It doesn't matter if it even is right or wrong, the point is you need to provide a citation that the EU project is designed to destroy democracy which is what you claim.
It could just as well be that the EU project is an imperfect system that needs some improvements in some areas.
You're claiming it's intentional that the EU works against democracy, you need to prove that claim. How do you know it's intentional? where is your evidence that it's intentional?
All you've done is cite a few examples where it isn't as democratic as it should be, that doesn't prove that that's it's overriding goal though.
It's not that simple. You can have reformers inside a bad regime but it doesn't mean they're bad. Just because that regime is responsible for something does not mean everyone is complicit and supports it.
In fact, rumours are that this guy was executed because he was negotiating with China to try and pressure the rest of North Korea to adopting Burma/China style economic reform that would open up the economy which would make the lives of those in North Korea better.
Do you really believe it's more ethical to just quit the regime and fuck off into exile elsewhere rather than to risk your life attempting to change it from the inside? Quitting would've just bolstered Kim Jon Un unquestionably, but killing him at least makes many others question if this is a man they want to risk working under.
Kim Jong Un was always going to be the worst kind of dictator because he's the bullied spoilt chubby-boy runt of the litter and has decades of being so to make up for now he has a position of power.
He's North Korea's answer to Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Actually I think it's quite fitting, now rather than reading drivel from people about how they're new baby shat itself again or how someone broke down at some traffic lights - people whom I only begrudgingly accepted their friend requests so I don't have to answer that awkward "Why did you ignore my friends request on Facebook" if I ever bump into them in real life because I'm averse to crushing their souls by being honest and saying "Because you're really actually quite a boring, annoying, pointless person". I can similarly deliver inane shit into their lives about how I just killed someone with a defibrillator in Battlefield 4.
I was under the impression the whole point in Facebook is to spread complete nonsense about your life that absolutely no one else gives a shit about so the question is why do you think this doesn't fit in?
Thank you for providing your perspective. I've never had to suffer war but my grandmother was a blitz survivor during World War II. If I told her that someone had said civilians don't go outside, or help each other in war she'd have been sickened at such an attitude - our whole country's existence depended precisely on people "Keeping calm, and Carrying on" even if what was at risk was your very own life. We simply would've never held out against the Nazis if everyone was like him, with the attitude that they shouldn't go out and help in case they become victims too.
I'm fortunate that I did have relatives touched by the reality of war both as combatants (my grandfather was a royal marine commando and took part in the D-Day landings) and non-combatants (my grandmother was just a civilian) to learn the reality of it from.
I hope things have improved and will continue to do so for you. you have a beautiful country and I hope one day it'll be a fully peaceful country. There is wild flora I've long wanted to see in Colombia but alas they exist in territory where there is FARC activity so I've frankly been too cowardly to take the risk - my respect to you for not having the luxury of that choice but the balls to do what needs to be done to survive in the face of it.
"The people in the video were not wearing uniforms."
So you ARE saying the Apache pilots could determine whether these guy's clothing had any insignias on their clothing but couldn't possibly differentiate between a camera and an RPG?
I mean, let's just be clear here, you're saying you can determine that people in these pictures both have weapons, and aren't in some kind of uniform? -
Some of them clearly don't have weapons, some are clearly unarmed. That alone means collateral damage of what could only be determined to be civilians was guaranteed by pulling the trigger - that alone breaches both the Geneva convention and the US' RoE as you have to try to avoid civilian casualties, even if it means not making the kill.
Your argument has just entered the realm of complete absurdity at this point, and you seem to be completely making stuff up to the point I wonder if you've even seen the video in the first place, let alone seen it recently.
You talk on about how these guys somehow did something right under the Geneva convention yet still seem utterly oblivious to the rules of engagement direct from the US military that these pilots were operating under earlier which these pilots clearly breached. Rules of engagement that are based on the Geneva convention (something you clearly don't understand - your incorrect definition of unlawful combatant includes US special forces operatives for example).
But what's particularly telling about the fact I'm not sure you've even seen the video is that even the troops on the ground these pilots were supposed to be protecting show disgust at the fact one of them is carrying a dying kid in his arms. The tone of the pilots response when they find out says it all - they're clearly aware that they got far too carried away and know full well they engaged civilians when they shouldn't have.
So when even the people involved know that shit went wrong it's quite telling, and shows how far removed from reality your viewpoint is.
Come back when you've watched the video, come back when you realise that you can't possibly tell if the people killed were militants from what they were wearing, come back when you hear the tone of the marine medics voice as he carries the wounded kid.
Perhaps then you'll have a point, until then you're still just making stuff up. You're still ignoring the fact that the people in the van were unquestionably not confirmed as combatants, you're still ignoring the fact that the Apache crew broke their own nations rules of engagement.
You can't escape these things, as much as you desperately try and make stuff up, creating your own fanciful definitions of the Geneva convention and the term unlawful combatant - a term that the very article you linked points out doesn't actually exists anywhere within the Geneva convention in the first place.
The Geneva convention is clear, above all else you can't kill civilians, and you must er on the side that an unidentified person is a civilian. The Apache pilots very clearly did not do this with the van driver if nothing else. You're still parroting the myth that these guys were actually engaging in war rather than simply acting as a vigilante neighbourhood patrol performing the role of policing and that's where your argument that these guys were combatants falls flat on it's face. Even ignoring the first round of guys there's just simply no argument that the guy in the van was somehow engaging in combat - you just can't argue that no matter how hard you try - the argument isn't about uniforms or non-uniforms, it's about whether these guys were engaging in war - the first ones, maybe if you make an awful lot of unfounded assumptions (which you have done) you can argue were, but the second lot? you just can't. There's just no argument there.
This is precisely why the "do not fire until fired upon rule" came about i
What the fuck? You're still outright making stuff up. But let's just say for a second you weren't. Why did the Apache pilot fire? are you actually telling me he could tell they were uniformed but couldn't tell that a camera wasn't an RPG? Seriously, you're making that stupid an argument?
"In fact anyone who is not uniformed is considered, by the Geneva convention, to be an unlawful combatant."
That's not even what the link you provided says. Again, you're making stuff up.
"No, I do not think you should just blow everything up."
So why defend exactly that if you don't believe it?
"However, I do not believe that the average citizen would rush in there and try and provide aid in the middle of a firefight."
It wasn't the middle of a firefight. The Apache let off a few devastating bursts and that was it. I don't think a militant would rush in with his fucking child in the van either for what it's worth.
"I do not believe the average citizen would go into the scene of a recent firefight while the attack helicopter that executed the attack was still orbiting overhead."
You really have no idea do you? The helicopter was over a km away. Unless he saw it fire he'd almost certainly not have known what had even caused the devastation - it might just as well have looked like the aftermath of an IED or a mortar strike to the average civilian.
"And I've already established that the Geneva convention allows you to treat non uniformed people as combatants."
