The post is pretty bad without a link to the actual updates../ has fallen a bit.
Was pretty funny until it got homophobic
on
The 20 Worst Games Ever
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I was enjoying this article until I got to the review of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. At first, I thought he was committing the sin of just being a jackass and using "gay" as a term to mean lame, but not actually connecting it with homosexuality, then I read "Now do the math on this: experts in ass ramming estimate that about 10% of the world is homosexual, and if you consider that only 5 people actually wanted a CDI machine, that means that this game was made specifically for a target audience of one half a person."
"Experts in ass ramming" eh?
Sounds like this guy has got a problem, oh I figured it out, he's a fucking idiot.
I consider my iMac G5 a portable desktop. It weighs about 20 pounts, and I even bought a custom case (with backpack straps) that makes it easy and pretty safe to carry it around. It sets up in seconds, and the new iMacs are even lighter.
I took it carry-on on a flight to Hawaii (for work) and had no problems, TSA was way interested, oohs and ahhs.
Check this article out. In it Salon's Tech Editor describes his 180 turnaround on mozilla.
Before:
The last time I tried it, a year and a half ago, it was so buggy, slow and lacking in features that I gave up in disgust after a week of software pain. Ever since, I had dismissed as overly idealistic advocacy the mumbling I kept hearing from various developers who touted each new Mozilla "milestone" release as incrementally better than the one before.
Now:
As I write these words, I've been running Mozilla for Windows for almost five hours. While that's obviously not enough time to make a detailed technical appraisal, I can say that Mozilla has already become my default browser and that it is as fast and slick and full-featured as I want.
That drive is 6 years old, I think its a 1.2 gig drive. Putting saran wrap on your platters is completely retarded... saran wrap works on static... static fucks up electronics AND it attracts dust. You can see in at least one of the photos where there is dust all over the HD platter.
He writes at the begining of the page about how hard drives are specially sealed with ventilation etc. Well, I'm pretty sure his high school shop class job on cutting the plexiglass, hd case, and putting it all together might let a little bit more than air in.
Everytime I fill up for 99 cents it feels like I'm hawking my children's future, the health of the planet, and global political stability, for the momentary convenience of being able to buy an extra pack of fries or a soda or something. Those cheap gas prices aren;t provided to us by the former Soviet nations standing together against OPEC, but a disregard by oil, energy, and auto companies for our lives and the lives of everyone else on the planet.
If we want the price of gas to be accuratly reflected, how about $5-7 dollars a gallon. That would probably get people into reasonably sized vehicles or better yet, in alternate forms of transportation.
This is no different from the way we treated Argenbright Security after they continued to hire criminals as security personel in sensitive airport security positions. They were on 5 year probation and the gov gave them 2 more years. What happened to the corporate death sentence?!?
Get tough on corporate crime, revoke the corporate charter!
Lets not forget that Microsoft has set up the Windows Explorer not to show you what the extensions are on "recognized" files anyway. On Windows 98 you can't change the extension of a "recognized (microsofized)" file without disabling this setting...
the government has been giving away all our public resources to big business for years and years (land, trees, clean water, oil, gas, coal, radio spectrum) and we get very little in return. This sucks, but.us is a lot less important to me than some of the other things I mentioned above...
Quick launch (AKA "turbo") merely preloads mozilla at startup so when you start mozilla for the first time it seems faster. In reality this is just an illusion, don't let it placate you, demand a better solution!
Well, why would you want to pay to be in something that cant represent you. On my campus, we have quite a few members who are in unrepresented units, but I totally understand why many of their unrepresented co-workers don't join (since they wont get a contract till they're recognized). You would think any workplace where the majority of the workers want a union should be able to have one, but the laws in our country and the ways our corporations act often make it VERY difficult to bring a union in, even if the people want it very much.
Employers use very sneaky tactics and they have a definate advantage (they pay the workers and can threaten them, of course this is illegal, but when was the last time our country seriously went after a corporation that was fucking with people...).
I think that the reason there are a lot of dissatisfied union members in america is that you can't expect it to just come in and do stuff for you (which is actually what I hear in the complaints from the former members in this discussion "I was in a union and they didn't do anything for me", well if you're gonna complain about no local control and you aren't going to work for anything, you can't expect anyhting good. The fact is, good unions get good results.) Corporate america has so fucked up the system (unions should be completely protected under the first amendment freedom of association) that of course there is a lot of anti-union sentiment here. You'll find a MUCH different opinion in Europe I assume.
