I'm having a hard time finding specific details from an authoritative source; but I believe anyone can amend a bill with only a very minor vote of approval. My guess (again because I'm having a hard time finding specific details), is that those who wish to attach a rider (which is specifically an amendment unrelated to the main purpose of the bill) would wait to do so until a specific time when not enough opposing members are present to defeat it.
I agree, if everyone stopped putting up with it, it would go away. The problem is you won't get everyone to stop putting up with it because those in the minority are likely to use it as a tool to get things they don't have the majority to vote for on their own (usually attached to "must-pass" bills like appropriations, which if voted down would end up effectively halting government), or to block a bill they disagree with (called the poison pill - $100 million for blackjack and hookers in the capital building - then the minority party all votes against it, and uses it against anyone who voted for it in spite of the poisoned rider).
If nobody voted for a bill that had any amendment they disagreed with, as the minority party it's now absurdly simple to block any legislation you don't want passed. If people accept that sometimes undesirable riders are going to get passed (I don't think it's possible to outright prohibit riders since what is a rider vs a valid amendment is subject to opinion), then you at least have to make poison pills fairly outrageous (which can be used against you) or you have to keep the pork riders fairly "reasonable."
Other countries try to prohibit rider amendments, but nobody really has a system that works perfectly because as I mentioned it's subjective and not objective. England's Parliament prohibits amendments which fall outside of the "long title" of the bill. That's bypassed by making sure that the long title of a bill contains text such as "and related matters."
As long as you have people with differing agendas, and as long as you have the ability to amend bills (which I think is fairly important actually), people will abuse amendments no matter what the general stance is in regards to tolerance of undesirable amendments. The stance of universal complete intolerance of anything undesirable will lead to no bill ever passing since it is not very likely that any bill would be presented which any member of congress agreed with 100% completely.
RE social security: it was phrased poorly, he was speaking about McCain's plan for social security for the future (as evident by the greater context), not claiming that tomorrow people would be suddenly without a nest egg.
RE McCain's actions: I agree. The John McCain of 5+ years ago would have had a great shot at my vote. The John McCain of today has 62 major lies that he has been spreading. He is being reckless, and he does not have a good plan for the future. The John McCain of today is not the John McCain I admired years ago. Now he's one of the worst offenders of the sort of change he pretends to promote.
So which lies has Obama's campaign been making up about John McCain which are demonstrably false and not a matter of opinion? For that matter, I'm willing to entertain all lies. Even the conservative media is telling McCain that he's going too far and has repeatedly crossed the line between "politics as usual" and outrageous untruths.
Or you can vote for the guy whose platform is, "I'm a maverick - see, I picked a running mate that nobody would EVERY have expected," and whose campaign has devolved to just making up stuff, and claiming his opponent said it.
What if I don't like the change?
Then don't vote for him.
Bigger government, more regulation, and higher taxes doesn't sound like change. Sounds like more of the same!
You're going to pay higher taxes under Obama's plan only if you make more than $250,000. McCain gives tax cuts across the board, though people making $500,000 and up are getting a substantially larger tax cut (even in terms of percent of income) than lower and middle class people (eg, if you make $2 million+, you can expect to see at least $290,000 in tax cuts).
McCain is also planning to lower the corporate tax ceiling to 25% from 35%; while Obama at least won't lower it.
I believe in a 3rd party system, but Obama is the best candidate to come out of either party for at least several decades. I voted 3rd party last election, but this election there is far too much at stake, and one candidate (who may not be perfect) is so many orders of magnitude better than the other - plus I'm in a swing state - that I cannot allow my vote to go for another candidate. I believe strongly that this guy needs to get into office.
I'll continue to support the 3rd party at the local and national level - the grassroots level, but this time around there's more important issues than that.
Yep, I'll go with the one who "has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started." The one who publicly stated the Iraq war was being entered into without enough knowledge and forethought at a time when that was a politically damaging stance to have.
There's a simple, easy fix: don't vote for bad legislation, including otherwise good legislation that has irrelevant riders on it.
