 10am on weekdays). Why? To save a few bucks of cost- pool attendant being the largest.
We just want to get a large sattelite or two, and run cable to everyones home.
We have also talked with a lawyer. There is a state law where we live that says any cable a cable company lays down on private property is the property of the land owner and not the cable company. We are trying to find out if we can cut off the feed from comcast and run our own over the existing cables.
What I do know is we will find a solution that is better than comcast!! I'll also say another thing. If I did not live in an association, I would talk to my next
In my family, I have people who retired from GM as a factory worker, who still has enough money to buy a new car every 4 years.
Next door is a nurse who is retired. Same thing, she has new cars and has money.
When I was 19 I worked in a bookstore one year during college. One of the women who worked there part time was 60 years old and was a retired teacher. I asked he if she needed the money, thinking how sad that a 60 year old woman needs to work. She said she did not need any money, had more than enough, but she was lonely and wanted to be around people. Since she was a teacher, she loved books.
My friends dad was a truck driver, and he is retired, and living comfortably in a 4br 2.5bath house.
What two things do all these people have in common? An automotive factory worker, a teacher, a nurse, and a truck driver? They all started working in the 1960's and each and every one of them has a pension in addition to social security.
It is a shame when today, skilled workers are not gaurenteed a pension. There should be a law which says that anyone who puts in over 10 years sweat and work into a company will get some kind of pension from that company. Maybe a good rule would be for every year worked, the company must pay a pension of 2.5% of that years salary, adjusted for inflation. A 30 year career would yeild 75% of the that persons salary. Add in social security, and most can retire comfortably.
I wonder what has changed from the 1960's-80's and today. Why is it today most companies don't want to offer health insurance or pensions, or make people pay into their own private funds. What has changed? Companies could afford it back then, but today they outsource work, they close factories, and they don't want to pay workers. But the CEO's get HUGE bonuses, it is nowhere in line with the bonuses they got 30 years ago.
The only way to fix it is to pass new laws. No more outsourcing of jobs. All companies must have a pension package. No lay offs unless the union okay's it. And every company must have a union, or the workers must collectivly agree on pay and terms.
You hit the nail on the head. When I was in college, my roomate who was a buisness major switched to computer science when he saw an article in US News and World Report which said that computer science majors would start at $40,000 a year. The only major that started higher was chemical engineering. Buisness was somewhere in the middle at $29,000 or so, with art at the bottom with $18,500.
Now people are avoiding computer science because there is no growth seen. There is percieved shrinkage in the USA. HP lays off 11,000. Sun fired 4,000 a few years ago. Who wants to work in an industry where they have no job security?
It is not like someone can get a degree in computer science, get a job at GE starting at $40,000, and work there the next 30 years and retire with a pension. Most comp sci people I know work on a contract basis. One year at a single company is considered a long time by some people. Then there is the pain in the ass of finding a new gig.
How does someone plan buying a house under those conditions? What do you tell the bank? Umm... I have had 5 different contracts the past 3 years.
Then there is the question of sanity. Who will live longer. They comp sci guy, who works 60 hour weeks, under stress, then even when he has no work, he is stressed looking for work. I see an early death due to heart attack. Or is it better to be a PE teacher, making $35,000 a year and spending time outdoors lobbing softballs and playing tennis?
The problem the comp sci students are going to face is the same problem the auto workers are facing. Companies don't give a crap about americans, even though the companies started in the USA, the CEO and board of directors are American, and they sell their product to Americans. They will move their factories and tech support and anything they can to Mexico or India or anywhere they can find cheap labor. The CEO's are pretty much trators and they are crapping on the USA.
1) Four years of one of the most time intensive majors in colleges
Well, at least 10 years ago, the degree was meaningless. I knew a guy who was a highschool drop out, over 40 years old with a shitty work history. His wife was the breadwinner, he stayed home fucking around with the computers. He lied to everyone about having a home buisness, some years he would get lucky and set up a network for an office and make $20,000, the next year he would make $0.
When the MSCE was first offered, he did nothing. When a family friend got a $75 an hour temp job, he started studying and passed all 5 exams in under 6 months.
He got a temp job making $80 an hour. And he milked the timesheet, there was no week where he did not charge 20 hours or more for overtime. I saw some weekly checks that were over $6,000. His crappy $12,000 car that did 35 miles per gallon was replaced with a $40,000 SUV that did 14 miles per gallon.
And here is the kicker. Is everyone ready?
He would work it so the contracts lasted 6 or 7 or 8 months. One lasted a year. But as soon as his contract was up, he would go and file for unemployment. There is a requirement that says people on unemployment must look for work and keep a log. So he used monster, to look for CIO jobs, knowing none would hire him, but he would email a resume, and write it on his log so if the state asked, he could say he was looking for work. As soon as unemployment was up, he would get another job with a temp agency.