Oh yeah, I can't speak for all unions, but it's not in the union's advantage to run the company out of business. They want to keep the jobs. Think of Big K and K-Mart. K-Mart has a union, so the K-Mart corporation makes BigK as a different corp, builds it next door to their K-Marts and one by one runs themselves out of business. Then the workers store closes, they all are jobless, but hey there are those GREAT non-union jobs at BigK. I am sure they get treated a lot better there! You wanna tell me that the union asked for SO much money that the store was gonna close down and it had to close itself down? That's fucking ridiculous, it's 100% greed and malice. (keep in mind, I'm sure the average k-mart worker didn't make very much, a lot less than a lot of programmers who work for companies with no profits, kmarts owners are getting richer and richer while the people get poorer and poorer) So don't tell me that unions make people lose their jobs by asking for too much, UC won't even tell us how much money they get from the state (this is a PUBLIC institution) so we can make educated guesses as to what is a reasonable raise. Unions, in general, just want reasonable wages, and in most places you'd want to live in america, you can't live great for 11 bux an hour (let alone the minimum wage).
Tony
Re:I will never work for a union, just for HR!
on
Dial U for Union
·
· Score: 3
Unions are diverse I don?t think that there is anyone on/. who believes that these so-called independent Unions are not all tied together by one common organization, know which one I mean Tony?
I assume you're talking about the AFL-CIO... sure their tied together, just like most the corporations in this country are members of chambers of commerce, political organizations, and the like. Unions are about people working together so it is natural you'd have a national alliance. If you're insinuating that the AFL-CIO controls all these unions, then you have your head in your ass... as I said, sure some unions might be under outside control, I know that my union (which wasn't part of AFL-CIO untila couple years ago anyway) is locally controlled.
Unions can better bad policy Do you like workers who have no motivation to do quality work? Do you like workers who have little or know fear of being fired? Do you like having to kiss the ass of every low-life Union supervisor just to get his people to do their job. Come on. Everyone has had experience with the wonderful work ethics of Union workers.
Once again, quite a generalization... 13% of the workforce is unionized, 48% would be if they could (stats courtesy National Labor Board) All these people are bad workers? Just because you're in a union doesn't mean you wont get fired. And I don't quite know what you mean when you say "Union supervisor?" Supervisors aren't in the union, that's kind of how it works. Furthermore, you are using the same argument here as you do later on... Maybe you've had a bad experience with a couple folks, I know a LOT of IT people that are total fucks too...
Unions give you a voice Yes, let?s just remove any reward for being better at your job than the schlub next to you. We?re all equal in the IT industry and should all be treated the same. While we?re at it lets remove any competition completely and give everyone the same wages irregardless of their abilities.
First of all, you're not addressing the points I made in any arguement, instead you're railing on about the myths of medeocrity. I said specificly that unions don't require the same wages across the board... maybe you should learn to read.
Unions don't support mediocrity AHH, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!!! You?re killing me Tony. As soon as you pull your head out of the sand you let me know. AHH, HA, HA, HA!
uh-huh, maybe one day you'll realize that nearly every benefit you enjoy as a worker here in America is the result of union activity... you think before unions we had a 40 hour work week? You think we had widespread benefits and healthcare? Retirement? Safety standards? Don't think so.
Unions start with you Sure, I like your mentioning those ?stupid management decisions? because we all know that management are just a bunch of idiots who don?t know what their doing. You really need to wake up Tony. Management got to be management because they know how to get things done, something that the Unions seem to be very much against.
I am sure many managers are competent employees etc. And there are a lot that aren't, all up and down the line. I can't believe that you're saying, especially in IT, that most managers know more than their employees. That isn't the case. And when the decision-making power lies in the hands of those who don't know what's up... you get stupid decisions.
It's pretty sad. Reading the comments on this story I've seen about 90% FUD. For a readership that seems to hate megacorps and dislike misinformation, slashdot seems to have such a narrow band of knowledge that's sometimes scary. I work for a union. I'm an organizer for UPTE - CWA Local 9119 at UCSC. UPTE represents professional and technical employees statewide within the University of California system (all told about 11-12K represented employees). I've met a lot of people so far with a lot of the same ideas that I hear here and it's my job to convince them otherwise, so let me try here as well.