No, that's not what you've established. You've established that you can post links that don't back up what you're suggesting they do in the slightest. The only reference to uniform at all in the article is in relation to a US ruling against spies and saboteurs working for a state entity (Nazi Germany).
"I have seen what sort of psychological damage they all have from Iraq and Afghanistan. I know how terrible it has been for all of them."
Me too from the British side, but I'm not sure what the relevance is.
"I do, however, believe that those people who were just trying to stay alive should not be treated as bloodthirsty villains for doing their jobs."
How is being sat 1km from a bunch of people running around but not firing at US forces "just trying to stay alive" exactly? You've still yet to actually establish that these people were even a threat to US forces, which is exactly the point.
If we cut away the bullshit, you're effectively summing up your argument as "I do not believe military personnel could ever do wrong".
Stop lying, stop making stuff up, stop claiming links say things they don't.
"First of all the camera was not identifiable as a camera when the attack started. Secondly, unless you think that Wikipedia is pro US Military, the Wikipedia article on the attack clearly states"
I think Wikipedia is whatever the biases of the last editor who edited that section are.
But you're still missing the point, even if armed it doesn't matter. There was nothing illegal about being armed, Iraq was full of local militia who were legitimately armed. Merely being armed wasn't a green light to fire at will.
Then there's a case of the van where there was without question absolutely no way to tell if it was full of armed insurgents or not. Even if you do believe that the Apache pilots should be able to fire on people for no other reason than that they are armed you can't argue that they had the same excuse for firing on the van.
"I bet you would find it to be a little less nonsensical if it was you on the ground being shot at by insurgents."
I don't know what I'd do, nor does it matter. I do know however that other nation's militaries such as the British and French manage to do a far better job of adhering to sensible rules of engagement that aren't counter-productive than America does however. Given that, it's obviously possible for militaries to be a little more restrained, so there's no excuse.
"Even if they did not actively engage the troops first, they were not allowed to be armed in the streets of Baghdad. Only military personnel were allowed weaponry."
This is a flat out lie. Stop making shit up.
The US actively supported some armed militias and encouraged them, so you couldn't even be further from the truth. Then there's non-military contractors, security guards and so forth. You just have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
"I disagree."
You can disagree all you want, you'd still be wrong. Civilians and enemy combatants are well defined, civilians can be armed, merely being armed doesn't make them enemy combatants. Similarly, guys getting out of vans as they pass an area and see someone wounded are more than allowed to try and help injured people, that does not make you an enemy combatant by anyone's rules. Go actually read the US rules of engagement I linked instead of continuing to make shit up.
"but I do distinctly remember seeing weapons"
Maybe you do, but that's quite different to your previous statement about seeing them actively engaging the troops.
"So even if that video does not show anything but the weapons, it is clearly known that the troops on the ground were facing enemy fire."
So you think in a war, that if there's fire coming from some general area the best thing to do is blow the whole fucking area up and not worry about the geneva convention, civilian casualties, or collateral damage in general?
I hope to flying fuck you are not in the military, and if you are you symbolise the very reason America has lost so many wars from Vietnam, to Lebanon, to Somalia, to Iraq, to Afghanistan. Because winning wars is about more than just destroying everything.
Yes, many Wikipedia editors seem more obsessed with destruction of content rather than creation. I added something once that I didn't realise someone would be so absurdly anal as to suggest requiring a citation and they just removed the whole block of information, rather than spend literally 10 seconds searching Google to merely add the citation they so desperately wanted. I did one of those dispute deletion things and the tit who deleted it was overturned but it still put me off ever wasting my time there again.
Wikipedia is going to reach a fundamental limit of knowledge if these people equal or outweigh the helpful editors because their whole existence will be spent removing as much content as positive contributors add and worse, it's far easier to remove content than spend time researching, citing, and correctly formatting it so destroyers of content will always have the upper hand.
"Because I was working directly WITH Apache pilots and maintainers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and they all agree that the pilots did follow proper procedure for the discharge of weapons."
Of course they would. US military doctrine is to close rank and protect your fellow soldier. This has about zero relevance though - I'd rather trust those who don't have a vested interest in arguing that they should be free to shoot what they want, when they want.
"They were providing close air support for troops on the ground that were under active engagement. It does not matter if the Apache itself is under direct threat from any potential RPG. The ground troops were under direct threat."
There's so many things wrong with your statement here:
- The troops could not be under active engagement because the cameraman had a camera, not an RPG
- The troops were not under direct threat when the Apache fired because they were not near enough the scene at that point
What the Apache pilot did was attempt pro-active killing under the suspicion they might be a threat when they were in range. That's not the same as protecting allies under "active engagement". See my cop example - should cops shoot anyone with a gun in their vehicle, just in case they might be a threat? It's absurd, it's nonsense.
"Obviously you do not know what the rules of engagement were at that time in Iraq."
Obviously you don't. But obviously I do. See above link. What you went on to describe doesn't even fit into rules of engagement. Rules of engagement don't describe what civilians can and can't do, only what makes a valid target and civilians are explicitly never a target otherwise the US' rules of engagement would be in direct breach of the geneva convention and that would make any US soldiers following it war criminals.
"Did you have the audio muted on the video? You could hear the ground personnel in contact with the close air support. You could also see these groups actively engaging the troops on the ground."
I think you watched completely the wrong video because what you're describing is not what was on the unedited feed.
Seriously, check your facts before you post in future. Between pretending things are in the video which aren't, and pretending that the rules of engagement aren't now widely publicised you've merely exposed yourself as spouting as much nonsense as Cold Fjord.
"The so called "collateral murder" video was nonsense."
Out of interest, what was nonsense about it? I saw the unedited version first, not even being aware that there was an edited version and it was objectively the case that the Apache pilots broke various norms of war.
They claimed they needed to fire because the targets had RPGs that could be used against them but their gun cam clearly showed that not only were they out of RPG range, but they were even further out of objective RPG range.
The van they shot with the kid in they completely and utterly failed to determine if it was even actually a threat and fired anyway.
These are not the actions of competent military personnel. The norm in such situations is do not fire until fired upon, but this took it to another level and fired before they could even be sure there was a real actual threat.
This isn't just my opinion, this is objective fact. The rules of engagement are well publicised and there's simply no argument against the fact that the Apache gunner broke them. There's absolutely no avoiding that.
It's directly equivalent to a cop just sitting alongside the road and then shooting a guy passing with a hunting rifle visible in his car before even talking to them, and then shooting another passer by that stops to try and help just in case they were both a threat. We don't allow our police to do that at home, and we shouldn't be allowing military forces to do it in a post-war occupation role. It's counter productive and the whole reason America got fucked in Iraq - because the Iraqis quickly realised they didn't want to be occupied by forces that shot them for shits and giggles - "just in case" and turned on American forces as a result.
"But frankly, your criticism in this case has little credibility with me."