It would only change the chess game. The minority party would get riders attached which they knew were undesirable to the majority party, and if the majority party took the ultra principled approach of never voting for a bill which has even a single provision they disagree with, the minority party would be able to easily torpedo every majority party bill that they felt like. They would do this not because they were trying to block a bill they disagreed with (though probably sometimes they would), they would do it to make the majority party look bad so the minority party did better next round of elections.
In addition, very nearly no bill would ever successfully pass into law; you'll never have a bill that is universally agreed with by the majority of congress.
Personally, I'm in favour of a nice, simple system where if a politician makes a promise before an election and then breaks it, a court can remove him or her from office.
All that would lead to is a change in the language used. No candidate would risk his office by making any positive assertion under such a system. There'd be lots of qualifying "try to" and "strive for" and "work towards." Actually a lot like it is today.
As he explained, FISA protects the telecoms from civil suits, but it does not protect them from criminal ones; and it's the criminal ones which are going to really hurt the people responsible (with a civil suit, the company would pay the damages, and the people responsible would never feel the pain - instead their customers would get higher bills).
It was important that the protections FISA legitimately provides were brought into effect. If FISA had been allowed to lapse, and that had been used as an opportunity for attack, the current Bush regime would have been cemented in place. This was a HUGE risk for the country.
Him voting to support it was acknowledgment that sometimes there is a bigger issue than something like civil lawsuits - and it doesn't close the door on establishing accountability both past and future.
The technology stance is important, but there are a lot of substantially more important issues on the table right now.
We're looking at the candidate who has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started, and the candidate who has resorted to making bald faced, demonstrably false and misleading lies that in a non-political context would be grounds for a successful slander/libel suit.
When considering technology specifically, your choices are Obama, who at least understands technology well enough to have created a successful social networking style community site, and McCain who admits he barely even knows how to turn his computer on. If you're voting technology, Obama is the clear superior choice to McCain.
I know, 3rd party candidate and all that. I'm a supporter of breaking the 2-party system we have here in the US because I think it really hurts us; but to be completely honest, in this election it is down to two candidates.
It is extremely unlikely that a 3rd party candidate will successfully run for president until there are a fair share of 3rd party candidates in congress who can prove their chops in a way that makes the lot of them look less crazy (some 3rd party candidates look that way, it gives the better ones a bad name). If you support this ideal, trying to support it top-down isn't the way to get it to happen, it's got to be bottom up - local, state, and federal officials.
In the mean time, support a candidate who has the ability and perspicacity to restore our good will with the rest of the world. The way the economy is going right now, in 2 or 4 years, net neutrality is going to be a lot less important than food on the table and whether or not our troops are committing war crimes abroad, and whether or not our government is committing anti-constitutional crimes domestically.
You're right, by his own admission he didn't find anything obviously incriminating; but once this all got started, it seems likely if there ever was anything; she'd have deleted such incriminating emails well before there was any formal request for their contents.
I think only Yahoo! has the capacity to say for sure whether or not she illegally used personal accounts for non-governmental business. I would have been extremely surprised if any such emails still existed when the formal inquiries began.
Not at a state level, only on an individual level (this was one of the original mandates of the federal government, specifically to prevent trade embargoes between states). You'd easily end up with individuals willing to trade in slave-produced goods from the south, and with less competition in the market (and higher demand for those products as a result of other people being unwilling to trade in it), such individuals would profit substantially.
Even if no such individuals already existed in those states (presuming all citizens of the northern states were of like mind), southerners would have readily traveled north and taken on the role.
They purposely avoided using EZPass and such systems for issuing speeding citations because they want to encourage rather than discourage adoption. They are trying to save themselves the expense of having sufficiently large and staffed toll booths to accommodate ever increasing traffic volume.
Given this is a voluntary system, very few people would take advantage of it if it meant getting tickets for speeding.
The system being proposed is mandatory, so they'll have no such qualms.
However if they do start issuing speeding tickets through it, the same thing will happen to those cameras as happens to the speeding cameras in GB - someone comes up behind it and covers it with a large plastic trash bag which they then light on fire - sometimes permanently destroying the device, but at least requiring a maintenance crew to come out and replace the glass window.
