There is an old saying that says the greatest achievements have not been heralded in by a cry of "Eureaka" but by the confused statement "Well, that wasn't supposed to happen".
If you try to ride the edge then you kinda deserve the risk that goes along with it. Tried and true tech frequently sticks around for a long while (hence, a rather disturbing number of jobs still available in ancient systems that not many have any experience with). The smart and stable business doesn't jump on every new wizbang thing unless they wanna end up like the rest of the dot bombs. Now also, I don't just mean tech industry either. The pillow making industry still needs people to run their networks, and there are tons of jobs in other fields that don't have the same breakneck pace of advancements. Not that riding the edge is always bad if you can afford the risk, but listening to "Get your MCSE now and start earning $60,000 a year!" radio ads is going to get you in the same place that "Dr. Credit, he's in desparate need of new furniture, stereo equipment, and RIMS!. Get me a credit application nurse approval!" commercials get you.
I'm not sure what you mean by that kind of stability. Being a latch key kid is infinitely better than being a welfare case. My parents divorced and I spent quite a few years as "latch key" granted never as a small child. But once again, there are tons of programs for that as well offering free/cheap child services to those who can't afford the astronomical costs of child care.
Personally I believe one parent should be staying home with the kids anyways (not really sexist, just whoever can win the most bread should be bread winning and the other should be staying home). Its better for the kids, and given the insane costs of child care (not to mention the overcrowding and frequently crappy conditions). These people don't give a crap about your kids well being beyond keeping them healthy enough to collect their next bill. There is frequently 1 adult to 10-20 kids so any kind of real attention or supervision is virtually impossible. Unless you have a pretty significant income then by the time you pay the child care bill, taxes, and the other expenses involved in work (clothing, lunches, gas, etc) you frequently are losing money by working. Americans are notoriously bad at math, so they see the paycheck come in and don't understand why they are struggling, they don't understand that they create many of their own bills. There is also the problem of luxuries being viewed as necessities. Internet access, cable TV, in fact TV at all, etc etc etc.
There is quite a bit of unbalance, but having watched people and supervised people that put themselves in these situations...holy crap. The balance isn't that bad, it really is mostly just people who don't get it. They have the critical thinking skills and impulse control of a 4yr old. If you are smart, and really track down every dime of your income and understand where it goes, how interest rates work, how investing works, its not hard to get on the upper end of that middle class problem. Go to school being a big one, and not just go, but actually learn something (and god forbid a parent work with their child on homework and the like to make sure they are learning).
The thing that bothers me is that there are tons of jobs to be had. I see a few major things that are causing hangups. 1. The dot com bubble taught everyone in IT they can make more than they are worth, and now it has put a hurt on the job market. 2. People expect to get jobs with the skills they already have and not have to go learn new skills to get the jobs. Sift through online job search stuff, tons and tons of jobs, unfortunately many of them (specially in IT where I am) want experience in systems that were going out of date before I was out of diapers. So, if I want one of those jobs I have to get myself smart on those systems and interview well, not just whine that there are no jobs available. Libraries have books that you can read for free!
I used to believe the government should be doing more (and in some areas I still think they need to, namely punishing US corporations going overseas to avoid the laws), but the more I look the more ways I see how there is a huge structure in place that you can get yourself out of the hole with. Welfare is part of it, the local charities and churches, the local library, the YMCA, the list goes on and on of places and people that exist just to get you moving again. People just choose not to because they can sit home and cry and collect my tax dollars. Work harder! People on welfare need your money!
Don't be evil still applies perfectly. You just aren't reading it right. The rich are above the law, and the poor are the cause of the problems. So through simple substitution based on current society "Don't be evil" directly translates into "Don't be poor". And they most certainly are not poor, so they can't be evil.
And now its happy fun slashdot analogy time. Should the auto manufacturer be held liable for the death of a child picked up by a pedophile in their car advertised as the safest for children? (Check me out, slashdot car analogy and think of the children all in one).
In terms of warez 0-day is 0 days from release it was warezed. In terms of security its a little different. 0-day vulnerability is misleading at best, but since when have slashdot headlines been accurate? 0-day exploits are exploits released 0 days from discovery of the vulnerability as opposed to exploit code showing up 30 days after the owner was notified and has a chance to fix it. So you can have 0-day exploits from code that is 10 years old. This is in a sense also related to the stupid hacking challenges where you can get a prize for haxoring the uber leet secure box. Noone that really knows what the hell they are doing are going to break out 0-day exploits on a dummy box because they can be used/sold for much more to target important systems if noone knows about the hole.
