Mister P-Mosh

I reminded myself tonight that I am a dumbster. I didn't know until a few weeks ago that Pluto is no longer considered a planet in our solar system. It is a plutoid thingy along with that other heavenly orb that was "discovered." There was a very important meeting of astronomers and it was voted by most of them to decide such. The National Geographic episode was made a couple of years ago. I thought I had watched something new!!!

I told several people about it and they all responded, "Yeh, you didn't know that?" Then my little 89 year old lady friend said, "Honey, where have you been?"

I gotta get out more........

Realistically, Pluto is still what it always has been, we've just defined it differently. So it doesn't matter that much I suppose. It's not like misunderstanding what a year is.

Was anyone else on here into that series? I thought the end was pretty good, although there were a few ridiculous moments and things that could have been wrapped up a little better. It did take a strangely religious turn at the end, but I think that parallels the way the original series ended with those beings of light. I won't say more in case someone is watching the series and didn't get a chance to finish it yet.

What did you think of it?

I have what is probably a controversial view of both the r-word and the n-word (and yes, Obama said "special olympics" and not the r-word as you call it.)

Basically, the n-word is based on the Latin (and Spanish and Portugese) word for the color black. It's simply a mispronunciation that English-speaking people made for the word. The reason it has bad connotations is because the negative connotations were assigned to it by disparaging people with dark skin. Had the kidnapped Africans been treated like kings rather than slaves, the n-word could have been as inoffensive as "brunette".

With words like "retard","special", "mentally handicapped" etc. they have bad connotations because these people are actually inferior to the average person in some way, whether it's intellectual or whatever. The difference here is that we keep changing definitions for their condition because their condition has a negative connotation. We don't want to make them feel bad because they are human beings and have the same feelings as the rest of us. People unfamiliar with special needs people use the term of the day to insult others because of the sense that they are inferior.

So the problem is that to white people, it is entirely possible for us to recognize that black people are equal to us even if they don't look exactly the same. However, disabled people of all types do have something wrong with them. They are obviously not to blame for their predicament, but it simply isn't comprehensible for most of the rest of us to recognize them as our equals. So the term we use for them becomes an insult. When I was a kid, everyone went around using "special" as an insult when we were taught that saying "retard" was rude. It's human nature, unfortunately.

I would be curious how it would taste with lamb instead of pork. Also, try using ancho chili powder instead of the red pepper flakes. One other thing to try would be using serrano peppers instead of jalapeño peppers. It's a personal preference, but they are hotter.

My hang up on this AIG thing is the word bonus. In my line of work a bonus is something you get when you achieve certain pre-determined targeted objectives rather than an entitlement. So, my question what objectives did these AIG execs achieve when the Company as a whole was hemmoraging billions of dollars?

My company doubled our fourth quarter profits last year, and we still almost didn't give bonuses out in case we needed the money for this year (the decision was made to give bonuses anyway, although they weren't as big as previous years.) So if companies that increase their revenue are scrutinizing bonuses, it is amazing how AIG decided to give bonuses anyway. I don't see how this could please their shareholders, much less the U.S. citizens who all have a stake in it.

The rich have a "me first" mentality where they feel that they deserve everything they can get their hands on, no matter how unethical it may be. That's why we are in this crisis, and why the big corporationss don't seem to be taking the demands of the American people and our government seriously.

Actually P-Mosh it goes way farther than that - down to rather excruciating detail.

I have to deal with SOX as well, as my team maintains a system that is one of the key controls from the I.T. side and we have to generate reports to auditors and sit with them and explain how we run things. It still seems like more hassle than help though, and it doesn't really do anything to prevent fraud because the company gets to define how they adhere to SOX, and as long as the company does what it says it will do, everything is fine with the auditors.

Like I started with - I'm not entirely sure - but I sure am NOT going to go back through all of the SOX compliance stuff just to be sure of a conjecture on GSC - It took us two years to get compliant and we were a fairly small company...however I remember enough of it to consider that since it focused on "controls" that there is a pretty good chance AIG and some of the others were not following strict nor even reasonable internal controls...and that smacks of SOX audit and we ain't talkin' Red Sox here.

This had nothing to do with SOX though. From the risky mortgages they insured to the contracts with bonuses, no actual fraud was committed by AIG. SOX is about controls to prevent individuals from manipulating the company's finances. It really doesn't solve anything to do with what Enron did, and has nothing to do with what AIG did.

It is it for ratings? Spicing up his time in office? Just cause he can?

Unlike our past president, he seems to be striving for increased transparency in government, which I think is why he has been more open to talking to the American people via televised speeches, town halls, and now talk shows.