Yes, that's absolutely correct. Except to equate IT to plumbing is not quite right. Nothing against our plumbing brethren, this is actually a relatively difficult profession (they make more than many technologists as a result), but I think IT personnel are more like mechanics and machinists who work on those monster automatic assembly systems.
A plumbing job can be done once and not need attention for many years. A machinist can produce a new mass production system, but still be needed to sort out minor timing issues or locations of unexpected wear. Eventually if there are no new features to be added, the machinist's job is done and all that's left is maintenance (diagnosing and repairing or replacing worn or broken parts).
But to further extend this model to the IT environment, the reason that IT staffers don't get to just get a good system set up and running once then only be around on contract for periodic maintenance is that companies are always demanding more newer and faster features. What this machine produces changes from month to month. New features are added, old features are removed. Every time you change the features of this behemoth, you end up having little niggles that have to be followed up on.
In addition, the workers at the different manufacturing stations like to play around with their part of the machine by seeing what happens when you paint this cog pink, or put a nice potted plant in front of that greasy wheel. Plus that gear - well, I think it would look better sitting over here.
Now take 400 of those machines, some feature stable, some always changing, some machines are used simultaneously by hundreds of people (HVAC system), some machines hundreds of people each have one to themselves (golf carts). This is the physical world equivalent of an IT environment.
I'm not sure I'd say "just about any," but I'd wager it it's true for many professions.
I suspect intellectual dishonesty is higher in IT applicants than in other industries, by-and-large as fallout from the dot-com boom and bust (lots of unqualified people commanding high salary jobs back then are still out there trying to get a piece of that action since they may not have much else in terms of viable employability).
That's not universally true in either the positive or negative case. Such is the way with blanket statements of this nature.
Having a computer science degree may confer a better ability to write system drivers or do other low level work, but in my own experience as a CS graduate who has worked in the field both before and after acquiring my degree, if you're working in higher level systems like Java,.NET, or basically any web programming, it confers only a minor advantage - substantially less than the differences in natural talent from person to person.
Honestly as a person who interviews and recommends for hire (or not) on a somewhat frequent basis, I don't find formal education to be a significant predictor of developer quality.
I didn't say that only non-CS majors are good programmers. I asserted that being a CS major does not adequately predict a good programmer.
I'm a CS major. It doesn't mean much except that I perhaps have a little better understanding of how low-level systems work. Computer Science degrees are not programming degrees, I'm sorry if that wasn't your understanding when you got your degree.
It is entirely reasonable. Having a degree, and even several (perhaps many) years of verifiable / verified "experience" says very little about your actual qualifications. One of the best developers I know has a degree in history, and within 6 months of beginning development was producing better quality work than some guys who have been developing for years.
Also the number of people who lie about their qualifications is unbelievable. Many previous employers are afraid of getting into legal trouble and so will never give a real reference, either positive or negative. They'll basically only confirm dates of employment.
Finally, this industry is full of really excellent snow job men. People who have convinced their previous employer that they're really a cracker-jack developer, when in fact they are only barely able to cobble together code examples from other people.
Also it's not infrequent for several candidates to have what looks like reasonably similar experience on paper, yet differ widely on actual performance skills.
Last month, we interviewed a guy for a ColdFusion developer job, and when we asked him what the difference between a Struct and an Array were (one is associatively indexed, and does not preserve insert order, the other is sequentially numerically indexed and of course does preserve insert order - an equivalent to a HashMap and a Vector), he sputtered and stammered for a few seconds, then proceeded to read us search results from Google (we all followed along on our end) which were not an answer to the question ("Let's see, you can append a Struct. Oh, but then you can append an Array").
Some consultant firms make money only for placing a body in a seat. So some of these firms actually falsify resumes and provide references which are also false (they employ the people who answer the phone or respond to the email when you check the reference). They even go so far as to have a handful of guys who do the phone interviews - and these are not the same guy who shows up. Some times the guy who shows up has no experience with the technology at all.