This all ended many years ago, when the $80 an hour jobs went down to $25, then dissapeared. Funny thing is he would not take the $25 an hour. Now it is back to the old way. His wife is working, he is home fucking around with computers. And if she ever bitches for him to get a $12.50 an hour job at some local factory, he will remind her of the $80 an hour he got, how his home buisness is hit or miss, and how she has to now ride out through the lows.
The people who live here would pay for the infrastructure.
What the people originally wanted to do was collectivly purchase a large contract from Dish tv, so dish would provide every house with service for about 40% off. Comcast responded when we told them we were taking bids, they offered a bullshit package. Comcast then started mailing hate mail to everyone, the typical lies that dish tv will go out when it rains, and how we are all dumb for wanting it. All they did was piss people off even more, increase the hatered people feel for comcast, and made us more determined to find a solution where we don't get ripped off.
Then some members started doing research. They discovered that if the community had a large dish, the community could purchase access to channels ala-cart for about 10% the cost of comcast (comcast does not even offer the ability to buy ala-cart, only one dish package does). We decided this is the option we want to go with.
Why? Shouldn't the parents just not buy products that don't offer them the controls they want? All TVs and desktop computers I've encountered have an off switch and there's nothing the government can do to get people to use them. How are more switches, knobs, dials, control panels, etc. going to help anything?
if it was the 1950's and only one parent had to work, then we would not need government intervention. not to mention, there is so much offensive programming on television today. have you seen some of the rap videos on MTV. those are real good values for a 10 year old to learn.
it is like the monday night football TO and desperate houswives promo. that never should have been on tv. how many dads want to watch football with their kids? and to have a kid exposed to that is horrible. what lessons were taught? a black guy decides his responsibility to his team is meaningless when he can have a peice of tail who he has met for the first time. they should have had part 2 of that episode next week- the woman gets aids and dies.
i'll give one last example. i was watching a sit com, one that is pretty funny. one night, they decided to have an episode where they showcased a gay guy. wtf? episodes should have warnings ahead of time. nobody wants to see that crap.
i think i am going to look for an advocacy group, one that wants to remove offensive skits from tv. one that will sue the television companies, and file complaints with the FCC on my behalf. a special interest group that will tell the government my community does not want homosexuals, lesbians, or anything offensive on tv. and get rid of all the alcohol advertising. can't a dad and his son watch a baseball game without seeing 100 different advertisments for beer?
until then, we need more government regulations. i don't care about violence, that is good clean fun. but get the sex off tv.
i dunno. if the phone companies and cable companies created their networks without any public funds or help, i can see them not wanting to share thier services. but these two industries were helped by public funding, so i can see the public wanting to open access to that infrastructure.
i know one thing, we don't want monopolies. and that is exactly what cable companies want.
why the hell should a cable company sue a town if the town votes to have public wireless service? the people of the town in effect are creating their own ISP, and running it for pennies on the dollar. instead of paying $50 per person to the cable company, a town of 45,000 might pay $1.25 per person.
there is something my subdivision wants to do, and we are running into problems with legal threats from the comcast. we want to install one large satelite dish, and buy programming- espn, fox news, sci fi, disney, there are about 30 channels the subdivision agreed on. it would cost $5.75 per home. there are some channels we can get that are not available on cable, like about 10 free public access channels (not included in the 30 mentioned above, one channel is a university that broadcasts its lectures).
it seems to me that companies are going one step further than forming monopolies. they are now suing people to force them to buy their service. if comcast could burry directtv, they would do it in a heartbeat. does anyone remember those offensive ad's? a little kid pulls on the suit of a well dressed man while his father looks uneasy, then the kid says "my daddy says you use a dish? why are you the boss of the company?". the anwser is the dish is half the price with more channels. duh. then comcast lied, saying whenever there was a rainy day, there was no tv service. my friend has directtv, and it has never gone out, not in any storm, unlike my comcast which sucks!.
i want cable companies to stay barely alive, so the people who run these companies won't take their managment style to other companies. they are like used car salesmen.
I would guess most people don't see an OS, they see a computer. When they get pissed at the OS, they are really pissed at the computer. So they throw it away. In their thinking, the Compaq running Windows XP is very different from the Dell running Windows XP. After all, the computer boxes look different.
Maybe people think of their computer like a VCR. If it stops working, you don't get the $2 cleaning fluid tape, you throw it away and buy another.
It is too bad these people don't donate their old computers.