Uhm...I would like to point out that I have never met a Libertarian that did behave like that. In fact I haven't run into any Libertarians that have supported anything with China. I would also like to point out your description of Libertarian is basically the same as a Democrat or a Republican explaining any opposing party, it just enhances the team vote mentality "All believe in this!" Which is what got us the Decider Shrub and his crew. Beyond that, as I pointed out the smart libertarians don't typically advertise themselves as libertarians. Most of the people I run into actively advertising themselves as Libertarians have some odd agenda and many are just confused winger loudmouths that don't understand the party divides. But the same goes for most Republicans I meet...have no damned clue what Republican means except their twisted little neocon world of Government + Jesus = Double Plus Good! Evil Muslims will be the death of us! rah rah fear fear fear! In fact almost every trait you describe there isn't libertarian, but the new crew of Republicans we have running around.
On charity...Independent charities have always had a MUCH higher success rate of getting people on their feet. Government "charity" makes people leeches and drains on society. So damned skippy, I don't want my taxes funding another welfare case, I want my donations feeding someone who is trying to pick themselves up. It may be harsh but most of the welfare cases I have known were just proud to be ignorant and get free stuff, had no desire to get something better for themselves so long as the government gives it to em free. The church for centuries has been the most effective charity and the least effective government. Its time we move the church back out of our legislation (ban gays, fear the muslim, evolution is only a theory) and back into the business of taking care of citizens.
And Microsoft was found to be a monopoly and guilty of a number of other things and you see how well that turned out
We have the T-1000 Terminator phone company, break it into little pieces and it just melts and reforms
We have a constitution that says the government can't take our stuff (eminent domain found constitutional?!), they can't spy on us (warrantless wiretaps, mail sifting, indefinite ISP logs), and they can't grab us and hide us away in secret prisons without real charges over paranoid delusions (PATRIOT Act). So I am a little less than convinced a bunch of poor and suffering in a 3rd world country would make it very far (at least with the frequency required to fix things) or have enough of an understanding of American law to understand how aweful and illegal the working conditions frequently are by our standards. Conversely we have actually had a few AG types in various areas that did their job, did it well, and made flakey business folks head for the hills. We need to aggresively police our own behavior, not wait for some poor 3rd world nationals to complain. We are supposed to be the light on the hill and all that, set the example.
He is smart. Libertarians for the most part hold true to the old Republican values. The smart Libertarians run as Democrats or Republicans so they have a snowballs chance in hell of getting in and making a difference. This is the inherent flaw in our system. Thomas Jefferson pointed it out ages before it even really got bad. Political parties destroy the system. We have tons of people sitting in office who got there by dumb * wingers just team voting their party with no clue about what the candidate really plans.
Well the real bitch of the create more jobs is the fact that businesses aren't held liable by their home nation for what they do overseas. If all of the trade nations got together and agreed to hold companies based in their lands liable for acts they commit elsewhere, and agree to only do business with nations that do that, we would be in alot better shape. No more Union Carbides and such. The problem is they can go overseas, pay pennies, have no safety or environmental regulations to deal with, and still not get touched. Things that at least in America were handled long long ago as bad things for companies to be doing. If we can bring back Americans and charge them with sex crimes for visiting foreign countries with lax child protection laws and participating in sex tourism, then we can bring back American companies and punish them for breaking US laws abroad too.
I agree that for the most part the deck is stacked against you, however its far from impossible. Now, for every one of those people that I have run into on welfare they also ate at Mcdonalds 3 times a day and bought cartons of smokes on government money while they had their rent paid. I keep hearing sob stories about how they lose everything by getting a job, but here is the problem, while on welfare you should be getting yourself educated, finish your GED, get some skills training. Getting a job at McDonald's making minimum wage trying to support a family is just stupid, the idea is to get a job better than what some HS kid should be working. Personally I think you should only get X ammount of months of welfare at a time (separated by years). Cut those safety nets out and people will either get off their ass and improve their situation or they will suffer for their laziness while still giving people who really just need that hand up a chance to get up and move. There are plenty of jobs to be had by those who are looking, and willing to get the skills to do that job.
1. Thats the best part about * wingers. They don't have to understand what is said to take offense to it.
2. Comparing a Democrat and a Republican is a cardinal sin for any winger and thus comments of that nature will only be understood by the middle
3. No offense, you should know with your UID that fact has nothing to do with anything that goes on here:)
If you are actually interested, Ron Paul is a very interesting Republican. I didn't do alot of digging, but based on skimming around he really seems to be an old school type, not this new breed. He is a much closer representation to what I believe Republicans should be about (and he isn't a lawyer!). A constitutionalist! One of the few that understands the part "any powers not explicitly granted to the state belong to the people". The funny thing is, I only stumbled across him in my outrage over his moron Democrat opponent, slinging mud about how he voted against Child Online Protection Act and other such super invasive censorship, spying, "think of the children", unenforcable and largly unconstitutional laws with terribly unfortunate names making them terribly difficult to vote against without coming out looking evil. Go look up how many people voted for the PATRIOT act that didn't want it just based on the fact they knew their careers would end voting against something called "Patriot Act". Probably would have been one of the few places I would have voted for a Republican (again, given that these days, with a few exceptions, most Democrats are running much closer to old school Republican ideals than this current crop of neocon loons)
Sounds like that person making $9/hr needs to spend some time getting some job skills that will pay more than $9/hr. I have a friend that was basically in that situation, has a kid too. Ex totally hosed the finances and then left. Been outside with him freezing balls of cursing the british instructions to fix an american car that was assembled somewhere overseas when his beater broke down...every few months. Fast forward a year or two and he is now making 50% more and still moving upward. Managing your education and qualifications are as much a part of the equation as the money. Debt isn't always stupid either if you manage it right. $20k on a brand new car full of bling and rims is stupid, $5k on a car that is going to operate reliably for the next 2-3 years is smart.