Plus, who told you other professions don't get tested? Some jobs even come with personality tests - maybe they're looking for someone hyper aggressive, maybe they're looking for a peace maker. Though such tests are usually for higher up positions, and usually only for the short list of candidates.
It's not degrading in the least to be required to take a test to prove your qualifications. If you have the qualifications you profess to have, you should have no problem with the test.
It's safeguarding the company at hand, and if you wanted to refuse to take the test, we would want to not hire you. It's a matter of there being too many slime balls and con men out there in the world, we can't take you at your word until we know you. Until then we need to ask you to prove yourself to us.
Just... wow... the first sentence of your response sums up my counter-response pretty well.
Forced labor, anarchy, elimination of currency. These are your justifications for public ballots. And that's just to address the two example scenarios I raised. I (and certainly the mafioso's I was using for an example) used money as a placeholder for the attribution of power. Even if you eliminated money, individuals will still strive for power, and they will still use force to acquire it.
Look, if you believe in those other things you're speaking of, then you're in the wrong country. They are completely against the very reason this country was founded and has flourished to date. I'd say that voting is one of the least of your concerns.
Besides, without police, who enforces 1 person 1 vote limitations? Maybe everyone should get to vote as often as they like. Maybe I look up the voting records of each individual in my area and shoot anyone who didn't vote the same way as me. The fundamental issue with your basic premise here is "co-operating," it's in the individual's best interests to not cooperate as long as everyone else is; read the Tragedy of the Commons if you don't agree with that.
It's not a dividend from a financial investment, it's an oil royalty payment. Whatever the source, your net dollars-to-government is lower as a result of it.
I am not trying to put you down for receiving the benefit. In fact, my brother lives in Anchorage and receives it. My responses weren't meant as a slight against Alaskans, they were only to raise those two points I highlighted in my previous comment.
You don't think it's a problem to have everyone's vote be public record?
---------
"What seems to be the problem officer?"
"Well, I noticed that your tail light is out, and one of your tires is a little low. Just wanted to let you know, but as part of a routine stop, I need to run your license and registration."
"Thanks officer, here you go."
<officer goes to car then returns>
"Well citizen, it seems you voted for the guy who supported cutting back on police officer benefits. I'm afraid I'm going to have to arrest you for creating a public safety hazard with those two motor vehicle violations. Keep your hands where I can see them, any sudden movement, and I'm going to have to assume you're reaching for a weapon and act accordingly."
------
"I told you that as part of our 'civil protection plan,' you'd have to contribute $500 a week, and vote for Joe Corrupto. I see that you did not do this. Why is it that you invite destruction on your business, your home, and your family? You have lost our protection, and I cannot be held accountable for the consequences."
<SMASH>
-------
You're not always the one in the position of power. It's important that a person's vote not be held against them. It's completely possible to produce a verifiable audit trail without sacrificing this incredibly important protection.
Giving up anonymous ballots is sacrificing liberty for security. I'm sure you're familiar with the old saying about that, and I believe it's as apt as ever.
I realized my error about including the energy supplement after I posted the comment. Though technically the $1,200 supplement was paid out as part of your PFD supplement (the PFD site you linked outlines this). It's still a PFD, it's just almost twice what you got last year because you got an "energy supplement" included in it, plus a $400 increase in the base payout.
Anyway, my original point was two-fold. 1a) The AK government has a significant excess of money such that they feel a need to refund it to their citizens. 1b) this means Sarah Palin has not had to do any tough budgeting. 2) Comparing federal money sent to AK per capita against federal money sent to Washington DC per capita is an absurd comparison when AK has oodles of natural resources and plenty of excess money, while DC isn't even a state and doesn't have the land mass to have any exports at all.
Slashdot Mirror
In my opinion there is no better-than-Gmail web interface. In fact, I prefer its interface over that of desktop mail clients.
I run hosted Gmail for a couple of my domains, and I'm positively in love with it.