Unions are diverse I'm gonna talk about something most people on/. don't have in whatever subject they are writing about... personal experience. When I say a union can do something, that doesn't mean every union will. There are hundreds, if not thousands of unions in this country and each one is different. There are really bad ones, there are really good ones, and there are a lot in between. Employee's vote in the union that they belong to (often against very steep odds considering the tactics and "natural" advantage the employer has against its employees) and they can vote to decertify a union as well (which, when it happens is most often a switch to a different union rather than choosing to go unrepresented). In my opinion, the best unions are the ones with the most member participation. This means that people need to be active in their unions for them to serve their needs. More on that in a bit, to get back to the bold, the point I am trying to make here is that your mileage may vary, just like some employers are better than others, some grocery stores are better, some parents are better. It's not realistic to assume that every union could be perfect and like with so many other things, you're not going to hear as much about the success stories than the failures (for every Jimmy Hoffa there are hundreds of "good" organizers like myself, who are really committed to building a better workplace).
Unions can better bad policy People think that it's all about wages or seniority. It's not. There are a lot of things that come standard in your average tech job you might not like. Do you like anti-drug flyers they make you sign saying that you wont do things the company doesn't like outside of its walls (13th amendment violation anyone?)? Do you like illegal non-competition clauses in your contract? Do you enjoy that your supervisor often has the power to enact pointless and ill-planned workplace rules that you have to follow and might have very little luck in changing? Those are all the type of things that a union, if its membership is motivated to do so, can change or work to change. The university has to notify my union when they change a workplace rule (so we can fight it if there is a complaint) and they are prohibited from enacting workplace rules that they can't prove are necessary or even beneficial.
Unions give you a voice I have a lot of friends that work for a certain LARGE corporation that hires a lot of programmers. One of them told me that at their company, you only matter if you're a vice-president or above. In fact, when you call tech support internally there, if you're a vp you go to the special pool of techs to help you, if you're just a worker, who knows when you'll get help. This point is to illustrate that no matter how important you think you are, no matter how much you think your boss loves you, it all comes down to the bottom line and quite often you're not on it. Unions give workers with common interests a common voice to negotiate as "equals" with their employers. If you're in a good union, it might be you that does the negotiations, or someone you know and respect. Working as a group you can get a lot more done that working locally, and I know, a lot of you might be thinking that you are doing fine on your own, well, there's probably a lot of people where you work that aren't getting the sweet deal that you're getting and that probably doesn't make your job easier.
Unions don't support mediocrity I should have made this point #1 cause it's often the #1 argument I hear. First of all, most union contracts don't prevent anyone from making more than anyone else. If you're hot shit and you're employer wants you, there's most likely nothing the union would do to tell the employer that they can't hire you at a higher rate than anyone else (however, on the flip side, if you're the boss' nephew and you're getting the big raise because of that, the union might, rightly so, have something to say about that). They also aren't entirely based on seniority (although they can be) but what is wrong with that anyway? The reason unions often choose seniority as the marker is because it's pretty objective. It makes sense that the longer you work for a company you should make more money. It also doesn't seem too horrible to me that if i work hard for my employer for 30 years, I'll have a little protection for myself. Most of us are real young here, when you're pushing 55-60 and looking a little less attractive, we'll see what tune you're singing then. It is true that unions work to benefit the majority of their workers. This might leave some of the very very best a little in the cold and bring the very very worst up a little bit more than they deserve, but for the majority of us (since we can't all be the very very best) it's much better (and the fact that the very very best can be expected to get their own additional increases since they are so awesome).
Unions start with you There is this idea that a union comes from the outside and does things to its members. This may be how a bad union works, but it's not how the one I work for works. In UPTE its almost all rank and file run. This means that the members make all the decisions and it's very locally based. There's not some guy in a limo calling strikes or making all the decisions here, it's the guy in the cube next to you, or hopefully you yourself.
