@heropsycho

1. My original point was more aimed at questioning whether teaching is so exceptional. It is certainly harder than many other jobs, but does it deserve exclusive status with it's restrictive labour laws? If so, do you believe jobs equal to or more stressful than teaching should receive the same benefits? More specifically, if we knew that greater job security in stressful jobs created better outcomes (ie, in teaching the students are better taught), then why is it that the private sector has not willingly adopted this? What I'm saying is, there's double standards at play.

2. This is getting off topic, but I don't think anything is innate. We may have a predisposition to better at certain things but anything that we wish to excel at will ultimately require countless hours of practice. Again, I think you're being selective in exemplifying only a very good teacher which directly engages with everyone in the class. Most of what I recall (from 4 schools) involved teachers teaching in their own style 'at' a class, not directly to individuals.

3. My point would be that merit pay would raise the wages of 'good' teachers and thereby attract more teachers into the workplace. It won't ever be perfect as a system, enterprise bargaining in the private sector is subject to the whims of cronyism/favoritism of your superiors and isn't a perfect reflection of performance, but as a system it functions. By the way, I'm not in any way implying multiple choice tests are sufficient, open ended questions can be standardized just fine.

5. I would put down the opposition of unions to merit pay to several reasons:

a) Unwillingness to change - this reflects all changes not just merit pay. There are potential ups and downs but there is no incentive for them to take a risk. You would think flagging students scores relative to other countries (particularly Scandinavian and rich SE Asian countries) would be an incentive, but ultimately they are delinked from these outcomes.

b) Potential fall in membership - A move to individual wage setting over a seniority based wage (at least that is what it's here in OZ) would diminish their power and their members base. Standardized wages are generally seen in low skilled jobs where there is high turnover, a large supply of willing workers to replace them and therefore constant pressure to push down wages - a place where unions have great value in preventing this from happening. We both agree teaching requires considerable expertise. Were the labor system to move to individual wage setting on performance their role would diminish and their members base would dwindle.

As far as I'm concerned merit pay is but a scapegoat to justify their opposition from a more selfish point of view.

Last point - As I made sure to mention, I'm not opposed to the arts. What I'm appalled by is teacher's union activists talking about the benefits of these ultimately extracurricular areas when there are countless schools in impoverished regions unable to imbue many of their students with the ability to hold down an rudimentary job. Talking about these luxury activities and painting a rosy picture detached from reality, while glossing over the overt failings of basis education in derelict communities is disgusting to me frankly.

No I was not aware they were capable of breaking unemployment rates down by race. I looked up how they actually determine unemployment rates. It is by a finding a pool of people they feel represent demographics the census shows them and calling them to ask if they are working or not.....basically. Then they use that to state the overall unemployment rates. I read that they don't use the number of people drawing unemployment benefits, I mention this because I suspected the unemployment fluctuations were because lots of people were being dropped from the counting when they exhausted their benefits. However I now believe that the way they sample could account for a pretty big fluctuation considering they might get a sampling that isn't true to reality.... I couldn't determine any other kind of metric they employ that even sounds remotely like they verify anything they claim as fact.

My experiences with their department is that they just routinely gave me wrong information or sent me documents in error. Causing me to have to contact them to find out what was going on....and having to call them 2-3 times to actually get in contact with someone who would take the time to answer my questions. And then those answers were 50/50 on their accuracy as well. It's one thing to be overburdened, it's another to create more work and hassle for yourself and everyone else involved.....it may have been a stalling tactic but it ain't fun to be denied by letter, then told on the phone you were eligible....filling out your weekly form to find out you were actually denied. Spending the week getting that straightened out, waiting a week because they say it'll take a week. Then find out your denied again.....spending another week straightening it out and a month has gone by before you get forward progress.

Didn't go to a college that had frat houses that I was aware of, and I commuted so I didn't spend a lot of time on campus as it more of a commuter heavy college. They certainly didn't have anything greek "official" within sight of campus. Didn't care if I was in a frat, club, or group. I'm just saying it was announced on the college radio that these clubs were around for these folks....not based on interests such as chess or even a greek/frat system.

And I don't really care what races Im around as long as they are on an even footing with me and have the common courtesy to take showers, wear deodorant, and try to control their breath or at least not get up in my face with stank mouth. Oh and if they must speak a foreign language at least try to include others in the conversation if we're working on a group project or having a group conversation. I've been trying to pick up other languages, but man...native speakers when they get going I can't tell what the hell they are saying.

And....what is "white culture" if everyone is included? Like.....country clubs? I figured they were more "rich culture".