I'm having a hard time finding specific details from an authoritative source; but I believe anyone can amend a bill with only a very minor vote of approval. My guess (again because I'm having a hard time finding specific details), is that those who wish to attach a rider (which is specifically an amendment unrelated to the main purpose of the bill) would wait to do so until a specific time when not enough opposing members are present to defeat it.
I agree, if everyone stopped putting up with it, it would go away. The problem is you won't get everyone to stop putting up with it because those in the minority are likely to use it as a tool to get things they don't have the majority to vote for on their own (usually attached to "must-pass" bills like appropriations, which if voted down would end up effectively halting government), or to block a bill they disagree with (called the poison pill - $100 million for blackjack and hookers in the capital building - then the minority party all votes against it, and uses it against anyone who voted for it in spite of the poisoned rider).
If nobody voted for a bill that had any amendment they disagreed with, as the minority party it's now absurdly simple to block any legislation you don't want passed. If people accept that sometimes undesirable riders are going to get passed (I don't think it's possible to outright prohibit riders since what is a rider vs a valid amendment is subject to opinion), then you at least have to make poison pills fairly outrageous (which can be used against you) or you have to keep the pork riders fairly "reasonable."
Other countries try to prohibit rider amendments, but nobody really has a system that works perfectly because as I mentioned it's subjective and not objective. England's Parliament prohibits amendments which fall outside of the "long title" of the bill. That's bypassed by making sure that the long title of a bill contains text such as "and related matters."
As long as you have people with differing agendas, and as long as you have the ability to amend bills (which I think is fairly important actually), people will abuse amendments no matter what the general stance is in regards to tolerance of undesirable amendments. The stance of universal complete intolerance of anything undesirable will lead to no bill ever passing since it is not very likely that any bill would be presented which any member of congress agreed with 100% completely.
RE 100 year war: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=VFknKVjuyNk
RE social security: it was phrased poorly, he was speaking about McCain's plan for social security for the future (as evident by the greater context), not claiming that tomorrow people would be suddenly without a nest egg.
RE McCain's technical competence: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=971317&cid=25103351 (hear him speak in his own words directly to this question)
RE McCain's actions: I agree. The John McCain of 5+ years ago would have had a great shot at my vote. The John McCain of today has 62 major lies that he has been spreading. He is being reckless, and he does not have a good plan for the future. The John McCain of today is not the John McCain I admired years ago. Now he's one of the worst offenders of the sort of change he pretends to promote.
So which lies has Obama's campaign been making up about John McCain which are demonstrably false and not a matter of opinion? For that matter, I'm willing to entertain all lies. Even the conservative media is telling McCain that he's going too far and has repeatedly crossed the line between "politics as usual" and outrageous untruths.
"I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get." - John McCain
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1884558/6206369
Well, you can vote for the guy who has promised change all along, and speaks in very clear terms about exactly what that change entails.
Or you can vote for the guy whose platform is, "I'm a maverick - see, I picked a running mate that nobody would EVERY have expected," and whose campaign has devolved to just making up stuff, and claiming his opponent said it .
Then don't vote for him.
You're going to pay higher taxes under Obama's plan only if you make more than $250,000. McCain gives tax cuts across the board, though people making $500,000 and up are getting a substantially larger tax cut (even in terms of percent of income) than lower and middle class people (eg, if you make $2 million+, you can expect to see at least $290,000 in tax cuts).
McCain is also planning to lower the corporate tax ceiling to 25% from 35%; while Obama at least won't lower it.
I believe in a 3rd party system, but Obama is the best candidate to come out of either party for at least several decades. I voted 3rd party last election, but this election there is far too much at stake, and one candidate (who may not be perfect) is so many orders of magnitude better than the other - plus I'm in a swing state - that I cannot allow my vote to go for another candidate. I believe strongly that this guy needs to get into office.
I'll continue to support the 3rd party at the local and national level - the grassroots level, but this time around there's more important issues than that.
Yep, I'll go with the one who "has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started." The one who publicly stated the Iraq war was being entered into without enough knowledge and forethought at a time when that was a politically damaging stance to have.