Hmmm - while I won't disagree with the general results - the survey showed zero demographics - how many were inner city? How many were less than high school educated?

Excellent questions, and I've thought about asking people in my office the questions just to see how the results hold up with educated people who should know these things.

What is the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun? A year - hmmm what is a year? 365 days? 365.25 days+leap corrections? A sidereal year of 365.256363004 days + leap second corrections?

365 days is still correct, since most of us don't need to calculate it to the level of precision that you do. We can round the number quite easily to get the 365 days.

From Science Daily comes a report that shows how shockingly ignorant so many of us are. They took a poll of random adults, asking very basic questions about science, and the numbers didn't turn out too well. Here are the questions and results:

* Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.

* Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.

* Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*

* Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.

I can sort of understand some of the results of #2 since some religious groups believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, but these are really some basic questions. I don't really see how people who got these wrong, especially the first one, are capable of breathing on their own, much less functioning as adults in society.

What do you all think?

I also have absolutely no doubt that there are people assigned to watch this site. lcm himself said so, and a closed and paranoid system like twi wouldn't suddenly stop ignoring the buzz.

I think that secretly, TWI relishes any attention they can get at this point. Sure, we're not nice to them, but at least someone is paying some sort of attention to them. They are like lonely, bored little children.

If you google Juarez, Mexico you will see horrbile crime rates and most of it is drug or prostition related. 2000 death as of last week in the last year. Women disappear frequently. It is the town right across from El Paso on the Texas border.

I'm familiar with that, and my understanding is that thousands of women have disappeared from Juarez for years now.

In my experience the border has always been an unsafe area, but the rest of Mexico hasn't been too bad and still isn't. I don't see why the media here is portraying it as a national crisis there that is affecting everyone, when in reality it's more of a localized crisis like Hurricane Katrina was for us. It reeks of an ulterior motive, but I don't understand what the media has to gain.

Better to get gas than to die from eating their food, like this one:

I never posted on that thread P-Mosh - nor on other threads about "the issue"

I got your post on the Sheriff Joe thread mixed up with that one. I've been catching up on reading things that interest me and the two sort of combined in my mind.

I've seen plenty of what P-Mosh is talking about - living in San Diego - also a border city with Tijuana - although I think that the implementation of the Maquiladoras helped out a lot in cross border transactions.

P-Mosh I'd be glad to have a phone conversation with you - but I won't post in detail here or the various factions of the amnesty thread will descend on me from both sides.

Based on what you've posted in that and other threads I have an idea of what your opinion is. :)

I wonder if maybe you're hearing these reports because you live in a state that borders Mexico. I admit that I'm not a big news hound and don't read/watch the national news all the time, so I might have missed it, but I've heard nothing like what you're describing.

I do live in Texas, but some of it has been on the national level. Part of my annoyance stems from the fact that I have a coworker who constantly bombards me with anti-Mexico emails and speeches. His parents came from Mexico, and like many Mexican-Americans, he basically hates the nation of Mexico and is happy to find fault with every minute detail. Since I like going there, and my wife is from there, I get annoyed by it. It may just be a combination of where I live and who I have to deal with at work.

I don't mean this to turn into a discussion about immigration or U.S. politics. I am curious about your opinions though.

Basically, here is my thoughts. I've been hearing all the bad news lately about Mexico, how the media keeps proclaiming that thousands have been killed there, how it's dangerous for Americans, and how the government there has lost control. It sounds really horrible, and perhaps a few steps from being like Iraq.

I just got back from Mexico today. I was in the state of Sinaloa, which is the home of one of the cartels and the traditional seat of power of the drug cartels in Mexico. There was no violence, there was no talk of anything related to drugs, there were no reports of murders, and everything seemed normal as it has every other time I've gone there for the past few years. In fact, the Mexicans I talked to pretty much unanimously believed that it's nothing more than an attack on Mexico by the U.S. media in an attempt to get Americans to stay in the U.S. and spend our dollars at home because of the bad economy.

So here is where I ask for your opinions. It seems that Mexico is not plunging into a "drug war", the government there is still in control, and things are not any different for the vast majority of Mexicans. There have been a few random cases of violence away from the border, but they are limited to people involved with drugs in some way. Why then, is the U.S. reporting this in such a sensationalistic way? What benefit does the U.S. gain by stirring up fear against Mexico? Is it really a cheap attempt to get people to stay home instead of going on vacation? If so, why aren't we hearing about the dangers of being killed in the Bahamas or the dangers of being murdered in Europe? Why pick on Mexico?