Well, that's about all the rant I can handle right now. It's not everything I could say, but it's better than nothing. But even if it didn't convince you, try this. For the next month, anytime there's something stupid that happens at your job, some stupid rule or management decision that makes your job not-so-fun, think about if it's the kind of thing you might be able to change if you had the organized support of all your fellow co-workers.
This isn't a troll, just a warning. Take anything you read on MozillaQuest with a planet-sized grain of salt. The guy who writes the articles is, unfortunately, clueless.
Women are bad... mmmkay.
on
Review: Blow
·
· Score: 2
One thing I noticed in seeing this movie was that every woman in it, save the one who died, totally fucked Mr. Jungs life up.
His mom, tortures his dad, turns him in.
His wife, throws the party he gets busted at, turns him in, divorces him, takes away his daughter.
His daughter, although not as evil as the rest never forgives him, and even in her adult life is unable to forgive someone who has nothing but love for her.
After coming out of blow the message was clear, the only good woman was the dead woman.
Tony
ps: no I don't really think that, just reporting on the movie.
Of the responses to this so far most of them have been defending the statement I critiqued. Let me clarify why it's not OK just because it is a "small number of exploited children" and why I don't think my comments were in any way "witch-hunt"-like.
First of all, I think you're on shaky ground when you make the arguement that an increase in the availability of child pornography online doesn't lead to a corresponding increase in the creation of child pornography. Name me one market that, when the demand for its product rises dramatically, doesn't respond with increased supply. A fixed number of kiddie porn images isn't going to make a potential sex-offender happy forever. Once he's seen em all a couple times he's gonna want more and someone's gonna abuse a kid to make it.
Furthermore, personally I find an arguement that, although not explicitly, maintains that it is ok because a relatively smaller number of children might be exploited compared to a society in which it's harder to get the material to be repugnant. Child abuse is one area in which I don't really find much room for acceptable abuse levels. One is already too many.
That said, I do want to say that I recognize the fact that some of us, for whatever reason, are attacted to things that might be illegal or socially unnacceptable by urges beyond our control. It is quite unfortunate for these people and I hope that they can find an alternative outlet for their attraction, however, the fact that it is beyond their control doesn't excuse the abuse of the childred (or whatever victims there may be). Sex must be consenual or it isn't sex so much as rape. I don't understand how being against the raping of children is equal to hunting witches.
It was said: "Law enforcement officials have also been reporting a dramatic rise in child pornography online, but there is no evidence that sex crimes are on the rise either, according to researchers and federal (including FBI) statistics. Is it possible that the availability of sexual material online gives people healthier and safer outlets for sexual impulses than were previously available?"
Hmmm, I think you're missing the point. Its not a "healthier and safer outlet" if some children are still be expoited to make the child pornography... get a clue.
So, I am wondering as I search, does anyone know a resource that would show if it is common to have magnetite that looks like this in other meteorites? Has anyone looked at a bunch to see if it might be more common?
Just a thought.
This link presents the theory they announced today a couple years ago, search it for magnetite.
I would not be so sure it's gonan be Cali hurting fromt hat 9.99 quake. Look off your coast Mr. Washington state, ever wonder where that magma to feed those Cascade mountains comes from? You got a plate off of there called the Juan de Fuca plate, uits getting sucked under the north american plate as we speak, well mostly getting sucked under. There are probably a few miles of backup and when that sucker slips your brick buildings will come crashing down (not to mention the space needle!)
People ask me if I'm afraid of earthquakes here in CA, I'm not too afraid but chances are they should be.
Slashdot Mirror
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-site-governance/section-by-section-summary-of-updates/10153200989785301
The post is pretty bad without a link to the actual updates. ./ has fallen a bit.
I was enjoying this article until I got to the review of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. At first, I thought he was committing the sin of just being a jackass and using "gay" as a term to mean lame, but not actually connecting it with homosexuality, then I read "Now do the math on this: experts in ass ramming estimate that about 10% of the world is homosexual, and if you consider that only 5 people actually wanted a CDI machine, that means that this game was made specifically for a target audience of one half a person."
"Experts in ass ramming" eh?
Sounds like this guy has got a problem, oh I figured it out, he's a fucking idiot.
Talk Like a Pirate Day mashed up with Garbage Day! from Silent Night Deadly Night 2
I consider my iMac G5 a portable desktop. It weighs about 20 pounts, and I even bought a custom case (with backpack straps) that makes it easy and pretty safe to carry it around. It sets up in seconds, and the new iMacs are even lighter.