High School diplomas or even GEDs are terribly important. If you even just have a HS diploma you can do a 4 year stint in the military that will get you on your feet quite comfortably, and if you are smart about which branch and what job, will set you up to make far more than $9/hr when you get out. There are numerous programs that buy you large ammounts of food in exchange for volunteer work. One of my favorite quotes lately is "What you do from 9 to 5 determines how well you live now, what you do from 5 to 9 determines how well you will live in the future" If you are trying to make a living on $9/hr you have failed yourself at somepoint and need to put in some hard laborous hours to get caught up. There are almost always places that you can turn to to get back on your feet. Take a shower at the YMCA, get some decent looking clothes for pennies at the Salvation Army, ask the local clergy if you can have toiletries to brush your teeth and shave. Pride and Sloth are listed some of the 7 deadly sins for a reason (I'm not really terribly religious, but there are some important life lessons to be learned if you look past the dogma).
When was the last time you saw a successful business man or someone wealthy teaching financial responsibility in the education system? Before college level you are lucky to see any of that kind of stuff even mentioned, and if it is, it is done by a wage slave teacher struggly on crappy pay. Now granted, in college it tends to be different and you do tend to get alot more successful business types involved, but that kind of financial education needs to start very young. If you start saving at 16 instead of 26 that has a HUGE impact. Compound interest is an amazing thing. The earlier you start, the less you have to put away each month, and at the end of 20+ years its almost and order of magnitude in difference.
It is a system of the blind leading the blind. Years ago at my high school when they signed a huge contract with Pepsi to put in vending machines...they bought a damned score board for their uber important state champion football team. The parents almost stormed the gates when they found out their children might have to 'pay to play' football. With that kind of money they could have done any number of things to bolster education, but nope, flashy bling and pride won that day.
The myth that social mobility is a myth is what is used by the far left to garner votes to get themselves into office, get their lobbiest bucks, and create social handout programs to further the problem. I believe unemployment and welfare have their places, but of all of the welfare cases I have seen only ONE actually used it as it was meant...to get back on their feet and get the hell off welfare, the rest just became leeches on the system raising taxes for the rest of us because they could get free handouts.
Smart, taleted, and hard-working has little to do with it really. Creativity, common sense and half a brain for math gets you there. The problem is the brainless "American Dream" of owning 6 homes and 12 cars means rich. Wealth has more to do with maintaining your lifestyle without being forced into being a wage slave. Managing your money and investments mean you can become very wealthy in a relatively short ammount of time. The get rich quick dream is a myth or at best unbelievably unlikely. As far as the entertainers, athletes, lottery winners, or "lucky" business deals...they are typically the ones that buy a bunch of extravagent shit and wind up dirt poor 5-10 years later. The smart ones are living a comfortable middle class lifestyle and not getting up to go to work every morning. There is a ton of social mobility in America. The idea that you must be extravagently wealthy and have all the trinkets and baubles to show for it is what causes the massive debt that causes people to remain poor.
Apparently because I mentioned Republicans in a positive way and then "insulted" Democrats by insinuating they have anything in common with Republican values. Left wingers have just as many blind extremists as Right wingers. Just leaves everyone willing to leave the emotional insanity behind and try and think through problems out in the cold. Tons of logical solutions to all our problems, they just get drowned out with irrational emotional cries from both sides.
Well to be honest, it boils down to the whole make lemonaide thing. A great number of filthy rich folks spent some years living out of the back of their van eating day old donuts from dumpsters. Now there certainly are some people who really just did get the short end of the stick, but generally speaking here in America there really is more than enough opportunity to get yourself out...just is a matter of how much effort it will take. Now I also support the inheretance tax because that right wing "the farmers will lose farms" shit is a load of horse crap and they have been unable to produce one single example of a family actually losing their land, however, hundreds to thousands of examples exist of rich overprivlidged spoiled brats never working a day in their life because they get to inheret billions and not lose a cent.
Republicans these days favor the Big Brother spy on everyone method to law and order
Democrats these days favor the Nanny state censor everything method to law and order
The people these days favor whatever party makes them most scared of the consequences of disagreeing
We see a huge swing right with "Fear the boogey man!" and now that we have seen the consequences we are swinging left we are back to "Hell no we won't go!". Whole nation of extremists.
