Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Sweatin' To The Oldies Nite in Columbus!

Heh heh heh. When I did back-to-back posts with more or less just links I swear I thought, "Man, I'm Puterbac!" Ah, the salad days.

[CGVT]

It'd be nice if someone reported the Mississippi law correctly.

As I understand it, the law doesn't allow folks to not serve gay folks. It simply prevents "forced expression" against one's religious beliefs. The dreaded christian baker still has to make cakes for gay weddings, but isn't required to write on the cake "gay marriage is moral."

But, seeing as how a law that says women use women's rooms and men use men's rooms has been labeled as anti-gay and bigoted and horrible, I have no doubt that twitter "hot takes" on Mississippi will offer all the substance I've come to expect from a generation raised on insight of Jon Stewart.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to shower in the women's lockerroom at Lifetime Fitness.

According to CNN this what the laws says. It looks as if it has been reported correctly.
The locker room issue in all of these "Religious Freedom" bills is nothing more than a smoke screen to get people up in arms and get support for a bill that is absolutely discriminatory.

What's in the bill?
The law says it protects from discrimination claims anyone who believes that marriage is between one man and one woman, that sexual relations are reserved solely for marriage, and that the terms male and female pertain only to a person's genetics and anatomy at birth.
Under the law, religious organizations will be able to deny LGBT people marriage, adoption and foster care services; fire or refuse to employ them; and decline to rent or sell them property. Medical professionals will be permitted to refuse to participate in treatments, counseling and surgery related to "sex reassignment or gender identity transitioning."
Among those who could deny wedding services under HB 1523:
• DJs

* Photographers and videographers

• Poets

• Wedding planners

• Printers and publishers

• Florists

• Dressmakers

• Cake or pastry artists

• Venue rental companies

• Limousine and car rental companies

• Jewelry sales and service firms

• Religious organizations

Meanwhile, people who adhere to the aforementioned beliefs may deny wedding services -- including DJing, dressmaking and limousine rental -- while employers and school administrators will be allowed to establish "sex-specific standards or policies concerning employee or student dress or grooming."
Employers and school administrators will be allowed to dictate access to bathrooms, spas, locker rooms "or other intimate facilities and settings," the law states.
The law also addresses the matter of government officials granting marriage licenses and performing ceremonies, an issue thrust into the spotlight last year when Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, spent five days in jail for refusing to give same-sex couples marriage licenses.
Mississippi's law will allow clerks and their deputies to be provided a process for recusing themselves from licensing marriages, and judges, magistrates, justices of the peace and their deputies will be given a similar process for recusing themselves from performing marriages, based on their religious beliefs.
The legislation will take effect on July 1.

Looks like discrimination no matter how they want to portray it as "religious freedom"...

[Dr. Strangelove]

It'd be nice if someone reported the Mississippi law correctly.

As I understand it, the law doesn't allow folks to not serve gay folks. It simply prevents "forced expression" against one's religious beliefs. The dreaded christian baker still has to make cakes for gay weddings, but isn't required to write on the cake "gay marriage is moral."

But, seeing as how a law that says women use women's rooms and men use men's rooms has been labeled as anti-gay and bigoted and horrible, I have no doubt that twitter "hot takes" on Mississippi will offer all the substance I've come to expect from a generation raised on insight of Jon Stewart.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to shower in the women's lockerroom at Lifetime Fitness.

I believe this is the actual text

http://index.ls.state.ms.us/isysnative/UzpcRG9jdW1lbnRzXDIwMTZccGRmXGhiXDE1MDAtMTU5OVxoYjE1MjNpbi5wZGY=/hb1523in.pdf

Section 4 (5)(a) and (b) seem to indicate that all of the following can refuse service to gays and not face any anti-discrimination suits from the state, should said service be related to a gay wedding: photographers, videographers, disc jockeys, wedding planners, printers, florists, bakers, jewelers, hotels, wedding halls, car rentals, and limousine drivers. Among others

[iam416]

You're both correct. The bill precludes state claims based on that conduct. I'm not sure Mississippi even had any state laws providing claim for sexual orientation discrimination -- I'd assume they didn't. So it's superfluous and political.

Federal claims, of course, are still valid. And I assume that's where any gay person would sue anyway.

Heh, and Section 5 applies to any conduct PROVIDING or declining to provide...so, heh, no state law claims for any decision re participation in gay weddings. Heh.

[CGVT]

Brought to you by the state that gave us this wonderful document.