Why are you now complaining about being down modded? It's not like I didn't warn you that your attempts at character assassination probably wouldn't go down well given that they're entirely one sided and too obviously agenda based.
I don't demand that you to listen to me, or anyone else, I don't demand that my points to have credibility with you, but if you are going to opt to go down that route of ignoring my point, if you are going to claim my point has no credibility with you, then you can't complain when you inevitably then get down modded. That's the option you chose, that's the path you walked, and the decision you made.
The response to your posts on issues like this is predictable, either learn to understand why you're being down modded or accept that it will happen. There are topics where I have viewpoints that aren't popular on Slashdot and similarly get downmodded, I either accept that I'll get downmodded or I just don't waste my time on those topics. It's just the way it is.
You've got three options - 1) try and be a bit more understanding as to why your posts are perceived to be extremely biased and down modded, 2) If you think you're right and Slashdot is the problem, then don't bother posting on discussions you know you'll just get downmodded, or 3) Just keep on posting on the topics you do in the way you do and keep on getting down modded.
But what you can't do is carry on as is and then whine about getting down modded, you know it's going to happen so why act surprised and like a victim when it does? You put yourself in that position, you opted for it.
At the end of the day discussion on Slashdot is largely meaningless unless you get something out of it, you're not going to change the world here but you might get some interesting discussion or encounter opposing viewpoints worth considering. If you're not going to engage in worthwhile discussion or accept anyone elses point though and are just going to spout one sided propaganda then you're wasting both your time and that of everyone else.
The problem is the people you're linking to that "know him" are only the ones that had a falling out with him and/or are jealous of him.
The problem is there are many more out there that know him and outright praise him.
So your one-sided completely biased post doesn't exactly earn much credibility given that fact.
But you know this, because it's your usual modus operandi isn't it? It's what you do every single time such a subject comes up.
I doubt anyone has a problem with genuine critique of Assange, but seriously dude, you need to learn a bit about objectivity. Taking one-sided views of a person then claiming that's everything that person is is utterly pathetic, I might just as well claim you're a troll based on this and dismiss everything you've ever said or have got to say, but I'm more pragmatic than that, I recognise that sometimes, just sometimes, you have a point. This isn't one of those times.
What are you ranting on about? What has the US got to do with any of this? What's the relevance of what I think the Swiss people knew about it?
None of your little rant changes the facts. It's still dirty money that the Swiss got wealthy off of regardless of what the people of Switzerland did or didn't know or what the US doesn't or doesn't do today.
You may want to keep your nonsensical little outbursts to yourself, or at least learn to follow a topic of discussion rather than just rant on about things that have zero relevance to the discussion.
No, in the UK, by definition, they're not. In the UK, by definition, we use policing by consent, which explicitly requires that the police police with the consent of the populace.
Go learn about policing by consent and you'll see why what you believe is wrong.
I looked into this exactly issue the other week and in the UK (where this happened) the person receiving the goods has to allow the seller to arrange for collection of the incorrectly shipped product, assuming:
1) It was clearly shipped by mistake
2) The seller asks for it back
The person receiving does not have to go out their way to return the product nor do they have to inform the seller, but if the seller asks and arranges for collection the person receiving cannot legally block that. The UK differs from the US (by the sounds of it) in that first point, that in the UK you can only keep it if it wasn't sent by mistake - if it was shipped directly to you in your name and address and not as the result of say a mistake in some order you placed then you could keep it. This is why I can use the plethora of charity bags I get spammed with for binning the copious amount of dog shit my dogs produce because they placed them through my letter box and I never asked for them but I couldn't keep a Vita sent in error.
If you received one of these and you'd never ordered anything from Zavvi though you could probably argue to keep it as Zavvi would have a hard time arguing it was sent in error given that it would've been shipped specifically to you despite you having no relationship with them. For them to type out your name and address on a shipping label when they shouldn't have had it in the first place and send to you would likely be deemed a deliberate and intentional act in court.
It's a very fine line but this is how UK law differentiates between honest mistakes and distance selling scams. The argument has already been had in terms of incorrect items being shipped and it's fallen on the side of the retailers in that particular case.
I can't be arsed to search for the link now but this was directly from the government's explanation of distance selling regulations so I'd be inclined to believe it's as correct as you can get.
As Zavvi has explicitly requested that people return the items, and as it was clearly an error on their behalf I do not think consumers would have a leg to stand on here in trying to keep the item and they would lose the court case.
From what I can see the only loophole that may work for the consumer is that Zavvi has asked the consumers to contact them to arrange return of the item and I do not believe the onus is on them to do so. The onus is on Zavvi to contact the affected consumers and not vice versa but I wouldn't want to bet a legal ruling against me on that possible loophole quite frankly though you could likely protect yourself by stating you never got the request for return e-mail and had no idea you were meant to be returning it I suppose. At that point a judge would likely say something along the lines of "Well, now you do know, so hand it over" and take it no further. If you admitted you knew and intentionally refused the judge may award legal costs to Zavvi.
But either way, Zavvi is likely to get their Vitas back under the law.
You're right that Switzerland provided a haven for Jews to store their money, but that doesn't change the fact that it also provided a haven for Nazis to store their looted wealth also.
You're completely wrong to imply Switzerland only banked for oppressed Jews. It very much banked for the oppressing Nazis as well.
To be fair it can happen, whilst I believe it probably is just corruption in this case some nations have tax laws that allow companies to defer tax for various reasons. It varies from country to country but I know in some places companies manage to get away with deferring tax for multiple tax years. If they've been deferring tax for some reason for years such that it builds up and the excuse for deferring they used never actually comes to fruition then the authorities will come knocking for the full amount.
To be fair couldn't you say that of people of most nationalities?
I think most people believe their government is corrupt:)
Though I think in this case they're right, India's corruption problems are well documented, though the GP is an Indian nationalist so don't expect him to hear it - he believes India is the most perfect nation on Earth and superior to all others.
Switzerland's problem is that it's grown wealthy off the back of dirty money.
That is, it's banks have obtained large amounts of money from everyone from Nazi looters through to money stolen by common theft, through to the much more benign tax avoiders and evaders.
This money has been used to invest and bankroll Swiss firms, which is why Switzerland has been able to grow other major firms like Nestle over the years and is what allows Switzerland to have disproportionate corporate punch in the world.
Most nations are willing to turn a blind eye most of the time because although it's a problem for them, a rational cost/benefit analysis has to be performed and most of the time it's more hassle trying to argue a political solution and implement it than it's worth.
But since the recession that's changed, countries are desperate for every penny they can find, a few hundred million or a few billion owed to the tax authorities is a non-issue in boom times relative to the lower hanging fruit they can go after back home instead but when the financial crisis hit and as it has dragged on for so long all the low hanging fruit have been plucked, and suddenly even mere hundreds of millions held abroad are worth going after.