Exactly, the current crop of Republicans are failing absolutely to hold to any kind of Republican values. True Republican values does not involve this twisted religious bent on things, it advocates personal responsibility, no nanny state crap, no blame society crap. You screwed up making yourself poor by signing a 20% interest rate payday loan and Rent-to-own contracts to live above your means...not my problem to bail your ass out. (Now the fact is, most of the poor are poor by choice doing stupid crap like this and its a failure of the education system not teaching financial responsibility, the gap between rich and poor wouldn't be growing nearly as fast and eliminating the middle class if everyone didn't buy all their wizbang-gottahavits on credit...when it was normal to save for years for a house/car/stuff the gap was much smaller and the middle class was much larger)
Additionally traditional Republican values want lowered taxes (the current crop pay lipservice to this with tax cuts), but the financial responsibility part of low taxes involves less spending. Leaving the war out since that is a twisted mess of a wreck to begin with, we can see the bloat in HomeSec, TSA, and other such nonsense. Our state sponsored paranoia is costing us billions. Ironically the current Republicans bitch about how we are all doomed because the Democrats will break the bank on social programs, but as much as I disagree with most of those programs (ain't the governments problem, and sure as shit ain't mine, why should I have to pay taxes because some fat bastard needs a quadruple bypass that he can't afford because he eats McDonalds 18 times a day) at least they have more of a positive impact on society as a whole vs x-ray scans, anal probings and other such nonsense every time I go through an airport.
All in all the traditional Republican is more concerned about making the people take care of themselves instead of the government doing everything. This includes heathcare, legislating morality, church and state issues, the whole nine, ideally are handled outside of the government and outside of the federal budgets. This also includes not being Team America World Police. I can't figure out if I got modded as flamebait for making a joke about Republicans protecting big business or saying that I am mostly Republican (I am guessing the latter since this is/.)
No no no, this is business as normal. Current "Republicans" are for increasing big business and Democrats for big government. Penalties against business for screwing the citizen is typically left of the Republican agenda these days. As a (mostly) Republican I am more upset that the "Republicans" in power right now really have nothing to do with what Republican ideals are supposed to be, and rather amused that the Democrats took so many seats by basically running on traditionally Republican ideals.
I am actually kind of curious on how this will jive with earlier reports of government agencies paying data miners and theives for personal information as part of the "OMFG everyone is a terrorist!" spying programs.
I suppose you are right in that sense. Lawyers will take a buck for anything. Win or lose they still get paid. So really this would only be terribly relevant if she had lost. In a small sense it is important to be aware of the threats to freedom, but this is no new threat and happens frequently in less high profile scenarios.
Uhm...most people do give warning signs, the fact that they are ignored doesn't mean they weren't there. Of coarse everyone interviewed says "Well he seemed nice and stable, we had no idea" That is likely because they didn't talk to that person more than the bare minimum required to get the job done. As aweful of a concept as it seems to be these days, its called getting involved with your people. It IS the supervisors responsibility to know more about his subordinates than just job performance, its called leadership, as opposed to management. You manage things, you lead people.
The funny thing is, this same mentality rears its ugly head EVERYWHERE. Kids on drugs, doing pornos, running away, violent crimes...are the video games the problem or uninvolved parents? Have you ever lived in a neighborhood where everyone was at least familiar with eachother and the norms for the area? (Who is that guy driving around..., Wasn't little johnny over there a minute ago?, I thought the Smith's were on vacation.) If I did something stupid somewhere my parents knew about it by the time I got home.
Get involved with the people around you, you would be surprised what you will learn about them. It is no surprise it is getting worse, uninvolved parents teach their kids to be uninvolved too. Uninvolved supervisors teach their subordinates to be uninvolved. Its a cascading thing.
FYI, that guy in Office Space was an actor, so really the signs of him losing it were the script telling him to lose it. But Falling Down is another good movie along those lines anyways:)
You sir are wrong. It is more like buying a Mercedes and cutting out the floorboards to go Flintstones with it. You are making an assumtion that Vista on a Mac will actually get you somewhere.
I assume you are refering to the dumbass doctor making the snap decision to take this to court trying to attack free speech and in turn having his name/face all over the news tied to bad surgery. This is the part of the story that makes it relevant. That some depressed girl got her face hacked without doing the proper research is rather irrelevant. I hope he gets a swift kick in the nuts for trying to silence her, that all cosmetic surgeons get a kick in the nuts for contributing so much to this self loathing pretentious bunch that think they need it because they don't understand the concept that model's photos in magazines are frequently airbrushed up, and as for the girl... well I think she already learned that making self loathing and pretentious decisions leads to "surprise".
When they refuse to examine election fraud on the grounds of "it would damage voter confidence" I think it would be safe to assume they will find a way to keep themselves out of this. In fact, it would probably even extend protection to them after they are out of office. My first guess would be seeing this tossed out on grounds of national security given that this administration has classified more crap than any other administration.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an old saying that says the greatest achievements have not been heralded in by a cry of "Eureaka" but by the confused statement "Well, that wasn't supposed to happen".