I took it carry-on on a flight to Hawaii (for work) and had no problems, TSA was way interested, oohs and ahhs.
just curious about your choice of union. I happen to know several people who AFT represent quite well.
Maybe we'll have a nice site here that can be preserved for our children.
Ok, sorry i'm off the drugs now... pity about the drop in jade prices.
Before:
The last time I tried it, a year and a half ago, it was so buggy, slow and lacking in features that I gave up in disgust after a week of software pain. Ever since, I had dismissed as overly idealistic advocacy the mumbling I kept hearing from various developers who touted each new Mozilla "milestone" release as incrementally better than the one before.
Now:
As I write these words, I've been running Mozilla for Windows for almost five hours. While that's obviously not enough time to make a detailed technical appraisal, I can say that Mozilla has already become my default browser and that it is as fast and slick and full-featured as I want.
Nuff said!
He writes at the begining of the page about how hard drives are specially sealed with ventilation etc. Well, I'm pretty sure his high school shop class job on cutting the plexiglass, hd case, and putting it all together might let a little bit more than air in.
I'm calling bullshit!
Everytime I fill up for 99 cents it feels like I'm hawking my children's future, the health of the planet, and global political stability, for the momentary convenience of being able to buy an extra pack of fries or a soda or something. Those cheap gas prices aren;t provided to us by the former Soviet nations standing together against OPEC, but a disregard by oil, energy, and auto companies for our lives and the lives of everyone else on the planet.
If we want the price of gas to be accuratly reflected, how about $5-7 dollars a gallon. That would probably get people into reasonably sized vehicles or better yet, in alternate forms of transportation.
Tony
Get tough on corporate crime, revoke the corporate charter!
tony
Lets not forget that Microsoft has set up the Windows Explorer not to show you what the extensions are on "recognized" files anyway. On Windows 98 you can't change the extension of a "recognized (microsofized)" file without disabling this setting...
Tony
Tony
Employers use very sneaky tactics and they have a definate advantage (they pay the workers and can threaten them, of course this is illegal, but when was the last time our country seriously went after a corporation that was fucking with people...).
I think that the reason there are a lot of dissatisfied union members in america is that you can't expect it to just come in and do stuff for you (which is actually what I hear in the complaints from the former members in this discussion "I was in a union and they didn't do anything for me", well if you're gonna complain about no local control and you aren't going to work for anything, you can't expect anyhting good. The fact is, good unions get good results.) Corporate america has so fucked up the system (unions should be completely protected under the first amendment freedom of association) that of course there is a lot of anti-union sentiment here. You'll find a MUCH different opinion in Europe I assume.
Oh yeah, I can't speak for all unions, but it's not in the union's advantage to run the company out of business. They want to keep the jobs. Think of Big K and K-Mart. K-Mart has a union, so the K-Mart corporation makes BigK as a different corp, builds it next door to their K-Marts and one by one runs themselves out of business. Then the workers store closes, they all are jobless, but hey there are those GREAT non-union jobs at BigK. I am sure they get treated a lot better there! You wanna tell me that the union asked for SO much money that the store was gonna close down and it had to close itself down? That's fucking ridiculous, it's 100% greed and malice. (keep in mind, I'm sure the average k-mart worker didn't make very much, a lot less than a lot of programmers who work for companies with no profits, kmarts owners are getting richer and richer while the people get poorer and poorer) So don't tell me that unions make people lose their jobs by asking for too much, UC won't even tell us how much money they get from the state (this is a PUBLIC institution) so we can make educated guesses as to what is a reasonable raise. Unions, in general, just want reasonable wages, and in most places you'd want to live in america, you can't live great for 11 bux an hour (let alone the minimum wage).
Tony
I assume you're talking about the AFL-CIO... sure their tied together, just like most the corporations in this country are members of chambers of commerce, political organizations, and the like. Unions are about people working together so it is natural you'd have a national alliance. If you're insinuating that the AFL-CIO controls all these unions, then you have your head in your ass... as I said, sure some unions might be under outside control, I know that my union (which wasn't part of AFL-CIO untila couple years ago anyway) is locally controlled.