So at this point financially hit countries like the US, UK and much of Western Europe now put the Swiss in their sites, and it becomes an ultimatum for the Swiss at this point - start giving up the criminally held tax, start giving up the tax evaders, or we'll put hefty financial transaction taxes on monetary transfers in and out of your country, or we'll start picking through your nation's companies with a very fine comb looking for fines we can leverage against them.
This is why the Swiss have allowed their banks to start submitting to US tax deals and so forth because the alternative is much less pleasant (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359).
Swiss data centres would be no different - they'd be perfectly solid and safe until they become a measurable problem to a major Western nation or two and as with Swiss banks you'd see a slow erosion from complete secrecy, to allowing warrant based requests for data, to general access to information deals and support for cease and desist orders.
At best therefore they'd be a temporary solution. But if they were willing to host the likes of The Pirate Bay I'd wager that solution would be very temporary indeed given the lobbying power of the MPAA/RIAA and the priority with which the likes of the US would hence pursue such an issue with the Swiss.
"BTW, I'm a sysadmin/network guy, not a developer. "
This probably explains the disparity in our views then, I left that field precisely because I agree benefits and wages went down there, but I assumed we were talking about software development given that that's the subject of this story.
I do however think there's a good reason why IT support salaries and benefits have decreased and that's the simple fact that it's a profession that has become easier over the years, and as it's become easier, it's become open to more candidates and salaries have decreased as a result. I say easier coming largely from a Windows background because it simply has gotten much easier to manage Windows networks. The OS has become more stable and less fault prone, recovery has become much easier, and it's become much less secure. Fundamental software management tasks have become more centralised from AV management to patch and software deployment. It's become more point and click than ever. It was in fact a large part of the reason I got out of that field - I like a challenge and it just reached a point where I wasn't being challenged in the slightest.
There are other problems the field suffers from - it's far easier for blaggers to get IT support jobs than it is for them to get software development jobs. There's a certain baseline of required knowledge and understanding in software development that's just almost impossible to bluff your way through compared to IT support roles.
I do sympathise with the declining wages in your field and I do understand it must be frustrating. I've also seen first hand how annoying it can be to see that your wages are often decreasing because the field is being flooded by blaggers who can talk a good talk but have neither the fundamental passion or knowledge to be truly great in an IT support role, though have just the bare minimum to get by without getting fired. But that field is not software development, software development is very much a job seekers market, it's very much a market where there is a genuine shortage and where wages have been increasing over the last decade. Those who proclaim otherwise are those blaggers frustrated that it's a field they just cannot blag their way into and nothing more, the other 98% of us are doing just fine. It's always nice to want more and do I wish I was paid bankers salaries? of course, don't we all? but being realistic I think we can't complain about what we have - we're doing much better than just about all engineers (telecomms, mechanical, electrical), veterinarians, journalists, corporate sales staff, museum archivists, architects, solicitors, and so on. It's really only lawyers with a lot of years behind them, high end medical staff (i.e. surgeons), high end financial services staff, upper management, and that sort of thing that do noticably better than us on average. It's hard to scoff at that - perhaps my only real concern is that it's a bubble that's going to burst at some point, but it's ridden the wave that was the risk of outsourcing which turned out to be an almighty failure in practice for most firms so fingers crossed it'll remain a well paid profession for some time yet.
Whatever the relevance is no, I'm not a single guy, I have a girlfriend of 8 years, to be married soon. I don't have kids, and don't really plan to, I'm not a fan. I prefer dogs, you can leave them at home longer without them burning the house down or requiring a baby sitter.
So perhaps the difference in fields explains our differences in perception, IT isn't one big field, there's drastic disparity within it.
Unfortunately that says more about you, than me. That article doesn't say what you seem to think it says precisely because I don't think I'm better than everyone else, and the only area I think I do better than average (which the article you linked confirms) is in my ability to recognise my faults and weaknesses and work to improve them as well as recognising when there are people I can learn from. People whom I actively prefer to seek out precisely because there's so much value in recognising those who are better than you and learning from them.
What I do know however is that I suffer none of the complaints people make about the job market, nor have I ever seen any evidence of them in practice. I have never once known a skilled candidate persistently be unable to get a job. Not once have I ever seen such a thing.
I have seen a lot of people who think they're skilled candidates be unable to get a job, but it only takes 5 minutes to recognise that they're precisely the sort of people the article you linked is talking about - those who think they're incredible, but actually suck. It's the same 5 minutes that the interviewer will take to realise the exact same thing.
But there's a numerical explanation as to why pointing out I have a job doesn't mean I think I'm better than everyone else, or better than average. Unemployment in my field is around 2%, so by saying I have no problem getting employment in the software development field I'm not saying I'm better than everyone else, or better than the average - not even close, I'm simply saying I'm in the 98% of the field that does manage to obtain employment just fine - the only implication of my claim is that I'm simply saying I'm obviously not in the bottom 2%, nothing more.
The only claims I make are those I can back up with figures - yes I am paid well above the national average, yes I am in the 98% of developers who get jobs. Those things are facts, not opinion.
"Nice to see there are still people out there who base everyone's situation on their own experience. Thanks for keeping it real."
My experiences are real. The fact is if I can get a job without being given any formal training then that's a simple proof by counterexample that the theory you can't get a job without training is false. It may not proof that it's globally true but it proves given that I've done it a number of times that there are a number of companies out there that don't fit the argument people like you are making.
I've turned companies down, if the industry was so bad I wouldn't be able to do that. The fact I can pick and choose between hundreds of companies means the job market isn't anything like is being painted by those just seeking an excuse for their own failings. Go look at some of girlintraining's posts, she's always whining about how the industry is unfair, how companies suck and how they're not reasonable about recruiting, then she goes on in other threads to show a distinct lack of knowledge about software engineering - that knowledge is going to come out in the interviews and that's why she wasn't getting jobs, because she had no idea what the fuck she was on about, yet she blamed everyone else. That's precisely the sort of problem we're dealing with here.
"Undoubtedly, the wages being offered are lower then they should be."
What "should" they be? If developer wages are above the national average, which they are, then why do you think they're too low?
Personally I think developer wages are high, very high. I've actually chuckled to myself over the last few years more than once at how easy it is to get a hefty raise and decent wage. I feel guilty that it was largely luck of the draw that I ended up in a profession where wages are so good and job opportunities so vast when there are people struggling to make ends meet because life just didn't happen to end up putting them in such a lucrative career.
When I can change jobs every year and command a 30%+ salary increase every single time from an above average starting point it's hard to argue that the developer market is somehow bad. Sure we don't get banker or football star wages, but we're doing far far better than most, and employment is easier to find in this industry far more so than pretty much any other mainstream industry.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't matter if it even is right or wrong, the point is you need to provide a citation that the EU project is designed to destroy democracy which is what you claim.
It could just as well be that the EU project is an imperfect system that needs some improvements in some areas.
