Just another reason we are doomed...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081219/od_nm/us_torture_odd_1
we will do just about anything to others just because someone tells us to. Go figure, I wonder how many would torture themselves in the same test?
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
teen driving
I saw this news story on our local news, http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3714858/ Now, either the news reporter did a poor job, or this program is just crazy. The story is about trying to cut down on accidents involving teens by forcing them to put a sticker on their car that tells everyone that they are a teen driver. There is nothing in this story on how this is supposed to help. No mention of studies or anything concrete other than these people think that if other drivers know that there is a teen behind the wheel they will stop driving like assholes and give them more space and respect. Knowing the drivers around here like I do, it will just give them more fuel for the fire that is under their ass to get to work 10 seconds earlier.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Manipulative
Hypocrisy at it's finest. The add from the Republican Gubernatorial committee that first defines manipulative as using devious words to gain undue influence, then tries to associate those words with Bev Perdue. I mean they have already branded her status quo Bev Perdue, now they are calling her manipulative. If this attack ad is not manipulative, then I don't know what is. I just don't see how they can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning after putting out crap like that. I'm still on the fence about who to vote for to be the next governor of NC. In the debate I saw, the weasel ( McCrory ) actually made more sense than perdue, but really he just looks like a weasel so it's really hard to believe anything he says.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Equal pay for an equal days work
This is the latest political add that has been burning up the airwaves hear in North Carolina. It sounds great right, I mean who wouldn't be for equal pay for women who do the same job as a man in the same position. You would be a fool to be against that. I guess this is meant to get some of the female vote away from McCain after he picked Palin and got this surge of women who want to vote for her for the sole reason that she is a woman. It seems like such a good idea until you think about how you would actually implement and enforce such a law. Let's take the gender out of it and just say equal pay for equal work. This implies that there is some magically way to rate everybody job in a fair way. If you have the same type of performance evaluation at your job as I do at mine, then you know this is not possible. So what are you left with?
Let's try an example. You work for a Software company that employs 6000 people. Your job title is Senior Software Engineer. There are 100 other people with the same title. This law would require that all 100 were paid the exact same amount and were given the same raise each year. What kind of incentive do you now have to do a good job? It doesn't matter that you work 45 hours a week, your code has fewer bugs, you help out others when needed, and you are more responsive to customer issues and the QA department, while Joe Dufus who sits next to you works 35 hours a week, never helps out others, expects other people to fix his bugs and is just a butthead. You two get the same pay. Why because if you get paid more than him but have the same title, your company is breaking this crazy law or equal pay for equal days work. Yes the quality of the days work is not the same, but since evaluating performance of employees is mostly a judgement call you would have to justify all salaries, and all of the employees salaries would have to be public or else how do you know if you are getting equal pay?
Obama says he is going to push for this and to go read his plan on how to do it. So to be fair, I will go read it right now...
ok, so basically all he says on his website about this issue is that he supports Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) Fair Pay Act of 2007. Doesn't really say what that is, so more searching...
This is from essentialestrogen.com
The Fair Pay Act of 2007 would:
Amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, race or national origin.
*** This seems like it should be obvious and we shouldn't need a law for it, but this is America...
Require employers to provide equal pay for jobs that are comparable in skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions.
*** sure, but who's definition of "comparable" do we follow. If there some huge list that says which jobs are comparable to others? Sure there are some obvious ones, but the right lawyer could make a jury of idiots believe any two jobs are comparable.
Apply to each company individually and prohibit companies from reducing other employees’ wages to achieve pay equity.
*** sounds like a bunch of raises coming, or companies filing bankruptcy to pay for all the wage increases because they screwed up and hired a bunch of idiots and paid them too much, now they have to pay everyone the "comparable" amount.
Require public disclosure of employer job categories and their pay scales, without requiring specific information on individual employees.
*** So all companies have to disclose the pay ranges for all of their job categories and what it takes to be in that position. Guess we need to hire a bunch of hr people to do this
Allow payment of different wages under a seniority system, merit system, or system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production.