Unions can better bad policy Do you like workers who have no motivation to do quality work? Do you like workers who have little or know fear of being fired? Do you like having to kiss the ass of every low-life Union supervisor just to get his people to do their job. Come on. Everyone has had experience with the wonderful work ethics of Union workers.
Once again, quite a generalization... 13% of the workforce is unionized, 48% would be if they could (stats courtesy National Labor Board) All these people are bad workers? Just because you're in a union doesn't mean you wont get fired. And I don't quite know what you mean when you say "Union supervisor?" Supervisors aren't in the union, that's kind of how it works. Furthermore, you are using the same argument here as you do later on... Maybe you've had a bad experience with a couple folks, I know a LOT of IT people that are total fucks too...
Unions give you a voice Yes, let?s just remove any reward for being better at your job than the schlub next to you. We?re all equal in the IT industry and should all be treated the same. While we?re at it lets remove any competition completely and give everyone the same wages irregardless of their abilities.
First of all, you're not addressing the points I made in any arguement, instead you're railing on about the myths of medeocrity. I said specificly that unions don't require the same wages across the board... maybe you should learn to read.
Unions don't support mediocrity AHH, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!!! You?re killing me Tony. As soon as you pull your head out of the sand you let me know. AHH, HA, HA, HA!
uh-huh, maybe one day you'll realize that nearly every benefit you enjoy as a worker here in America is the result of union activity... you think before unions we had a 40 hour work week? You think we had widespread benefits and healthcare? Retirement? Safety standards? Don't think so.
Unions start with you Sure, I like your mentioning those ?stupid management decisions? because we all know that management are just a bunch of idiots who don?t know what their doing. You really need to wake up Tony. Management got to be management because they know how to get things done, something that the Unions seem to be very much against.
I am sure many managers are competent employees etc. And there are a lot that aren't, all up and down the line. I can't believe that you're saying, especially in IT, that most managers know more than their employees. That isn't the case. And when the decision-making power lies in the hands of those who don't know what's up... you get stupid decisions.
Not-Tony
Yeah, just a fucking coward.
Unions are diverse I'm gonna talk about something most people on /. don't have in whatever subject they are writing about... personal experience. When I say a union can do something, that doesn't mean every union will. There are hundreds, if not thousands of unions in this country and each one is different. There are really bad ones, there are really good ones, and there are a lot in between. Employee's vote in the union that they belong to (often against very steep odds considering the tactics and "natural" advantage the employer has against its employees) and they can vote to decertify a union as well (which, when it happens is most often a switch to a different union rather than choosing to go unrepresented). In my opinion, the best unions are the ones with the most member participation. This means that people need to be active in their unions for them to serve their needs. More on that in a bit, to get back to the bold, the point I am trying to make here is that your mileage may vary, just like some employers are better than others, some grocery stores are better, some parents are better. It's not realistic to assume that every union could be perfect and like with so many other things, you're not going to hear as much about the success stories than the failures (for every Jimmy Hoffa there are hundreds of "good" organizers like myself, who are really committed to building a better workplace).
Unions can better bad policy People think that it's all about wages or seniority. It's not. There are a lot of things that come standard in your average tech job you might not like. Do you like anti-drug flyers they make you sign saying that you wont do things the company doesn't like outside of its walls (13th amendment violation anyone?)? Do you like illegal non-competition clauses in your contract? Do you enjoy that your supervisor often has the power to enact pointless and ill-planned workplace rules that you have to follow and might have very little luck in changing? Those are all the type of things that a union, if its membership is motivated to do so, can change or work to change. The university has to notify my union when they change a workplace rule (so we can fight it if there is a complaint) and they are prohibited from enacting workplace rules that they can't prove are necessary or even beneficial.
Unions give you a voice I have a lot of friends that work for a certain LARGE corporation that hires a lot of programmers. One of them told me that at their company, you only matter if you're a vice-president or above. In fact, when you call tech support internally there, if you're a vp you go to the special pool of techs to help you, if you're just a worker, who knows when you'll get help. This point is to illustrate that no matter how important you think you are, no matter how much you think your boss loves you, it all comes down to the bottom line and quite often you're not on it. Unions give workers with common interests a common voice to negotiate as "equals" with their employers. If you're in a good union, it might be you that does the negotiations, or someone you know and respect. Working as a group you can get a lot more done that working locally, and I know, a lot of you might be thinking that you are doing fine on your own, well, there's probably a lot of people where you work that aren't getting the sweet deal that you're getting and that probably doesn't make your job easier.