You're claiming it's intentional that the EU works against democracy, you need to prove that claim. How do you know it's intentional? where is your evidence that it's intentional?
All you've done is cite a few examples where it isn't as democratic as it should be, that doesn't prove that that's it's overriding goal though.
You can't cite your own comment, that's not how it works.
It's not that simple. You can have reformers inside a bad regime but it doesn't mean they're bad. Just because that regime is responsible for something does not mean everyone is complicit and supports it.
In fact, rumours are that this guy was executed because he was negotiating with China to try and pressure the rest of North Korea to adopting Burma/China style economic reform that would open up the economy which would make the lives of those in North Korea better.
Do you really believe it's more ethical to just quit the regime and fuck off into exile elsewhere rather than to risk your life attempting to change it from the inside? Quitting would've just bolstered Kim Jon Un unquestionably, but killing him at least makes many others question if this is a man they want to risk working under.
Kim Jong Un was always going to be the worst kind of dictator because he's the bullied spoilt chubby-boy runt of the litter and has decades of being so to make up for now he has a position of power.
He's North Korea's answer to Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Actually I think it's quite fitting, now rather than reading drivel from people about how they're new baby shat itself again or how someone broke down at some traffic lights - people whom I only begrudgingly accepted their friend requests so I don't have to answer that awkward "Why did you ignore my friends request on Facebook" if I ever bump into them in real life because I'm averse to crushing their souls by being honest and saying "Because you're really actually quite a boring, annoying, pointless person". I can similarly deliver inane shit into their lives about how I just killed someone with a defibrillator in Battlefield 4.
I was under the impression the whole point in Facebook is to spread complete nonsense about your life that absolutely no one else gives a shit about so the question is why do you think this doesn't fit in?
Thank you for providing your perspective. I've never had to suffer war but my grandmother was a blitz survivor during World War II. If I told her that someone had said civilians don't go outside, or help each other in war she'd have been sickened at such an attitude - our whole country's existence depended precisely on people "Keeping calm, and Carrying on" even if what was at risk was your very own life. We simply would've never held out against the Nazis if everyone was like him, with the attitude that they shouldn't go out and help in case they become victims too.
I'm fortunate that I did have relatives touched by the reality of war both as combatants (my grandfather was a royal marine commando and took part in the D-Day landings) and non-combatants (my grandmother was just a civilian) to learn the reality of it from.
I hope things have improved and will continue to do so for you. you have a beautiful country and I hope one day it'll be a fully peaceful country. There is wild flora I've long wanted to see in Colombia but alas they exist in territory where there is FARC activity so I've frankly been too cowardly to take the risk - my respect to you for not having the luxury of that choice but the balls to do what needs to be done to survive in the face of it.
"The people in the video were not wearing uniforms."
So you ARE saying the Apache pilots could determine whether these guy's clothing had any insignias on their clothing but couldn't possibly differentiate between a camera and an RPG?
I mean, let's just be clear here, you're saying you can determine that people in these pictures both have weapons, and aren't in some kind of uniform? -
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=collateral+murder&source=lnms
Some of them clearly don't have weapons, some are clearly unarmed. That alone means collateral damage of what could only be determined to be civilians was guaranteed by pulling the trigger - that alone breaches both the Geneva convention and the US' RoE as you have to try to avoid civilian casualties, even if it means not making the kill.
Your argument has just entered the realm of complete absurdity at this point, and you seem to be completely making stuff up to the point I wonder if you've even seen the video in the first place, let alone seen it recently.
You talk on about how these guys somehow did something right under the Geneva convention yet still seem utterly oblivious to the rules of engagement direct from the US military that these pilots were operating under earlier which these pilots clearly breached. Rules of engagement that are based on the Geneva convention (something you clearly don't understand - your incorrect definition of unlawful combatant includes US special forces operatives for example).
But what's particularly telling about the fact I'm not sure you've even seen the video is that even the troops on the ground these pilots were supposed to be protecting show disgust at the fact one of them is carrying a dying kid in his arms. The tone of the pilots response when they find out says it all - they're clearly aware that they got far too carried away and know full well they engaged civilians when they shouldn't have.
So when even the people involved know that shit went wrong it's quite telling, and shows how far removed from reality your viewpoint is.
Come back when you've watched the video, come back when you realise that you can't possibly tell if the people killed were militants from what they were wearing, come back when you hear the tone of the marine medics voice as he carries the wounded kid.
Perhaps then you'll have a point, until then you're still just making stuff up. You're still ignoring the fact that the people in the van were unquestionably not confirmed as combatants, you're still ignoring the fact that the Apache crew broke their own nations rules of engagement.
You can't escape these things, as much as you desperately try and make stuff up, creating your own fanciful definitions of the Geneva convention and the term unlawful combatant - a term that the very article you linked points out doesn't actually exists anywhere within the Geneva convention in the first place.
The Geneva convention is clear, above all else you can't kill civilians, and you must er on the side that an unidentified person is a civilian. The Apache pilots very clearly did not do this with the van driver if nothing else. You're still parroting the myth that these guys were actually engaging in war rather than simply acting as a vigilante neighbourhood patrol performing the role of policing and that's where your argument that these guys were combatants falls flat on it's face. Even ignoring the first round of guys there's just simply no argument that the guy in the van was somehow engaging in combat - you just can't argue that no matter how hard you try - the argument isn't about uniforms or non-uniforms, it's about whether these guys were engaging in war - the first ones, maybe if you make an awful lot of unfounded assumptions (which you have done) you can argue were, but the second lot? you just can't. There's just no argument there.
This is precisely why the "do not fire until fired upon rule" came about i
"Legitimate militia were uniformed."
What the fuck? You're still outright making stuff up. But let's just say for a second you weren't. Why did the Apache pilot fire? are you actually telling me he could tell they were uniformed but couldn't tell that a camera wasn't an RPG? Seriously, you're making that stupid an argument?
"In fact anyone who is not uniformed is considered, by the Geneva convention, to be an unlawful combatant."
That's not even what the link you provided says. Again, you're making stuff up.
"No, I do not think you should just blow everything up."
So why defend exactly that if you don't believe it?
"However, I do not believe that the average citizen would rush in there and try and provide aid in the middle of a firefight."
It wasn't the middle of a firefight. The Apache let off a few devastating bursts and that was it. I don't think a militant would rush in with his fucking child in the van either for what it's worth.
"I do not believe the average citizen would go into the scene of a recent firefight while the attack helicopter that executed the attack was still orbiting overhead."
You really have no idea do you? The helicopter was over a km away. Unless he saw it fire he'd almost certainly not have known what had even caused the devastation - it might just as well have looked like the aftermath of an IED or a mortar strike to the average civilian.
"And I've already established that the Geneva convention allows you to treat non uniformed people as combatants."
No, that's not what you've established. You've established that you can post links that don't back up what you're suggesting they do in the slightest. The only reference to uniform at all in the article is in relation to a US ruling against spies and saboteurs working for a state entity (Nazi Germany).