It would only change the chess game. The minority party would get riders attached which they knew were undesirable to the majority party, and if the majority party took the ultra principled approach of never voting for a bill which has even a single provision they disagree with, the minority party would be able to easily torpedo every majority party bill that they felt like. They would do this not because they were trying to block a bill they disagreed with (though probably sometimes they would), they would do it to make the majority party look bad so the minority party did better next round of elections.
In addition, very nearly no bill would ever successfully pass into law; you'll never have a bill that is universally agreed with by the majority of congress.
All that would lead to is a change in the language used. No candidate would risk his office by making any positive assertion under such a system. There'd be lots of qualifying "try to" and "strive for" and "work towards." Actually a lot like it is today.
As he explained, FISA protects the telecoms from civil suits, but it does not protect them from criminal ones; and it's the criminal ones which are going to really hurt the people responsible (with a civil suit, the company would pay the damages, and the people responsible would never feel the pain - instead their customers would get higher bills).
It was important that the protections FISA legitimately provides were brought into effect. If FISA had been allowed to lapse, and that had been used as an opportunity for attack, the current Bush regime would have been cemented in place. This was a HUGE risk for the country.
Him voting to support it was acknowledgment that sometimes there is a bigger issue than something like civil lawsuits - and it doesn't close the door on establishing accountability both past and future.
The technology stance is important, but there are a lot of substantially more important issues on the table right now.
We're looking at the candidate who has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started, and the candidate who has resorted to making bald faced, demonstrably false and misleading lies that in a non-political context would be grounds for a successful slander/libel suit.
When considering technology specifically, your choices are Obama, who at least understands technology well enough to have created a successful social networking style community site, and McCain who admits he barely even knows how to turn his computer on. If you're voting technology, Obama is the clear superior choice to McCain.
I know, 3rd party candidate and all that. I'm a supporter of breaking the 2-party system we have here in the US because I think it really hurts us; but to be completely honest, in this election it is down to two candidates.
It is extremely unlikely that a 3rd party candidate will successfully run for president until there are a fair share of 3rd party candidates in congress who can prove their chops in a way that makes the lot of them look less crazy (some 3rd party candidates look that way, it gives the better ones a bad name). If you support this ideal, trying to support it top-down isn't the way to get it to happen, it's got to be bottom up - local, state, and federal officials.
In the mean time, support a candidate who has the ability and perspicacity to restore our good will with the rest of the world. The way the economy is going right now, in 2 or 4 years, net neutrality is going to be a lot less important than food on the table and whether or not our troops are committing war crimes abroad, and whether or not our government is committing anti-constitutional crimes domestically.
You're right, by his own admission he didn't find anything obviously incriminating; but once this all got started, it seems likely if there ever was anything; she'd have deleted such incriminating emails well before there was any formal request for their contents.
I think only Yahoo! has the capacity to say for sure whether or not she illegally used personal accounts for non-governmental business. I would have been extremely surprised if any such emails still existed when the formal inquiries began.
Not at a state level, only on an individual level (this was one of the original mandates of the federal government, specifically to prevent trade embargoes between states). You'd easily end up with individuals willing to trade in slave-produced goods from the south, and with less competition in the market (and higher demand for those products as a result of other people being unwilling to trade in it), such individuals would profit substantially.
Even if no such individuals already existed in those states (presuming all citizens of the northern states were of like mind), southerners would have readily traveled north and taken on the role.
They purposely avoided using EZPass and such systems for issuing speeding citations because they want to encourage rather than discourage adoption. They are trying to save themselves the expense of having sufficiently large and staffed toll booths to accommodate ever increasing traffic volume.
Given this is a voluntary system, very few people would take advantage of it if it meant getting tickets for speeding.
The system being proposed is mandatory, so they'll have no such qualms.
However if they do start issuing speeding tickets through it, the same thing will happen to those cameras as happens to the speeding cameras in GB - someone comes up behind it and covers it with a large plastic trash bag which they then light on fire - sometimes permanently destroying the device, but at least requiring a maintenance crew to come out and replace the glass window.