If you try to ride the edge then you kinda deserve the risk that goes along with it. Tried and true tech frequently sticks around for a long while (hence, a rather disturbing number of jobs still available in ancient systems that not many have any experience with). The smart and stable business doesn't jump on every new wizbang thing unless they wanna end up like the rest of the dot bombs. Now also, I don't just mean tech industry either. The pillow making industry still needs people to run their networks, and there are tons of jobs in other fields that don't have the same breakneck pace of advancements. Not that riding the edge is always bad if you can afford the risk, but listening to "Get your MCSE now and start earning $60,000 a year!" radio ads is going to get you in the same place that "Dr. Credit, he's in desparate need of new furniture, stereo equipment, and RIMS!. Get me a credit application nurse approval!" commercials get you.
I'm not sure what you mean by that kind of stability. Being a latch key kid is infinitely better than being a welfare case. My parents divorced and I spent quite a few years as "latch key" granted never as a small child. But once again, there are tons of programs for that as well offering free/cheap child services to those who can't afford the astronomical costs of child care.
Personally I believe one parent should be staying home with the kids anyways (not really sexist, just whoever can win the most bread should be bread winning and the other should be staying home). Its better for the kids, and given the insane costs of child care (not to mention the overcrowding and frequently crappy conditions). These people don't give a crap about your kids well being beyond keeping them healthy enough to collect their next bill. There is frequently 1 adult to 10-20 kids so any kind of real attention or supervision is virtually impossible. Unless you have a pretty significant income then by the time you pay the child care bill, taxes, and the other expenses involved in work (clothing, lunches, gas, etc) you frequently are losing money by working. Americans are notoriously bad at math, so they see the paycheck come in and don't understand why they are struggling, they don't understand that they create many of their own bills. There is also the problem of luxuries being viewed as necessities. Internet access, cable TV, in fact TV at all, etc etc etc.
There is quite a bit of unbalance, but having watched people and supervised people that put themselves in these situations...holy crap. The balance isn't that bad, it really is mostly just people who don't get it. They have the critical thinking skills and impulse control of a 4yr old. If you are smart, and really track down every dime of your income and understand where it goes, how interest rates work, how investing works, its not hard to get on the upper end of that middle class problem. Go to school being a big one, and not just go, but actually learn something (and god forbid a parent work with their child on homework and the like to make sure they are learning).
The thing that bothers me is that there are tons of jobs to be had. I see a few major things that are causing hangups. 1. The dot com bubble taught everyone in IT they can make more than they are worth, and now it has put a hurt on the job market. 2. People expect to get jobs with the skills they already have and not have to go learn new skills to get the jobs. Sift through online job search stuff, tons and tons of jobs, unfortunately many of them (specially in IT where I am) want experience in systems that were going out of date before I was out of diapers. So, if I want one of those jobs I have to get myself smart on those systems and interview well, not just whine that there are no jobs available. Libraries have books that you can read for free!
I used to believe the government should be doing more (and in some areas I still think they need to, namely punishing US corporations going overseas to avoid the laws), but the more I look the more ways I see how there is a huge structure in place that you can get yourself out of the hole with. Welfare is part of it, the local charities and churches, the local library, the YMCA, the list goes on and on of places and people that exist just to get you moving again. People just choose not to because they can sit home and cry and collect my tax dollars. Work harder! People on welfare need your money!
I hope you don't print anything.
Don't be evil still applies perfectly. You just aren't reading it right. The rich are above the law, and the poor are the cause of the problems. So through simple substitution based on current society "Don't be evil" directly translates into "Don't be poor". And they most certainly are not poor, so they can't be evil.
And now its happy fun slashdot analogy time. Should the auto manufacturer be held liable for the death of a child picked up by a pedophile in their car advertised as the safest for children? (Check me out, slashdot car analogy and think of the children all in one).
In terms of warez 0-day is 0 days from release it was warezed. In terms of security its a little different. 0-day vulnerability is misleading at best, but since when have slashdot headlines been accurate? 0-day exploits are exploits released 0 days from discovery of the vulnerability as opposed to exploit code showing up 30 days after the owner was notified and has a chance to fix it. So you can have 0-day exploits from code that is 10 years old. This is in a sense also related to the stupid hacking challenges where you can get a prize for haxoring the uber leet secure box. Noone that really knows what the hell they are doing are going to break out 0-day exploits on a dummy box because they can be used/sold for much more to target important systems if noone knows about the hole.