*** I don't know about you, but my company sucks at this. They grade you on a bell curve, and have a set number of people who can receive the high ratings and to get a high rating you really have to be more of an ass kisser than top performer. And they never disclose who got the higher rankings. My opinion is if you are really giving the top performers the high rankings, you should publish it and everyone should not have a problem with it. My suspicion is that since it's the managers that get together to decide who gets them, they are the ones giving them to themselves.
Allow employees who allege discrimination in wage-setting based on sex, race or national origin to either file a complaint with the EEOC or go to court.
*** of course, that's what we need, more law suits that are impossible to prove.
All of this sounds good, but really seems to me to be impossible to put into action. Especially when you consider that the companies that are going to do well are the ones that promote the better employees without looking at age, race, or gender.
Let's try an example. You work for a Software company that employs 6000 people. Your job title is Senior Software Engineer. There are 100 other people with the same title. This law would require that all 100 were paid the exact same amount and were given the same raise each year. What kind of incentive do you now have to do a good job? It doesn't matter that you work 45 hours a week, your code has fewer bugs, you help out others when needed, and you are more responsive to customer issues and the QA department, while Joe Dufus who sits next to you works 35 hours a week, never helps out others, expects other people to fix his bugs and is just a butthead. You two get the same pay. Why because if you get paid more than him but have the same title, your company is breaking this crazy law or equal pay for equal days work. Yes the quality of the days work is not the same, but since evaluating performance of employees is mostly a judgement call you would have to justify all salaries, and all of the employees salaries would have to be public or else how do you know if you are getting equal pay?
Obama says he is going to push for this and to go read his plan on how to do it. So to be fair, I will go read it right now...
ok, so basically all he says on his website about this issue is that he supports Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) Fair Pay Act of 2007. Doesn't really say what that is, so more searching...
This is from essentialestrogen.com
The Fair Pay Act of 2007 would:
Amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, race or national origin.
*** This seems like it should be obvious and we shouldn't need a law for it, but this is America...
Require employers to provide equal pay for jobs that are comparable in skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions.
*** sure, but who's definition of "comparable" do we follow. If there some huge list that says which jobs are comparable to others? Sure there are some obvious ones, but the right lawyer could make a jury of idiots believe any two jobs are comparable.
Apply to each company individually and prohibit companies from reducing other employees’ wages to achieve pay equity.
*** sounds like a bunch of raises coming, or companies filing bankruptcy to pay for all the wage increases because they screwed up and hired a bunch of idiots and paid them too much, now they have to pay everyone the "comparable" amount.
Require public disclosure of employer job categories and their pay scales, without requiring specific information on individual employees.
*** So all companies have to disclose the pay ranges for all of their job categories and what it takes to be in that position. Guess we need to hire a bunch of hr people to do this
Allow payment of different wages under a seniority system, merit system, or system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production.
*** I don't know about you, but my company sucks at this. They grade you on a bell curve, and have a set number of people who can receive the high ratings and to get a high rating you really have to be more of an ass kisser than top performer. And they never disclose who got the higher rankings. My opinion is if you are really giving the top performers the high rankings, you should publish it and everyone should not have a problem with it. My suspicion is that since it's the managers that get together to decide who gets them, they are the ones giving them to themselves.
Allow employees who allege discrimination in wage-setting based on sex, race or national origin to either file a complaint with the EEOC or go to court.
*** of course, that's what we need, more law suits that are impossible to prove.
All of this sounds good, but really seems to me to be impossible to put into action. Especially when you consider that the companies that are going to do well are the ones that promote the better employees without looking at age, race, or gender.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
She has 5 kids, there is no way
So I was watching the news after the VP announcement for John McCain and they were interviewing people to get there reactions. One lady says I don't think it was a good choice, she has 5 kids there's no way she can handle it. Just another example of why the human race is doomed.
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