Yes, that's absolutely correct. Except to equate IT to plumbing is not quite right. Nothing against our plumbing brethren, this is actually a relatively difficult profession (they make more than many technologists as a result), but I think IT personnel are more like mechanics and machinists who work on those monster automatic assembly systems.
A plumbing job can be done once and not need attention for many years. A machinist can produce a new mass production system, but still be needed to sort out minor timing issues or locations of unexpected wear. Eventually if there are no new features to be added, the machinist's job is done and all that's left is maintenance (diagnosing and repairing or replacing worn or broken parts).
But to further extend this model to the IT environment, the reason that IT staffers don't get to just get a good system set up and running once then only be around on contract for periodic maintenance is that companies are always demanding more newer and faster features. What this machine produces changes from month to month. New features are added, old features are removed. Every time you change the features of this behemoth, you end up having little niggles that have to be followed up on.
In addition, the workers at the different manufacturing stations like to play around with their part of the machine by seeing what happens when you paint this cog pink, or put a nice potted plant in front of that greasy wheel. Plus that gear - well, I think it would look better sitting over here.
Now take 400 of those machines, some feature stable, some always changing, some machines are used simultaneously by hundreds of people (HVAC system), some machines hundreds of people each have one to themselves (golf carts). This is the physical world equivalent of an IT environment.
I'm not sure I'd say "just about any," but I'd wager it it's true for many professions.
I suspect intellectual dishonesty is higher in IT applicants than in other industries, by-and-large as fallout from the dot-com boom and bust (lots of unqualified people commanding high salary jobs back then are still out there trying to get a piece of that action since they may not have much else in terms of viable employability).
That's not universally true in either the positive or negative case. Such is the way with blanket statements of this nature.
Having a computer science degree may confer a better ability to write system drivers or do other low level work, but in my own experience as a CS graduate who has worked in the field both before and after acquiring my degree, if you're working in higher level systems like Java, .NET, or basically any web programming, it confers only a minor advantage - substantially less than the differences in natural talent from person to person.
Honestly as a person who interviews and recommends for hire (or not) on a somewhat frequent basis, I don't find formal education to be a significant predictor of developer quality.
I didn't say that only non-CS majors are good programmers. I asserted that being a CS major does not adequately predict a good programmer.
I'm a CS major. It doesn't mean much except that I perhaps have a little better understanding of how low-level systems work. Computer Science degrees are not programming degrees, I'm sorry if that wasn't your understanding when you got your degree.
It is entirely reasonable. Having a degree, and even several (perhaps many) years of verifiable / verified "experience" says very little about your actual qualifications. One of the best developers I know has a degree in history, and within 6 months of beginning development was producing better quality work than some guys who have been developing for years.
Also the number of people who lie about their qualifications is unbelievable. Many previous employers are afraid of getting into legal trouble and so will never give a real reference, either positive or negative. They'll basically only confirm dates of employment.
Finally, this industry is full of really excellent snow job men. People who have convinced their previous employer that they're really a cracker-jack developer, when in fact they are only barely able to cobble together code examples from other people.
Also it's not infrequent for several candidates to have what looks like reasonably similar experience on paper, yet differ widely on actual performance skills.
Last month, we interviewed a guy for a ColdFusion developer job, and when we asked him what the difference between a Struct and an Array were (one is associatively indexed, and does not preserve insert order, the other is sequentially numerically indexed and of course does preserve insert order - an equivalent to a HashMap and a Vector), he sputtered and stammered for a few seconds, then proceeded to read us search results from Google (we all followed along on our end) which were not an answer to the question ("Let's see, you can append a Struct. Oh, but then you can append an Array").
Some consultant firms make money only for placing a body in a seat. So some of these firms actually falsify resumes and provide references which are also false (they employ the people who answer the phone or respond to the email when you check the reference). They even go so far as to have a handful of guys who do the phone interviews - and these are not the same guy who shows up. Some times the guy who shows up has no experience with the technology at all.