Uhm...I would like to point out that I have never met a Libertarian that did behave like that. In fact I haven't run into any Libertarians that have supported anything with China. I would also like to point out your description of Libertarian is basically the same as a Democrat or a Republican explaining any opposing party, it just enhances the team vote mentality "All believe in this!" Which is what got us the Decider Shrub and his crew. Beyond that, as I pointed out the smart libertarians don't typically advertise themselves as libertarians. Most of the people I run into actively advertising themselves as Libertarians have some odd agenda and many are just confused winger loudmouths that don't understand the party divides. But the same goes for most Republicans I meet...have no damned clue what Republican means except their twisted little neocon world of Government + Jesus = Double Plus Good! Evil Muslims will be the death of us! rah rah fear fear fear! In fact almost every trait you describe there isn't libertarian, but the new crew of Republicans we have running around.
On charity...Independent charities have always had a MUCH higher success rate of getting people on their feet. Government "charity" makes people leeches and drains on society. So damned skippy, I don't want my taxes funding another welfare case, I want my donations feeding someone who is trying to pick themselves up. It may be harsh but most of the welfare cases I have known were just proud to be ignorant and get free stuff, had no desire to get something better for themselves so long as the government gives it to em free. The church for centuries has been the most effective charity and the least effective government. Its time we move the church back out of our legislation (ban gays, fear the muslim, evolution is only a theory) and back into the business of taking care of citizens.
And Microsoft was found to be a monopoly and guilty of a number of other things and you see how well that turned out
We have the T-1000 Terminator phone company, break it into little pieces and it just melts and reforms
We have a constitution that says the government can't take our stuff (eminent domain found constitutional?!), they can't spy on us (warrantless wiretaps, mail sifting, indefinite ISP logs), and they can't grab us and hide us away in secret prisons without real charges over paranoid delusions (PATRIOT Act). So I am a little less than convinced a bunch of poor and suffering in a 3rd world country would make it very far (at least with the frequency required to fix things) or have enough of an understanding of American law to understand how aweful and illegal the working conditions frequently are by our standards. Conversely we have actually had a few AG types in various areas that did their job, did it well, and made flakey business folks head for the hills. We need to aggresively police our own behavior, not wait for some poor 3rd world nationals to complain. We are supposed to be the light on the hill and all that, set the example.
He is smart. Libertarians for the most part hold true to the old Republican values. The smart Libertarians run as Democrats or Republicans so they have a snowballs chance in hell of getting in and making a difference. This is the inherent flaw in our system. Thomas Jefferson pointed it out ages before it even really got bad. Political parties destroy the system. We have tons of people sitting in office who got there by dumb * wingers just team voting their party with no clue about what the candidate really plans.
Well the real bitch of the create more jobs is the fact that businesses aren't held liable by their home nation for what they do overseas. If all of the trade nations got together and agreed to hold companies based in their lands liable for acts they commit elsewhere, and agree to only do business with nations that do that, we would be in alot better shape. No more Union Carbides and such. The problem is they can go overseas, pay pennies, have no safety or environmental regulations to deal with, and still not get touched. Things that at least in America were handled long long ago as bad things for companies to be doing. If we can bring back Americans and charge them with sex crimes for visiting foreign countries with lax child protection laws and participating in sex tourism, then we can bring back American companies and punish them for breaking US laws abroad too.
I agree that for the most part the deck is stacked against you, however its far from impossible. Now, for every one of those people that I have run into on welfare they also ate at Mcdonalds 3 times a day and bought cartons of smokes on government money while they had their rent paid. I keep hearing sob stories about how they lose everything by getting a job, but here is the problem, while on welfare you should be getting yourself educated, finish your GED, get some skills training. Getting a job at McDonald's making minimum wage trying to support a family is just stupid, the idea is to get a job better than what some HS kid should be working. Personally I think you should only get X ammount of months of welfare at a time (separated by years). Cut those safety nets out and people will either get off their ass and improve their situation or they will suffer for their laziness while still giving people who really just need that hand up a chance to get up and move. There are plenty of jobs to be had by those who are looking, and willing to get the skills to do that job.
1. Thats the best part about * wingers. They don't have to understand what is said to take offense to it.
:)
2. Comparing a Democrat and a Republican is a cardinal sin for any winger and thus comments of that nature will only be understood by the middle
3. No offense, you should know with your UID that fact has nothing to do with anything that goes on here
If you are actually interested, Ron Paul is a very interesting Republican. I didn't do alot of digging, but based on skimming around he really seems to be an old school type, not this new breed. He is a much closer representation to what I believe Republicans should be about (and he isn't a lawyer!). A constitutionalist! One of the few that understands the part "any powers not explicitly granted to the state belong to the people". The funny thing is, I only stumbled across him in my outrage over his moron Democrat opponent, slinging mud about how he voted against Child Online Protection Act and other such super invasive censorship, spying, "think of the children", unenforcable and largly unconstitutional laws with terribly unfortunate names making them terribly difficult to vote against without coming out looking evil. Go look up how many people voted for the PATRIOT act that didn't want it just based on the fact they knew their careers would end voting against something called "Patriot Act". Probably would have been one of the few places I would have voted for a Republican (again, given that these days, with a few exceptions, most Democrats are running much closer to old school Republican ideals than this current crop of neocon loons)
Sounds like that person making $9/hr needs to spend some time getting some job skills that will pay more than $9/hr. I have a friend that was basically in that situation, has a kid too. Ex totally hosed the finances and then left. Been outside with him freezing balls of cursing the british instructions to fix an american car that was assembled somewhere overseas when his beater broke down...every few months. Fast forward a year or two and he is now making 50% more and still moving upward. Managing your education and qualifications are as much a part of the equation as the money. Debt isn't always stupid either if you manage it right. $20k on a brand new car full of bling and rims is stupid, $5k on a car that is going to operate reliably for the next 2-3 years is smart.