"I have seen what sort of psychological damage they all have from Iraq and Afghanistan. I know how terrible it has been for all of them."
Me too from the British side, but I'm not sure what the relevance is.
"I do, however, believe that those people who were just trying to stay alive should not be treated as bloodthirsty villains for doing their jobs."
How is being sat 1km from a bunch of people running around but not firing at US forces "just trying to stay alive" exactly? You've still yet to actually establish that these people were even a threat to US forces, which is exactly the point.
If we cut away the bullshit, you're effectively summing up your argument as "I do not believe military personnel could ever do wrong".
Stop lying, stop making stuff up, stop claiming links say things they don't.
"First of all the camera was not identifiable as a camera when the attack started. Secondly, unless you think that Wikipedia is pro US Military, the Wikipedia article on the attack clearly states"
I think Wikipedia is whatever the biases of the last editor who edited that section are.
But you're still missing the point, even if armed it doesn't matter. There was nothing illegal about being armed, Iraq was full of local militia who were legitimately armed. Merely being armed wasn't a green light to fire at will.
Then there's a case of the van where there was without question absolutely no way to tell if it was full of armed insurgents or not. Even if you do believe that the Apache pilots should be able to fire on people for no other reason than that they are armed you can't argue that they had the same excuse for firing on the van.
"I bet you would find it to be a little less nonsensical if it was you on the ground being shot at by insurgents."
I don't know what I'd do, nor does it matter. I do know however that other nation's militaries such as the British and French manage to do a far better job of adhering to sensible rules of engagement that aren't counter-productive than America does however. Given that, it's obviously possible for militaries to be a little more restrained, so there's no excuse.
"Even if they did not actively engage the troops first, they were not allowed to be armed in the streets of Baghdad. Only military personnel were allowed weaponry."
This is a flat out lie. Stop making shit up.
The US actively supported some armed militias and encouraged them, so you couldn't even be further from the truth. Then there's non-military contractors, security guards and so forth. You just have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
"I disagree."
You can disagree all you want, you'd still be wrong. Civilians and enemy combatants are well defined, civilians can be armed, merely being armed doesn't make them enemy combatants. Similarly, guys getting out of vans as they pass an area and see someone wounded are more than allowed to try and help injured people, that does not make you an enemy combatant by anyone's rules. Go actually read the US rules of engagement I linked instead of continuing to make shit up.
"but I do distinctly remember seeing weapons"
Maybe you do, but that's quite different to your previous statement about seeing them actively engaging the troops.
"So even if that video does not show anything but the weapons, it is clearly known that the troops on the ground were facing enemy fire."
So you think in a war, that if there's fire coming from some general area the best thing to do is blow the whole fucking area up and not worry about the geneva convention, civilian casualties, or collateral damage in general?
I hope to flying fuck you are not in the military, and if you are you symbolise the very reason America has lost so many wars from Vietnam, to Lebanon, to Somalia, to Iraq, to Afghanistan. Because winning wars is about more than just destroying everything.
Yes, many Wikipedia editors seem more obsessed with destruction of content rather than creation. I added something once that I didn't realise someone would be so absurdly anal as to suggest requiring a citation and they just removed the whole block of information, rather than spend literally 10 seconds searching Google to merely add the citation they so desperately wanted. I did one of those dispute deletion things and the tit who deleted it was overturned but it still put me off ever wasting my time there again.
Wikipedia is going to reach a fundamental limit of knowledge if these people equal or outweigh the helpful editors because their whole existence will be spent removing as much content as positive contributors add and worse, it's far easier to remove content than spend time researching, citing, and correctly formatting it so destroyers of content will always have the upper hand.
"Do you have some sort of source for that?"
Well, I'd imagine the fact they broke the US' own rules of engagement is about as authoritative as it gets? -
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Rules_of_Engagement_for_Iraq
"Because I was working directly WITH Apache pilots and maintainers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and they all agree that the pilots did follow proper procedure for the discharge of weapons."
Of course they would. US military doctrine is to close rank and protect your fellow soldier. This has about zero relevance though - I'd rather trust those who don't have a vested interest in arguing that they should be free to shoot what they want, when they want.
"They were providing close air support for troops on the ground that were under active engagement. It does not matter if the Apache itself is under direct threat from any potential RPG. The ground troops were under direct threat."
There's so many things wrong with your statement here:
- The troops could not be under active engagement because the cameraman had a camera, not an RPG
- The troops were not under direct threat when the Apache fired because they were not near enough the scene at that point
What the Apache pilot did was attempt pro-active killing under the suspicion they might be a threat when they were in range. That's not the same as protecting allies under "active engagement". See my cop example - should cops shoot anyone with a gun in their vehicle, just in case they might be a threat? It's absurd, it's nonsense.
"Obviously you do not know what the rules of engagement were at that time in Iraq."
Obviously you don't. But obviously I do. See above link. What you went on to describe doesn't even fit into rules of engagement. Rules of engagement don't describe what civilians can and can't do, only what makes a valid target and civilians are explicitly never a target otherwise the US' rules of engagement would be in direct breach of the geneva convention and that would make any US soldiers following it war criminals.
"Did you have the audio muted on the video? You could hear the ground personnel in contact with the close air support. You could also see these groups actively engaging the troops on the ground."
I think you watched completely the wrong video because what you're describing is not what was on the unedited feed.
Seriously, check your facts before you post in future. Between pretending things are in the video which aren't, and pretending that the rules of engagement aren't now widely publicised you've merely exposed yourself as spouting as much nonsense as Cold Fjord.
"The so called "collateral murder" video was nonsense."
Out of interest, what was nonsense about it? I saw the unedited version first, not even being aware that there was an edited version and it was objectively the case that the Apache pilots broke various norms of war.
They claimed they needed to fire because the targets had RPGs that could be used against them but their gun cam clearly showed that not only were they out of RPG range, but they were even further out of objective RPG range.
The van they shot with the kid in they completely and utterly failed to determine if it was even actually a threat and fired anyway.
These are not the actions of competent military personnel. The norm in such situations is do not fire until fired upon, but this took it to another level and fired before they could even be sure there was a real actual threat.
This isn't just my opinion, this is objective fact. The rules of engagement are well publicised and there's simply no argument against the fact that the Apache gunner broke them. There's absolutely no avoiding that.
It's directly equivalent to a cop just sitting alongside the road and then shooting a guy passing with a hunting rifle visible in his car before even talking to them, and then shooting another passer by that stops to try and help just in case they were both a threat. We don't allow our police to do that at home, and we shouldn't be allowing military forces to do it in a post-war occupation role. It's counter productive and the whole reason America got fucked in Iraq - because the Iraqis quickly realised they didn't want to be occupied by forces that shot them for shits and giggles - "just in case" and turned on American forces as a result.