I am a person who believes it is a SCAM when colleges buy bran spanking new computers every 2 years, and use property tax to do it. Whenever I have walked around a computer lab, all I see is Word and papers being written, IE and the web being surfed, and the very occasional comp sci student writing code. All this could be done on PIII's. Hell, PII's would work, although it would take a few minutes to load software.
There is a saying in the advertising world. Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. It is a shame, because often people buy hardware they will never utilize. If someone wants to check email, what good is the newest computer? Salespeople don't sell based on your needs. They want to make the largest commision possible, or push whatever product their managers told them to get out the door. And they lie to do it. I was at Best Buy, just walking around. Most of the time, the salespeople in the Computer section are so busy that it is impossible to get one (good thing in my opinion). But this time one saw me, and came up. He said "What computer do you have?". I lied, I did not want a hard sell, I just wanted to browse, so I said I had a P4 2.0ghz with XP. The sales guy said "Oh, I guess that is okay, but if you want the latest security, and more speed, our P4's have XP with the latest security updates, and they will run the latest games better".
The SOB tried to sneak in a "latest secuirty updates" in the middle of his sales pitch, to put a seed of fear in my mind about my current OS. Gee... thanks for saying anyone can download the latest patches. Gee... thanks for trying to sell me an e-machines.
The friendly article mentioned that "people are increasingly unwilling to take out their 'software tweezers' to clean their machines", maybe it's time for manufacturers to install a HardReset button (like in a PDA) with a 1 GB ReadOnly Flash drive, which resets everything back to factory.
Oh God NOOO!!!! Please, no! These assholes who sell computers are already sending CD's with images only. I have a laptop which the recovery CD's are not the OS which I can configure, but an Image of the hard drive, which sets up the partitions the way Microsoft wants. I can't install the OS with a partition left over for Linux.
Give us the freaking OS we paid for. If I buy a computer, and the OS is forced on my, that I must buy it if I want the PC, then at least give me the OS on a CD and not an image.
The anwser is, why should I care about my old PIII550 impeding PC sales. Anything that drives down the prices of computers is a good thing.
The truth is a PIII with Windows 2000 will do everything just fine, or at least anything I have ever needed to do.
- Word 2000 for documents... lightining fast. Check!
- Excel 2000 for spreadsheets... no problem. Check!
- InterWin DVD Player... plays DVDs no problem. Check!
- Internet Explorer... no problem. Check!
- Firefox... 5 seconds slower than IE, but after loading, no problem. Check!
- QuickTime... no problem. Check!
- Nero... no problem, both DVD's and CD's. Check!
- DVD Decrypter (backup only, no piracy)... about 20-35 minutes to rip 5 gigabytes. Check!
- MP3's... played on both WinAmp and WMP... lighting fast, no problem. Check!
- Compiling Java Programs... 20-50 seconds. No problem, never stalls. Check!
- MySQL... Very fast. No problems. Check!
- Running a Web Server... Tomcat compiles JSP's and servers HTML very fast. No problems. Check!
Windows 2000 works perfectly fine for me on my PIII 550. As a matter of fact, my machine is dual CPU, but I only have one CPU. I have been toying with the idea of buying the second PIII to see how much of a boost Windows 2000 will give. I only have 256 megs in my current machine, and ram is a bit pricey. If it was like the 2001 when 128 megs of PC100 sdram was selling for $7, I would have all 4 Dimms filled and have 512 megs.Oh, for those wondering about DVD watching, I only have a 16 meg video card. Every DVD I have played is flawless and never choppy.
I don't understand the people who run out to spend $4000 on the latest P4 glow in the dark case with 256meg video card system just to play some game. There has not been a $45 game that I have seen yet that I would be willing to pay $4000 for. Or even $1000. If people want games, they might as well buy a playstation for $200-300, it is designed for games. And if I am correct, the playstation is nothing but a stripped down Windows 2000 OS with a PIII700 (or maybe that is the X-Box), either way, it shows what that kind of CPU can do.
If I was going to get a new computer, I think I would get a dell server (no OS included), they have them in P4 2.2-2.5ghz with 128-256megs, and they sell them for $250-350. Every now and then they have a deal where they toss in a free second CPU, or double the ram for free, or give away a second hard drive for free. I would wait for one of those deals.
And I don't think I would ever run Windows XP, just because I hate Windows Media Player v9. Plus, I don't like my computer telling me I can't do something. Windows 2000 is more willing to work the way I want than Windows XP. I see the direction MS is going, and I don't like it.
And for those who use Windows 2000 as their OS. How do you work around the problem of not getting the Service Pack, but wanting the security updates. I HATE that miscorsoft bundled so many security updates in the Service Pack. Why couldn't they have let users hand pick which security updates are wanted/needed?? I don't want to install 1000 packages, I might want 6 or 7 that I think are trully needed.