High School diplomas or even GEDs are terribly important. If you even just have a HS diploma you can do a 4 year stint in the military that will get you on your feet quite comfortably, and if you are smart about which branch and what job, will set you up to make far more than $9/hr when you get out. There are numerous programs that buy you large ammounts of food in exchange for volunteer work. One of my favorite quotes lately is "What you do from 9 to 5 determines how well you live now, what you do from 5 to 9 determines how well you will live in the future" If you are trying to make a living on $9/hr you have failed yourself at somepoint and need to put in some hard laborous hours to get caught up. There are almost always places that you can turn to to get back on your feet. Take a shower at the YMCA, get some decent looking clothes for pennies at the Salvation Army, ask the local clergy if you can have toiletries to brush your teeth and shave. Pride and Sloth are listed some of the 7 deadly sins for a reason (I'm not really terribly religious, but there are some important life lessons to be learned if you look past the dogma).
When was the last time you saw a successful business man or someone wealthy teaching financial responsibility in the education system? Before college level you are lucky to see any of that kind of stuff even mentioned, and if it is, it is done by a wage slave teacher struggly on crappy pay. Now granted, in college it tends to be different and you do tend to get alot more successful business types involved, but that kind of financial education needs to start very young. If you start saving at 16 instead of 26 that has a HUGE impact. Compound interest is an amazing thing. The earlier you start, the less you have to put away each month, and at the end of 20+ years its almost and order of magnitude in difference.
It is a system of the blind leading the blind. Years ago at my high school when they signed a huge contract with Pepsi to put in vending machines...they bought a damned score board for their uber important state champion football team. The parents almost stormed the gates when they found out their children might have to 'pay to play' football. With that kind of money they could have done any number of things to bolster education, but nope, flashy bling and pride won that day.
The myth that social mobility is a myth is what is used by the far left to garner votes to get themselves into office, get their lobbiest bucks, and create social handout programs to further the problem. I believe unemployment and welfare have their places, but of all of the welfare cases I have seen only ONE actually used it as it was meant...to get back on their feet and get the hell off welfare, the rest just became leeches on the system raising taxes for the rest of us because they could get free handouts.
Smart, taleted, and hard-working has little to do with it really. Creativity, common sense and half a brain for math gets you there. The problem is the brainless "American Dream" of owning 6 homes and 12 cars means rich. Wealth has more to do with maintaining your lifestyle without being forced into being a wage slave. Managing your money and investments mean you can become very wealthy in a relatively short ammount of time. The get rich quick dream is a myth or at best unbelievably unlikely. As far as the entertainers, athletes, lottery winners, or "lucky" business deals...they are typically the ones that buy a bunch of extravagent shit and wind up dirt poor 5-10 years later. The smart ones are living a comfortable middle class lifestyle and not getting up to go to work every morning. There is a ton of social mobility in America. The idea that you must be extravagently wealthy and have all the trinkets and baubles to show for it is what causes the massive debt that causes people to remain poor.
Apparently because I mentioned Republicans in a positive way and then "insulted" Democrats by insinuating they have anything in common with Republican values. Left wingers have just as many blind extremists as Right wingers. Just leaves everyone willing to leave the emotional insanity behind and try and think through problems out in the cold. Tons of logical solutions to all our problems, they just get drowned out with irrational emotional cries from both sides.
Well to be honest, it boils down to the whole make lemonaide thing. A great number of filthy rich folks spent some years living out of the back of their van eating day old donuts from dumpsters. Now there certainly are some people who really just did get the short end of the stick, but generally speaking here in America there really is more than enough opportunity to get yourself out...just is a matter of how much effort it will take. Now I also support the inheretance tax because that right wing "the farmers will lose farms" shit is a load of horse crap and they have been unable to produce one single example of a family actually losing their land, however, hundreds to thousands of examples exist of rich overprivlidged spoiled brats never working a day in their life because they get to inheret billions and not lose a cent.
Republicans these days favor the Big Brother spy on everyone method to law and order
Democrats these days favor the Nanny state censor everything method to law and order
The people these days favor whatever party makes them most scared of the consequences of disagreeing
We see a huge swing right with "Fear the boogey man!" and now that we have seen the consequences we are swinging left we are back to "Hell no we won't go!". Whole nation of extremists.