I think it's great, personally. It's a good tool for keeping in contact with people that I haven't talked to in a while or don't come into contact with regularly. Specifically, old friends from schools or other jobs that I wouldn't keep in touch with normally. I'm living in Texas, my best friend from high school is living in Ohio now, so we haven't kept in touch. However, now with facebook we can see what is going on with each other even if we aren't emailing constantly. It's a good tool if everyone uses it.

Also, I second the concerns people have brought up about security settings, rejecting applications, and keeping it clean for future employers. As far as worrying about paedophiles and such, MySpace is more for kids and Facebook is for adults. There are other sites that are more cutting edge such as Twitter that I don't like, but Facebook is the most mainstream one for the moment.

As far as keeping in touch with ex-TWI people, I have quite a few on my Facebook friends list, but they aren't on GSC.

The Mexican Consulate in Phoenix has joined the chorus of federal lawmakers and advocacy groups coming

down on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his treatment of undocumented immigrants. Earlier this month, Arpaio segregated undocumented immigrants in the county jails and marched 220 convicted inmates from Durango Jail to Tent City.

Rocky,

I think your words will fall on deaf ears....well, blind eyes. To many people around here, if you're not a U.S. citizen, you have no human rights and can be tortured, murdered, raped, or whatever with no consequence. You have to provide more examples like the one I did of a U.S. citizen being rounded up and accused of being here illegally, or more of the many cases where U.S. citizens have been arrested on demonstrably false charges, or other cases of innocent people (remember that only U.S. citizens count as people to some here) treated horribly.

Oh, Mister-P-Mosh,

Was that an "inappropriate" comment?

I don't know, but it's one of my semi-favorite sayings.

Working on stemming illegal immigration doesn't sound like fascism to me. Give that man a medal.

So you think all hispanic people are "illegal immigrants" now? If you read my post, you would see that I discussed him arresting U.S. citizens on fake immigration violations for simply being hispanic. Here is an example:

Correa said he informed MCSO deputies that he was an American citizen, born in Maricopa County, but that they did not believe him because of his accent. In any case, he cooled his heels in stir till morning, when he was informed that he would not yet be released.

"They told me I had an ICE hold," said Correa. "I said, `But I told you I was a U.S. Citizen!' They said, "Yeah, yeah, come on.' Then they put me with all the immigrants. I was in there for like six more hours. I continued calling my family, and they kept calling the jail."

Perhaps you don't care about non-white U.S. citizens, but I think it's wrong to arrest people without reason. At this point, all hispanics, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, have to carry their paperwork with them at all times. Pretty much everyone considers it fascism to live where you have to carry identification at all times so random police can stop you and demand to see proof of your citizenship, especially when it is among ethnic lines.

"Sheriff Joe" is a dictionary definition fascist, plain and simple.

Barry's tang got toungled up in his tie.

Funny, I didn't see his wife there.

If you quit school, you have less chance of making money later on that he and his cronies can tax.

I think that's what he meant to say, but was being *politically correct* about it. :) :unsure:

So what you are saying is that you want American kids to drop out of high school?

I think one of the reasons he said it was to increase our competitiveness as a country internationally, and continue as a country to be trailblazers of invention in all fields. I believe he also wants the poorest among us to improve their lives. With so many in all fields unemployed right now and with whole industries tanking, going back to school or getting a degree is what many need to get new jobs. Many people would like to go into new or second careers later in life, any assistance from the govt would be helpful. He also tagged on community service participation and giving back would be tied into affordable govt education programs....interesting stuff, I would go for that.

I agree, and am amazed at how our nation, as opposed to nations like China and India, seem to hate education and intelligent people so much. I expect countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia to demonize educators and ridicule intelligent people and instead admire brutish, stupid people. We need to make our country a place again where kids grow up wanting to be doctors and scientists rather than professional athletes.

I don't know Bolshevik, something stinks in Sh!tsville, and you're the mayor.

I disagree

What is one valid reason for dropping out?

And your sources for claiming so are . . . . . .??? (especially #'s 1 & 3).

Rocky is completely right. My sister in law lives in Maricopa county, and under the watch of "Sherriff Joe" the city has been successfully sued and cost the city great deals of money, crime is skyrocketing which he is doing nothing about, and he pulled people off of things like homicide to work immigration law (which often consists of arresting hispanic U.S. citizens for doing things like driving while hispanic, then expecting their families to bring birth certificates in to prove they aren't undocumented immigrants.) Phoenix is now the kidnapping capital of the U.S. because of his incompetence and failure to do anything about crime.

Sherriff Joe is a fascist who would be at home in WWII era Italy, except that he wouldn't even be capable of keeping the trains running. He is nothing but hype and has caused more problems than he has fixed. Painting prisons pink and forcing prisoners to live in tents in the desert sounds tough, but it is all just theatrics.