Plus, who told you other professions don't get tested? Some jobs even come with personality tests - maybe they're looking for someone hyper aggressive, maybe they're looking for a peace maker. Though such tests are usually for higher up positions, and usually only for the short list of candidates.
It's not degrading in the least to be required to take a test to prove your qualifications. If you have the qualifications you profess to have, you should have no problem with the test.
It's safeguarding the company at hand, and if you wanted to refuse to take the test, we would want to not hire you. It's a matter of there being too many slime balls and con men out there in the world, we can't take you at your word until we know you. Until then we need to ask you to prove yourself to us.
So since you separate yourself so strongly from "my country," what country is yours?
Just... wow... the first sentence of your response sums up my counter-response pretty well.
Forced labor, anarchy, elimination of currency. These are your justifications for public ballots. And that's just to address the two example scenarios I raised. I (and certainly the mafioso's I was using for an example) used money as a placeholder for the attribution of power. Even if you eliminated money, individuals will still strive for power, and they will still use force to acquire it.
Look, if you believe in those other things you're speaking of, then you're in the wrong country. They are completely against the very reason this country was founded and has flourished to date. I'd say that voting is one of the least of your concerns.
Besides, without police, who enforces 1 person 1 vote limitations? Maybe everyone should get to vote as often as they like. Maybe I look up the voting records of each individual in my area and shoot anyone who didn't vote the same way as me. The fundamental issue with your basic premise here is "co-operating," it's in the individual's best interests to not cooperate as long as everyone else is; read the Tragedy of the Commons if you don't agree with that.
It's not a dividend from a financial investment, it's an oil royalty payment. Whatever the source, your net dollars-to-government is lower as a result of it.
I am not trying to put you down for receiving the benefit. In fact, my brother lives in Anchorage and receives it. My responses weren't meant as a slight against Alaskans, they were only to raise those two points I highlighted in my previous comment.
You don't think it's a problem to have everyone's vote be public record?
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"What seems to be the problem officer?"
"Well, I noticed that your tail light is out, and one of your tires is a little low. Just wanted to let you know, but as part of a routine stop, I need to run your license and registration."
"Thanks officer, here you go."
<officer goes to car then returns>
"Well citizen, it seems you voted for the guy who supported cutting back on police officer benefits. I'm afraid I'm going to have to arrest you for creating a public safety hazard with those two motor vehicle violations. Keep your hands where I can see them, any sudden movement, and I'm going to have to assume you're reaching for a weapon and act accordingly."
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"I told you that as part of our 'civil protection plan,' you'd have to contribute $500 a week, and vote for Joe Corrupto. I see that you did not do this. Why is it that you invite destruction on your business, your home, and your family? You have lost our protection, and I cannot be held accountable for the consequences."
<SMASH>
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You're not always the one in the position of power. It's important that a person's vote not be held against them. It's completely possible to produce a verifiable audit trail without sacrificing this incredibly important protection.
Giving up anonymous ballots is sacrificing liberty for security. I'm sure you're familiar with the old saying about that, and I believe it's as apt as ever.
Really? It costs you more to live in Alaska than in the lower 48?
How about compared to San Francisco? How about compared to New York? Alaska may be above the average, but it's by no means one of the most expensive places to live. Sorry, if you compare metropolitan centers, that doesn't hold up. Even if you compare a relatively remote region, or a region with no natural water ways for shipping benefit, it still doesn't hold up.
I realized my error about including the energy supplement after I posted the comment. Though technically the $1,200 supplement was paid out as part of your PFD supplement (the PFD site you linked outlines this). It's still a PFD, it's just almost twice what you got last year because you got an "energy supplement" included in it, plus a $400 increase in the base payout.
Anyway, my original point was two-fold. 1a) The AK government has a significant excess of money such that they feel a need to refund it to their citizens. 1b) this means Sarah Palin has not had to do any tough budgeting. 2) Comparing federal money sent to AK per capita against federal money sent to Washington DC per capita is an absurd comparison when AK has oodles of natural resources and plenty of excess money, while DC isn't even a state and doesn't have the land mass to have any exports at all.
Godwin's law: Check. All other arguments by you: void.