Exactly, the current crop of Republicans are failing absolutely to hold to any kind of Republican values. True Republican values does not involve this twisted religious bent on things, it advocates personal responsibility, no nanny state crap, no blame society crap. You screwed up making yourself poor by signing a 20% interest rate payday loan and Rent-to-own contracts to live above your means...not my problem to bail your ass out. (Now the fact is, most of the poor are poor by choice doing stupid crap like this and its a failure of the education system not teaching financial responsibility, the gap between rich and poor wouldn't be growing nearly as fast and eliminating the middle class if everyone didn't buy all their wizbang-gottahavits on credit...when it was normal to save for years for a house/car/stuff the gap was much smaller and the middle class was much larger)
/.)
Additionally traditional Republican values want lowered taxes (the current crop pay lipservice to this with tax cuts), but the financial responsibility part of low taxes involves less spending. Leaving the war out since that is a twisted mess of a wreck to begin with, we can see the bloat in HomeSec, TSA, and other such nonsense. Our state sponsored paranoia is costing us billions. Ironically the current Republicans bitch about how we are all doomed because the Democrats will break the bank on social programs, but as much as I disagree with most of those programs (ain't the governments problem, and sure as shit ain't mine, why should I have to pay taxes because some fat bastard needs a quadruple bypass that he can't afford because he eats McDonalds 18 times a day) at least they have more of a positive impact on society as a whole vs x-ray scans, anal probings and other such nonsense every time I go through an airport.
All in all the traditional Republican is more concerned about making the people take care of themselves instead of the government doing everything. This includes heathcare, legislating morality, church and state issues, the whole nine, ideally are handled outside of the government and outside of the federal budgets. This also includes not being Team America World Police. I can't figure out if I got modded as flamebait for making a joke about Republicans protecting big business or saying that I am mostly Republican (I am guessing the latter since this is
No no no, this is business as normal. Current "Republicans" are for increasing big business and Democrats for big government. Penalties against business for screwing the citizen is typically left of the Republican agenda these days. As a (mostly) Republican I am more upset that the "Republicans" in power right now really have nothing to do with what Republican ideals are supposed to be, and rather amused that the Democrats took so many seats by basically running on traditionally Republican ideals.
I am actually kind of curious on how this will jive with earlier reports of government agencies paying data miners and theives for personal information as part of the "OMFG everyone is a terrorist!" spying programs.
I suppose you are right in that sense. Lawyers will take a buck for anything. Win or lose they still get paid. So really this would only be terribly relevant if she had lost. In a small sense it is important to be aware of the threats to freedom, but this is no new threat and happens frequently in less high profile scenarios.
Thank you. Watching the confusiong about the joke was painful.
Uhm...most people do give warning signs, the fact that they are ignored doesn't mean they weren't there. Of coarse everyone interviewed says "Well he seemed nice and stable, we had no idea" That is likely because they didn't talk to that person more than the bare minimum required to get the job done. As aweful of a concept as it seems to be these days, its called getting involved with your people. It IS the supervisors responsibility to know more about his subordinates than just job performance, its called leadership, as opposed to management. You manage things, you lead people.
:)
The funny thing is, this same mentality rears its ugly head EVERYWHERE. Kids on drugs, doing pornos, running away, violent crimes...are the video games the problem or uninvolved parents? Have you ever lived in a neighborhood where everyone was at least familiar with eachother and the norms for the area? (Who is that guy driving around..., Wasn't little johnny over there a minute ago?, I thought the Smith's were on vacation.) If I did something stupid somewhere my parents knew about it by the time I got home.
Get involved with the people around you, you would be surprised what you will learn about them. It is no surprise it is getting worse, uninvolved parents teach their kids to be uninvolved too. Uninvolved supervisors teach their subordinates to be uninvolved. Its a cascading thing.
FYI, that guy in Office Space was an actor, so really the signs of him losing it were the script telling him to lose it. But Falling Down is another good movie along those lines anyways
You sir are wrong. It is more like buying a Mercedes and cutting out the floorboards to go Flintstones with it. You are making an assumtion that Vista on a Mac will actually get you somewhere.
I assume you are refering to the dumbass doctor making the snap decision to take this to court trying to attack free speech and in turn having his name/face all over the news tied to bad surgery. This is the part of the story that makes it relevant. That some depressed girl got her face hacked without doing the proper research is rather irrelevant. I hope he gets a swift kick in the nuts for trying to silence her, that all cosmetic surgeons get a kick in the nuts for contributing so much to this self loathing pretentious bunch that think they need it because they don't understand the concept that model's photos in magazines are frequently airbrushed up, and as for the girl... well I think she already learned that making self loathing and pretentious decisions leads to "surprise".
When they refuse to examine election fraud on the grounds of "it would damage voter confidence" I think it would be safe to assume they will find a way to keep themselves out of this. In fact, it would probably even extend protection to them after they are out of office. My first guess would be seeing this tossed out on grounds of national security given that this administration has classified more crap than any other administration.