From your other response to me:
"But frankly, your criticism in this case has little credibility with me."
Why are you now complaining about being down modded? It's not like I didn't warn you that your attempts at character assassination probably wouldn't go down well given that they're entirely one sided and too obviously agenda based.
I don't demand that you to listen to me, or anyone else, I don't demand that my points to have credibility with you, but if you are going to opt to go down that route of ignoring my point, if you are going to claim my point has no credibility with you, then you can't complain when you inevitably then get down modded. That's the option you chose, that's the path you walked, and the decision you made.
The response to your posts on issues like this is predictable, either learn to understand why you're being down modded or accept that it will happen. There are topics where I have viewpoints that aren't popular on Slashdot and similarly get downmodded, I either accept that I'll get downmodded or I just don't waste my time on those topics. It's just the way it is.
You've got three options - 1) try and be a bit more understanding as to why your posts are perceived to be extremely biased and down modded, 2) If you think you're right and Slashdot is the problem, then don't bother posting on discussions you know you'll just get downmodded, or 3) Just keep on posting on the topics you do in the way you do and keep on getting down modded.
But what you can't do is carry on as is and then whine about getting down modded, you know it's going to happen so why act surprised and like a victim when it does? You put yourself in that position, you opted for it.
At the end of the day discussion on Slashdot is largely meaningless unless you get something out of it, you're not going to change the world here but you might get some interesting discussion or encounter opposing viewpoints worth considering. If you're not going to engage in worthwhile discussion or accept anyone elses point though and are just going to spout one sided propaganda then you're wasting both your time and that of everyone else.
No but the populace consented to you being arrested, so tough shit.
It's not about personal consent, it's about consent of the majority of the population, rather than simply at the whim of a political elite.
The problem is the people you're linking to that "know him" are only the ones that had a falling out with him and/or are jealous of him.
The problem is there are many more out there that know him and outright praise him.
So your one-sided completely biased post doesn't exactly earn much credibility given that fact.
But you know this, because it's your usual modus operandi isn't it? It's what you do every single time such a subject comes up.
I doubt anyone has a problem with genuine critique of Assange, but seriously dude, you need to learn a bit about objectivity. Taking one-sided views of a person then claiming that's everything that person is is utterly pathetic, I might just as well claim you're a troll based on this and dismiss everything you've ever said or have got to say, but I'm more pragmatic than that, I recognise that sometimes, just sometimes, you have a point. This isn't one of those times.
What are you ranting on about? What has the US got to do with any of this? What's the relevance of what I think the Swiss people knew about it?
None of your little rant changes the facts. It's still dirty money that the Swiss got wealthy off of regardless of what the people of Switzerland did or didn't know or what the US doesn't or doesn't do today.
You may want to keep your nonsensical little outbursts to yourself, or at least learn to follow a topic of discussion rather than just rant on about things that have zero relevance to the discussion.
No, in the UK, by definition, they're not. In the UK, by definition, we use policing by consent, which explicitly requires that the police police with the consent of the populace.
Go learn about policing by consent and you'll see why what you believe is wrong.
I looked into this exactly issue the other week and in the UK (where this happened) the person receiving the goods has to allow the seller to arrange for collection of the incorrectly shipped product, assuming:
1) It was clearly shipped by mistake
2) The seller asks for it back
The person receiving does not have to go out their way to return the product nor do they have to inform the seller, but if the seller asks and arranges for collection the person receiving cannot legally block that. The UK differs from the US (by the sounds of it) in that first point, that in the UK you can only keep it if it wasn't sent by mistake - if it was shipped directly to you in your name and address and not as the result of say a mistake in some order you placed then you could keep it. This is why I can use the plethora of charity bags I get spammed with for binning the copious amount of dog shit my dogs produce because they placed them through my letter box and I never asked for them but I couldn't keep a Vita sent in error.
If you received one of these and you'd never ordered anything from Zavvi though you could probably argue to keep it as Zavvi would have a hard time arguing it was sent in error given that it would've been shipped specifically to you despite you having no relationship with them. For them to type out your name and address on a shipping label when they shouldn't have had it in the first place and send to you would likely be deemed a deliberate and intentional act in court.
It's a very fine line but this is how UK law differentiates between honest mistakes and distance selling scams. The argument has already been had in terms of incorrect items being shipped and it's fallen on the side of the retailers in that particular case.
I can't be arsed to search for the link now but this was directly from the government's explanation of distance selling regulations so I'd be inclined to believe it's as correct as you can get.
As Zavvi has explicitly requested that people return the items, and as it was clearly an error on their behalf I do not think consumers would have a leg to stand on here in trying to keep the item and they would lose the court case.
From what I can see the only loophole that may work for the consumer is that Zavvi has asked the consumers to contact them to arrange return of the item and I do not believe the onus is on them to do so. The onus is on Zavvi to contact the affected consumers and not vice versa but I wouldn't want to bet a legal ruling against me on that possible loophole quite frankly though you could likely protect yourself by stating you never got the request for return e-mail and had no idea you were meant to be returning it I suppose. At that point a judge would likely say something along the lines of "Well, now you do know, so hand it over" and take it no further. If you admitted you knew and intentionally refused the judge may award legal costs to Zavvi.
But either way, Zavvi is likely to get their Vitas back under the law.
You're right that Switzerland provided a haven for Jews to store their money, but that doesn't change the fact that it also provided a haven for Nazis to store their looted wealth also.
You're completely wrong to imply Switzerland only banked for oppressed Jews. It very much banked for the oppressing Nazis as well.
To be fair it can happen, whilst I believe it probably is just corruption in this case some nations have tax laws that allow companies to defer tax for various reasons. It varies from country to country but I know in some places companies manage to get away with deferring tax for multiple tax years. If they've been deferring tax for some reason for years such that it builds up and the excuse for deferring they used never actually comes to fruition then the authorities will come knocking for the full amount.
To be fair couldn't you say that of people of most nationalities?
I think most people believe their government is corrupt :)
Though I think in this case they're right, India's corruption problems are well documented, though the GP is an Indian nationalist so don't expect him to hear it - he believes India is the most perfect nation on Earth and superior to all others.
Switzerland's problem is that it's grown wealthy off the back of dirty money.
That is, it's banks have obtained large amounts of money from everyone from Nazi looters through to money stolen by common theft, through to the much more benign tax avoiders and evaders.
This money has been used to invest and bankroll Swiss firms, which is why Switzerland has been able to grow other major firms like Nestle over the years and is what allows Switzerland to have disproportionate corporate punch in the world.
Most nations are willing to turn a blind eye most of the time because although it's a problem for them, a rational cost/benefit analysis has to be performed and most of the time it's more hassle trying to argue a political solution and implement it than it's worth.