>> ^longde:

@<Porksandwich I can sympathize; but did you know that the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites? I think the demographics of this shitty government agency reflect the fact that, before the downturn, whites who have better options in the workforce chose not to take those jobs. And during the downturn, the public agency you saw just happened to be one which didn't have much turnover. I bet they laid people off though, and the inefficiency you witnessed is due to individual employees doing jobs meant for 2 or 3 people. As far as college groups, there are indeed white groups that exclude others. Just take a walk down frat row for instance, where you may see the occasional token in some of the houses. The asian/black/latino groups you saw cannot exclude white people, and in my college experience, some white people did join those groups to get exposure to other cultures. But most whites didn't; they either ignored or complained about the groups.
Also, it seemed like every year, there were whites who started a Whites Club----but these organizations never lasted, because what's the point? The damn campus is majority white, and everything is tailored towards white people and white culture. And, as I said above, if you really want to be around whites only, there are plenty of options on campus to do so, not limited to frats. This truth, incidently, extends to greater society.

@Porksandwich I can sympathize; but did you know that the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites? I think the demographics of this shitty government agency reflect the fact that, before the downturn, whites who have better options in the workforce chose not to take those jobs. And during the downturn, the public agency you saw just happened to be one which didn't have much turnover. I bet they laid people off though, and the inefficiency you witnessed is due to individual employees doing jobs meant for 2 or 3 people.

As far as college groups, there are indeed white groups that exclude others. Just take a walk down frat row for instance, where you may see the occasional token in some of the houses. The asian/black/latino groups you saw cannot exclude white people, and in my college experience, some white people did join those groups to get exposure to other cultures. But most whites didn't; they either ignored or complained about the groups.

Also, it seemed like every year, there were whites who started a Whites Club----but these organizations never lasted, because what's the point? The damn campus is majority white, and everything is tailored towards white people and white culture. And, as I said above, if you really want to be around whites only, there are plenty of options on campus to do so, not limited to frats. This truth, incidently, extends to greater society.

>> ^RadHazG:

biggest fail im seeing right now is that the clip ends before they confirm/deny the touchdown! cmon people, anyone know what happened?

It was definitely ruled a touchdown. One of the greatest plays in Saints history.

sadly, the embed is *dead because the NFL is a bunch of money-grubbing *#$!!#!s.

The infertility is caused by the ambient heat generated by the laptop. The function of the scrotum is to keep the testicles at a slightly lower temperature than the rest of the body. This lower temperature is more ideal for spermatogenesis, and anything that alters that temperature homeostasis is bound to have negative effects on sperm production.

The cancer risk? I'd like to see the medical journal that proved this and look at their numbers to see what kind of confidence interval and power they're working with to try and prove this. Honestly almost everything can be linked to causing cancer, and from my understanding of this they probably are linking long-term physical damage (ie. Toasted Skin Syndrome) and how that can lead to faster cell turnover which can increase cancer risk.

Go in drag. Be all like "That's so like my life. Carrie reminds me of me. Teehee."

I'd pay good money to sift a video of that with you.

>> ^EDD:

I recently "won" (not sure if this constitutes winning) an invitation for two to the national premiere of this "film" (again, not sure if this constitutes a film) two days from now. The event is organized by American Express and they've invited somewhere around 300 of their top female clients based on account turnover. There's going to be "red carpet", tabloid "journalists" and free drinks (not sure if a cosmo constitutes a proper drink though).
Now, I am married, and the Mrs. actually saw the first movie (said it was complete rubbish). She says she'd never go see a follow-up to that garbage on her own, but she is mildly interested in seeing what the event would be like. Personally, I only want to go if I can troll the event in some way: got any suggestions for me?
Btw, here's Roger Ebert's review.

wear a cocktail dress

>> ^EDD:

I recently "won" (not sure if this constitutes winning) an invitation for two to the national premiere of this "film" (again, not sure if this constitutes a film) two days from now. The event is organized by American Express and they've invited somewhere around 300 of their top female clients based on account turnover. There's going to be "red carpet", tabloid "journalists" and free drinks (not sure if a cosmo constitutes a proper drink though).
Now, I am married, and the Mrs. actually saw the first movie (said it was complete rubbish). She says she'd never go see a follow-up to that garbage on her own, but she is mildly interested in seeing what the event would be like. Personally, I only want to go if I can troll the event in some way: got any suggestions for me?
Btw, here's Roger Ebert's review.

>> ^EDD:
I recently "won" (not sure if this constitutes winning) an invitation for two to the national premiere of this "film" (again, not sure if this constitutes a film) two days from now. The event is organized by American Express and they've invited somewhere around 300 of their top female clients based on account turnover. There's going to be "red carpet", tabloid "journalists" and free drinks (not sure if a cosmo constitutes a proper drink though).
Now, I am married, and the Mrs. actually saw the first movie (said it was complete rubbish). She says she'd never go see a follow-up to that garbage on her own, but she is mildly interested in seeing what the event would be like. Personally, I only want to go if I can troll the event in some way: got any suggestions for me?

er... wear a T-shirt that says "Please tase me, bro"?