Confederate States of America - Mississippi Secession
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

[hack]

If the market demands more college grads, then there shouldn't be college grads bitching and moaning about the repercussions of their own decisions.

Is there a reason to assume its the colleges that are at fault? I mean, I think there is, TBH -- they are out there acting like for-profit entities like everyone else, corporation, NGO, think tank or otherwise. That's what institutions do, and colleges get to play the high-minded card whilst creating revenue streams just like the best of them in the corporate world. If I were a CEO of anything I'd convert the whole entity into a ``university'' and my work force into ``grad students''.

But ultimately this isn't necessarily about efficiency. There are tons of inefficient things out there, and picking on the non-commercial ones in particular is popular but not necessarily a way to identify the most damning of inefficiencies.

[Dr. Strangelove]

There's blame to go around. The universities see dollar signs. Talent's right that society has come to regard anything less than a college degree as a failure. Because college degrees are so common, employers feel free to demand them as a requirement for even the most menial, dead-end, $24,000/yr jobs, squeezing out the HS-only folks even more.

My dad graduated high school in the late 60's and practically the next day walked into Ford and got a job that afforded him an upper-middle class lifestyle. He's fortunate to have kept that job for 30+ years. Jobs like that exist in very few numbers now.

[iam416]

Yeah. Middle class jobs are way different now. To quote Charles, Slim: "The thing about the old days is they the old days."

[Mike]

But you can win political campaigns by convincing people that you can make the old days new again.

[froot loops]

Most of the time the media focuses on these stories about a college graduate in a low level job, it is temporary due to a recession or some sort of economic downturn. I graduated during a recession and had to sling pizzas for a few years before getting a good job.

The numbers bear out that having a college degree is a big advantage.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Robots will replace piece work humans in the work place where such work is done. Any job that can be done in steps can be done by a robot. That change is well underway and will only expand in the future, that future being not far off.

What robots can't do well is imagine and create. That's where the challenge is in educating the workforce.

To position yourself favourably for the jobs of the future, become someone who can look at problems in unorthodox ways, seeing different angles and finding workable solutions.

Be a multi-disciplinary, insatiably curious person who knows how to use the tools to model ideas and create prototypes.

Possessed of an open mind and few fixed ideas about how things should be done, you nonetheless have a strong conscience and can operate outside of your comfort zone to achieve win-win outcomes. You are known for your integrity and resilience.

All of these qualities can be cultivated or perhaps rediscovered, since children often exhibit them in abundance. They have always been the way for creative, high-achieving people and they are still the way today and into the future.

In the brave new world of the coming age of intelligent machines, it is these essentially human qualities that will be more important than ever. Some things will never change because human nature is what it is.


http://www.iflscience.com/job-surviv...igent-machines.

[iam416]

The numbers bear out that having a college degree is a big advantage.

It's a big individual advantage. The question at issue was a macro one of whether it was a big societal advantage such that "free" high education is justified. On a macro level it would appear - at least if you listen to Ds bemoan the student debt 'crisis' - that we are (a) oversupplied with college grads or (b) undersupplied with jobs that justify the cost of the education. From where I sit, it doesn't make sense to encourage -- massively encourage -- more college graduates.

As an individual you ought to carefully assess all available options, and if you can go to University and obtain a degree with market value commensurate with or above the cost of your education then you absolutely do it.

But if you can't, you really need to think about other options. And, IMO, it's partly on the government to provide those alternative options.

[Mike]

The answer to your query is "B". The new economy does not provide enough good paying jobs that actually require a college degree. This is where the large number of underemployed come from. To Froot's point about being better off with a degree than without, that is true to a certain extent. The unemployment rate for college grads is significantly lower than for those without. But if someone has 50k in student loan debt to land a job for 25k, is it really worth it? I say no.

[froot loops]

You aren't going to be in that 25k job for long. The numbers bear that out. If you have 50K in student debt it will definitely be worth it over the long haul.

As for the macro benefits of the economy, the US has a big comparitive advantage with the college and university system it has. But countries like India are trying to catch up.

[Hannibal]

I don't know if it is still the case today after the shale crash, but two years ago there was such a shortage of skilled blue collar workers that my company was paying some of them a per diem in between jobs just to sit on their asses so that they wouldn't take another job. I guess what I am trying to say is that the rule that college is a ticket to having a higher income is one that needs to be reexamined. Especially if you getting a degree in a field with no obvious real world applications.