Exxon did not bring in any jobs or skills training.
The only thing Exxon did was build a small airport, so they could fly workers and executives from the USA to the African nation. Every single worker on the oil drill was a foriegner, not one was a member of that African nation.
Your bias goes so deep that you even accuse Exxon of helping the king kill people
It was helicopters that belonged to Exxon. The King requested the use of those helicopters, and it was pilots who were employed by Exxon that flew the dictators Army gunners. Exxon could have said "no, we can't let you use the helicopters". The king would have had 2 choices. #1) not use the helicopters, or #2) forcefully use the helicopters and ruin his contract.
It would be suicide for any global publicly-traded corporation to support the slaughter of innocent people.
Didn't Debeers pay governments in Africa to send para-military forces to murder and kill all villagers in places where diamonds were discovered, so debeers would own all the rights to those mines?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971394296/ 104-6389934-4402348
But you don't care...
No, you are the one who does not care. You cash your paycheck and don't think twice about where the money came from and where it is going. I don't know if you are a christian, but avarice/gluttony is one of the deadly sins.
You might be right. The 60 Minutes segment was aired over a couple years ago. Equatorial Guinea rings a bell for some reason. The one thing I remember vividly about the 60 Minutes reporting was the poverty of the capital, and then not too far away, the utter extravagance of the Kings/Dictators residence. One scene would be of people, trying to get enough food to eat, the next would be of the King having a feast, too much food for him to possibly eat, and all being wasted. They would show peasants walking barefoot. The next shot was the Kings son in Paris buying $1000 shoes and $10,000 suits. Then 60 Minutes showed where the money came from...
Neither of those are monarchies, though
I remeber the dictator referred to himself as King. Maybe that is where I came up with that. He referred to his son as the prince. And his brother was an Army General, before the King threw him in jail. Whatever the case, the King rose to power when he assasinated the former dictator, an immediate member of his family. So it appeared the dictatorship was all in one family for some time.
No, that is not the right thing to do. The people who live there must make whatever changes they want. They must be the ones to organize, to decide their own future. It does not work, when the USA goes into a country and tells the people "we are giving you democoracy". Who knows, maybe the people would figure out a better system than democoracy. What if they became a communist nation, with everyone living in equality, where every citizen was gaurenteed a share of the oil profits. There is so much money in oil, who knows, to people who live off $1 per day, the oil might have made them relativly wealthy compared to how they live now. Maybe the people would want to use the money to start schools, that are free and open to all their citizens with no tuition charged. Maybe everyone would get free health care. Who knows what they would do, but there is a chance they might reject capitalism, where one person makes moeny off others.
Exxon went in and profited from the situation? No kidding! What would you suggest? Another useless oil embargo where no oil company can go in and drill for oil? You know that would last all of five seconds.
What I suggest is not using USA money to help a King who acts like a dictator, who steals from his own people. The oil does not belong to the King. This is a dirty deal between an American company and a greedy King. The USA has every right to tell its companies, you can not help support or fund a person who would sell all his natural resources, and then use that money to supress his own people. That does not mean that we go in there fighting them. We just don't support them with money. Let the King find a way to drill the oil himself, maybe he would be forced to educate enough of his own citizens. Maybe that would lead to people questioning how the oil is being used, where the money is going. I agree, Exxon buying the oil for $.02 on the dollar is a steal for Exxon. But imagine if the people who lived there could drill it themseleves. They would have 50 times as much revenue. How do the United Arab Emirates drill their oil? I think I remember reading that every single citizen of that country is a millionair because the country shares the oil profits with every citizen.
It's *his* Kingdom. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do to it. And they're *his* people, they will live as well or as poorly as he allows him to.
It is not his Kingdom any more than the people allow him to keep his title. There have been good Kings throught history; Kings the people loved and adored. It is true that most would let greed take over, and would become lustful of power. But some Kings have trully loved their people, and have had long lines of monarchs that were good to the people.
Erik, you are making the mistake of thinking other countries would be better off as democoracies or capitalist nations. Maybe they would, maybe they would not. Some countries have strong ties to tradition, and their culture is incompatible with a capitalsim. If I lived in Africa and was poor, and lived off a few farm animals and whatever crops I could grow, I think I would preffer that lifestyle to a capitalism system where a factory forces everyone off their land, and into working for pennies.
If this King was good, what he would have done is taken the deal with Exxon for the first 3 or 4 years. He would have built schools, hospitals, and basic services his people need. He would have put together a team to learn how to drill oil for themselevs. And after the contract with Exxon expired, the King would have used his own people to drill for oil. Maybe in one generation, the King could have built enough schools and universities and telephone lines, that his people would be competing with India for outsourcing contracts. ;)