I recently "won" (not sure if this constitutes winning) an invitation for two to the national premiere of this "film" (again, not sure if this constitutes a film) two days from now. The event is organized by American Express and they've invited somewhere around 300 of their top female clients based on account turnover. There's going to be "red carpet", tabloid "journalists" and free drinks (not sure if a cosmo constitutes a proper drink though).

Now, I am married, and the Mrs. actually saw the first movie (said it was complete rubbish). She says she'd never go see a follow-up to that garbage on her own, but she is mildly interested in seeing what the event would be like. Personally, I only want to go if I can troll the event in some way: got any suggestions for me?

Btw, here's Roger Ebert's review.

OK, I was able to find an academic source on daily water turnover (and therefore requirements) that mentioned the 40 ml/KG/day. However, the study was done on children, with the 40 ml/KG/day relating to 15 year-olds. Still, there are plenty of authoritative sources out there (in the far reaches of the intertubes) that cite similar or identical turnover rates. A quick search for "human water requirements per day" should get you some decent information. Even the USDA suggests drinking "a lot" of water (3.7 L for men, 2.7 for women) every day. (source)

It's not magic or a made up number, it's a simple in/out calculation. Urine accounts for between 500 and 1,000 ml of water loss, sweating and evaporation of water through breathing--or insensible water loss--accounts for another 450-1900 ml, and feces counts for a couple hundred ml as well (source). So if you're losing two to three liters of water every day, shouldn't you replace it? Wouldn't that be the logical conclusion?

Also, water in the food you eat accounts for only about 20% of your daily intake. (source)

Of course, your environment, activity level, age, weight, sex and other factors can play a part in how much water your body needs. Also, I'm not a doctor, just some guy with access to a search engine, so don't take my word for it.

How very decent of you. Or did you miss the fact that I've been paying into that fund for 35 fucking years and this is the first time I've ever received a penny?

I'm absolutely sure I haven't seen a penny of -your- taxes anyway, considering unemployment tax rate is more like 3% here. It's a 6% max rate, depending on how many claims are made against a particular employer, and my employers (all two in the last 25 years) have generally had very low turnover rates.

But yeah, you go ahead and piss and moan... Nice to see how much conservatives actually care about people.

>> ^Throbbin:
I'm sure there's a fail in there somewhere.

There was a massive fail by the defender, when he signed a contract with the Redskins.

I don't think 'bitter' more 'disappointed'. She clearly did not like the veiled attempt at 'customer care' which was in fact more like 'give us the money and f**k off' - she was hired to do her job, but it seems BoA is kidding itself with the role, pretending its helping customer when in fact discreeting trying to ensure high turnover of profot from fees etc.

For a financial institution to be not trying to remove debts. (If this indeed the case) is quite reprehensible.

She just couldn't kid herself she was 'helping' people when the policy she followed, did not really help. To be fair, I would have to verify all, but if what she is saying is true, then its pretty grim. Banks should be making profit off services, not manipulating people and screwing them over once locked in with fees fees fess.

Mall-wart is rarely on the right side of any issue that benefits the communities they exist in. Sucking money out of the areas where their stores are, paying their employees the lowest allowable by law, and pushing slave labour conditions on the production line.
So with this business model it doesn't surprise me that stupid mistakes are made. Having the vast proportion of your workers living on more than one third less than a living wage and below the poverty line. Depending on labour turnover to stabalize low wages.

When I first joined the military eleven years ago, things were still fairly old school (there were a couple years left to go before the Canadian Forces made a conscious turn towards a "kinder, gentler" M.O.) In my unit, at least, there was a lot of sledgehammer leadership -- lots of yelling and verbal disrespect from the Sergeants / Master Corporals / senior Corporals etc towards those of us lower on the food chain. That was the way things were done; to get the troops doing something, yell, and if they're not doing it fast enough or properly, yell louder and start swearing and call people "numbnuts" and so on. I wouldn't say any of it was actually abusive (you'd have to go back before my time for that), but the model basically was "to get troops to get the job done, apply unpleasantness".

Anyway, when I was in positions of leadership for the first several years I was loud and snarky (just like everybody else) and I never had been like that before. I wasn't power-tripping either -- I didn't enjoy it, although after awhile I did get good at it. But after those first years I realized that I didn't like doing it that way, which was also about the time I slowly cottoned on to the fact that there were other, less adversarial ways of motivating people. Also around then we had a large turnover of senior NCO's (Sergeants etc.) and the ones who replaced them were less old school and less irascible, so the entire tone of the unit mellowed noticeably in the space of less than a year.

So yes, I was more assoholic for those first few years, but that's past. I'll still deliver a blast if I have to sort out some troopie, but it's rare that it gets to that point -- they usually just listen pretty well.

EDIT: I now realize I didn't answer your question -- let me think about that one.