Unions don't support mediocrity I should have made this point #1 cause it's often the #1 argument I hear. First of all, most union contracts don't prevent anyone from making more than anyone else. If you're hot shit and you're employer wants you, there's most likely nothing the union would do to tell the employer that they can't hire you at a higher rate than anyone else (however, on the flip side, if you're the boss' nephew and you're getting the big raise because of that, the union might, rightly so, have something to say about that). They also aren't entirely based on seniority (although they can be) but what is wrong with that anyway? The reason unions often choose seniority as the marker is because it's pretty objective. It makes sense that the longer you work for a company you should make more money. It also doesn't seem too horrible to me that if i work hard for my employer for 30 years, I'll have a little protection for myself. Most of us are real young here, when you're pushing 55-60 and looking a little less attractive, we'll see what tune you're singing then. It is true that unions work to benefit the majority of their workers. This might leave some of the very very best a little in the cold and bring the very very worst up a little bit more than they deserve, but for the majority of us (since we can't all be the very very best) it's much better (and the fact that the very very best can be expected to get their own additional increases since they are so awesome).
Unions start with you There is this idea that a union comes from the outside and does things to its members. This may be how a bad union works, but it's not how the one I work for works. In UPTE its almost all rank and file run. This means that the members make all the decisions and it's very locally based. There's not some guy in a limo calling strikes or making all the decisions here, it's the guy in the cube next to you, or hopefully you yourself.
Well, that's about all the rant I can handle right now. It's not everything I could say, but it's better than nothing. But even if it didn't convince you, try this. For the next month, anytime there's something stupid that happens at your job, some stupid rule or management decision that makes your job not-so-fun, think about if it's the kind of thing you might be able to change if you had the organized support of all your fellow co-workers.
Tony
Tony
Tony
His mom, tortures his dad, turns him in.
His wife, throws the party he gets busted at, turns him in, divorces him, takes away his daughter.
His daughter, although not as evil as the rest never forgives him, and even in her adult life is unable to forgive someone who has nothing but love for her.
After coming out of blow the message was clear, the only good woman was the dead woman.
Tony
ps: no I don't really think that, just reporting on the movie.
First of all, I think you're on shaky ground when you make the arguement that an increase in the availability of child pornography online doesn't lead to a corresponding increase in the creation of child pornography. Name me one market that, when the demand for its product rises dramatically, doesn't respond with increased supply. A fixed number of kiddie porn images isn't going to make a potential sex-offender happy forever. Once he's seen em all a couple times he's gonna want more and someone's gonna abuse a kid to make it.
Furthermore, personally I find an arguement that, although not explicitly, maintains that it is ok because a relatively smaller number of children might be exploited compared to a society in which it's harder to get the material to be repugnant. Child abuse is one area in which I don't really find much room for acceptable abuse levels. One is already too many.
That said, I do want to say that I recognize the fact that some of us, for whatever reason, are attacted to things that might be illegal or socially unnacceptable by urges beyond our control. It is quite unfortunate for these people and I hope that they can find an alternative outlet for their attraction, however, the fact that it is beyond their control doesn't excuse the abuse of the childred (or whatever victims there may be). Sex must be consenual or it isn't sex so much as rape. I don't understand how being against the raping of children is equal to hunting witches.
It was said: "Law enforcement officials have also been reporting a dramatic rise in child pornography online, but there is no evidence that sex crimes are on the rise either, according to researchers and federal (including FBI) statistics. Is it possible that the availability of sexual material online gives people healthier and safer outlets for sexual impulses than were previously available?" Hmmm, I think you're missing the point. Its not a "healthier and safer outlet" if some children are still be expoited to make the child pornography... get a clue.
Just a thought.
This link presents the theory they announced today a couple years ago, search it for magnetite.
hey, if you are the "all your base are belong to us" guy, send me an email. Tony
What did they expect? Google can't read minds yet.
Bunch of mojacks.
Tony
People ask me if I'm afraid of earthquakes here in CA, I'm not too afraid but chances are they should be.
Tony