But since the recession that's changed, countries are desperate for every penny they can find, a few hundred million or a few billion owed to the tax authorities is a non-issue in boom times relative to the lower hanging fruit they can go after back home instead but when the financial crisis hit and as it has dragged on for so long all the low hanging fruit have been plucked, and suddenly even mere hundreds of millions held abroad are worth going after.
So at this point financially hit countries like the US, UK and much of Western Europe now put the Swiss in their sites, and it becomes an ultimatum for the Swiss at this point - start giving up the criminally held tax, start giving up the tax evaders, or we'll put hefty financial transaction taxes on monetary transfers in and out of your country, or we'll start picking through your nation's companies with a very fine comb looking for fines we can leverage against them.
This is why the Swiss have allowed their banks to start submitting to US tax deals and so forth because the alternative is much less pleasant (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359).
Swiss data centres would be no different - they'd be perfectly solid and safe until they become a measurable problem to a major Western nation or two and as with Swiss banks you'd see a slow erosion from complete secrecy, to allowing warrant based requests for data, to general access to information deals and support for cease and desist orders.
At best therefore they'd be a temporary solution. But if they were willing to host the likes of The Pirate Bay I'd wager that solution would be very temporary indeed given the lobbying power of the MPAA/RIAA and the priority with which the likes of the US would hence pursue such an issue with the Swiss.
"BTW, I'm a sysadmin/network guy, not a developer. "
This probably explains the disparity in our views then, I left that field precisely because I agree benefits and wages went down there, but I assumed we were talking about software development given that that's the subject of this story.
I do however think there's a good reason why IT support salaries and benefits have decreased and that's the simple fact that it's a profession that has become easier over the years, and as it's become easier, it's become open to more candidates and salaries have decreased as a result. I say easier coming largely from a Windows background because it simply has gotten much easier to manage Windows networks. The OS has become more stable and less fault prone, recovery has become much easier, and it's become much less secure. Fundamental software management tasks have become more centralised from AV management to patch and software deployment. It's become more point and click than ever. It was in fact a large part of the reason I got out of that field - I like a challenge and it just reached a point where I wasn't being challenged in the slightest.
There are other problems the field suffers from - it's far easier for blaggers to get IT support jobs than it is for them to get software development jobs. There's a certain baseline of required knowledge and understanding in software development that's just almost impossible to bluff your way through compared to IT support roles.
I do sympathise with the declining wages in your field and I do understand it must be frustrating. I've also seen first hand how annoying it can be to see that your wages are often decreasing because the field is being flooded by blaggers who can talk a good talk but have neither the fundamental passion or knowledge to be truly great in an IT support role, though have just the bare minimum to get by without getting fired. But that field is not software development, software development is very much a job seekers market, it's very much a market where there is a genuine shortage and where wages have been increasing over the last decade. Those who proclaim otherwise are those blaggers frustrated that it's a field they just cannot blag their way into and nothing more, the other 98% of us are doing just fine. It's always nice to want more and do I wish I was paid bankers salaries? of course, don't we all? but being realistic I think we can't complain about what we have - we're doing much better than just about all engineers (telecomms, mechanical, electrical), veterinarians, journalists, corporate sales staff, museum archivists, architects, solicitors, and so on. It's really only lawyers with a lot of years behind them, high end medical staff (i.e. surgeons), high end financial services staff, upper management, and that sort of thing that do noticably better than us on average. It's hard to scoff at that - perhaps my only real concern is that it's a bubble that's going to burst at some point, but it's ridden the wave that was the risk of outsourcing which turned out to be an almighty failure in practice for most firms so fingers crossed it'll remain a well paid profession for some time yet.
Whatever the relevance is no, I'm not a single guy, I have a girlfriend of 8 years, to be married soon. I don't have kids, and don't really plan to, I'm not a fan. I prefer dogs, you can leave them at home longer without them burning the house down or requiring a baby sitter.
So perhaps the difference in fields explains our differences in perception, IT isn't one big field, there's drastic disparity within it.
Unfortunately that says more about you, than me. That article doesn't say what you seem to think it says precisely because I don't think I'm better than everyone else, and the only area I think I do better than average (which the article you linked confirms) is in my ability to recognise my faults and weaknesses and work to improve them as well as recognising when there are people I can learn from. People whom I actively prefer to seek out precisely because there's so much value in recognising those who are better than you and learning from them.
What I do know however is that I suffer none of the complaints people make about the job market, nor have I ever seen any evidence of them in practice. I have never once known a skilled candidate persistently be unable to get a job. Not once have I ever seen such a thing.
I have seen a lot of people who think they're skilled candidates be unable to get a job, but it only takes 5 minutes to recognise that they're precisely the sort of people the article you linked is talking about - those who think they're incredible, but actually suck. It's the same 5 minutes that the interviewer will take to realise the exact same thing.
But there's a numerical explanation as to why pointing out I have a job doesn't mean I think I'm better than everyone else, or better than average. Unemployment in my field is around 2%, so by saying I have no problem getting employment in the software development field I'm not saying I'm better than everyone else, or better than the average - not even close, I'm simply saying I'm in the 98% of the field that does manage to obtain employment just fine - the only implication of my claim is that I'm simply saying I'm obviously not in the bottom 2%, nothing more.
The only claims I make are those I can back up with figures - yes I am paid well above the national average, yes I am in the 98% of developers who get jobs. Those things are facts, not opinion.
"Nice to see there are still people out there who base everyone's situation on their own experience. Thanks for keeping it real."
My experiences are real. The fact is if I can get a job without being given any formal training then that's a simple proof by counterexample that the theory you can't get a job without training is false. It may not proof that it's globally true but it proves given that I've done it a number of times that there are a number of companies out there that don't fit the argument people like you are making.
I've turned companies down, if the industry was so bad I wouldn't be able to do that. The fact I can pick and choose between hundreds of companies means the job market isn't anything like is being painted by those just seeking an excuse for their own failings. Go look at some of girlintraining's posts, she's always whining about how the industry is unfair, how companies suck and how they're not reasonable about recruiting, then she goes on in other threads to show a distinct lack of knowledge about software engineering - that knowledge is going to come out in the interviews and that's why she wasn't getting jobs, because she had no idea what the fuck she was on about, yet she blamed everyone else. That's precisely the sort of problem we're dealing with here.
"Undoubtedly, the wages being offered are lower then they should be."
What "should" they be? If developer wages are above the national average, which they are, then why do you think they're too low?
Personally I think developer wages are high, very high. I've actually chuckled to myself over the last few years more than once at how easy it is to get a hefty raise and decent wage. I feel guilty that it was largely luck of the draw that I ended up in a profession where wages are so good and job opportunities so vast when there are people struggling to make ends meet because life just didn't happen to end up putting them in such a lucrative career.
When I can change jobs every year and command a 30%+ salary increase every single time from an above average starting point it's hard to argue that the developer market is somehow bad. Sure we don't get banker or football star wages, but we're doing far far better than most, and employment is easier to find in this industry far more so than pretty much any other mainstream industry.