Random Politics & Religion #00

From what I've heard about on places like Norway and Sweden, to places I've actually worked and had to do this, Russia and China, it seems like an almost universal concept (not just Europe). Prove to them why they should hire you over one of their citizens with the same education and background.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/09/02/arbys-apologizes-refuses--serve-florida-police-officer/71580310/

I recalled this from the incident, if we're to believe the guy's story it sounds like the "manager" tried to make a bad joke and it backfired.

That's really disappointing.

In smaller districts where you have more limitations in the electives given the district budget, you would think college release/dual-credit would be the most practical and cost-effective solution for both the school and the students, especially when they don't provide Advanced Placement programs.

I think in some places it's actually required by the government though? Or at least heavily incentivized?

Well, this specifically was AP, as college release would have required at least a 45 minute drive to boot.

On a positive note, however, it did mean that I had to take English 101 in college and I got to meet one of the greatest professors I've had the pleasure of working with, and with whom I took two other advanced courses. Oddly fortuitous, given it was the one semester every few years on the rotation where he actually did undergrad non-majors courses.

I'd rather be more like neither.

Oh yeah, the Abry's one had that short mentioning of a joke. It still seems like there is either a missing piece from this story (the joke) as well as the other story, or some type of underground movement to not serve cops. Idk if that's a thing now or what. It's one thing if they expect a free meal or free stuff, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Inversely, in Pennsylvania the current governor is really big on wiping out whatever government worker "perks" from private industry he can (I applaud this).

To that end, the discount that state police employees got at Subway went away.

Which really pissed Subway off. They got a lot of business from State Troopers who basically stopped going there when their discount went away.

From what I read before (too lazy to look it up again) is that they were busy, the dude said something about the other guy being short with him or something and the manager made a crack saying that he didn't want to serve him because he was a cop, which the original person said that wasn't true, they were just busy.

If it's accurate that one got canned and the other got reprimanded from this incident, I hope it was the manager who got canned for making a poor joke, and not the other guy, but I'm skeptic.

In what respects? Education costs are ridiculous, employers can't fill positions yet there are actually a lot of qualified people who can't afford to live on the wages those employers are offering. There's only a few ways to either lower the cost of education or pay it back in wages. Either regulate wages or college costs or subsidize them. To be clear, we're already spending a crazy amount of tax dollars on both of those problems (subsidizing schools/loans/lenders) and public assistance (welfare/unemployment benefits/corporate subsidies). Why not end those expenses and eliminate the need by offering companies educated and qualified people who aren't saddled with enormous debt and drive down the cost of living to a competitive wage level? The reason is that's socialism, and socialism is super bad cause Reagan.

Even Sander's approach (which I don't necessarily agree with) means the average Joe's tax burden stays the same or lessens, while big banks pay relatively minute taxes on things like speculation.

Was the discount offered by the state or Subway? If the latter what rule/law did they pass in doing away with it, if the former then why doesn't Subway offer a discount of their own?

(inb4 Jared joke).

Right, when you cannot counter an argument, it's best to change the topic to something completely different.

I forgot.

Kind of veering into a different tangent in light of recent headlines, but right now in Texas there is a movement to phase out state testing (which I agree with) and relinquish more centralized control of schools to the districts themselves.

In most cases, a more localized education system would be great. The apprehensions lie in the population of certain districts and their individual agendas, especially in areas that lack diversity. We've already seen the degeneration of education in Texas.

It seems like it could very well be a double-edged sword.

Texas has been in the national spotlight several times over profiling problems. -.-;

It was offered by Subway and, strictly speaking, I suppose it still is. But it is considered a gift from a private company and state employees are forbidden from accepting such gifts.

You just made it sound like Texas is the only place where profiling exists.

You could just ignore it, but we all know you will just scoff at the sources.

In other news:

I'm surprised there hasn't been any uproar over the change in credit card processing rules that starts on October 1.

I would have figured our resident anti-company/anti-corporation/anti-bank crowd would be up in arms by now, saying that banks are ruling our lives and the usual BS.

Yeah. I totally support profiling in my state, but not yours.

Eeesh.

Maybe you should realize that this is a worldwide issue and not specific to a single state?

Then you wouldn't say things like this:

The EMV changes?

They shouldn't effect consumers that much.

You're missing the point.

It isn't that Texas is alone in the problem.

It's that Texans overwhelmingly, though admittedly not universally, automatically defend negative things that occur in Texas with a knee-jerk reaction BECAUSE TEXAS.

Yeah, except it's not a government-issued rule change. Banks are spearheading this movement.

I figured that alone would make you not like it.

Well, I'm sorry that my state is so awesome that every other state has to create negative things and attribute it as a Texas-only trait just so they feel better about themselves...

The idea is to keep consumers more secure.

Despite what you think, I generally don't oppose things just for the sake of opposing things, or to spite the person presenting things.

Help, Saev has me thoroughly blocked (at least, I think he still does) and I'll still [+] his FFXI-related posts when they make sense.

And if anything, it takes heat off of the consumer if their card is stolen and misused, putting it on the card issuer and the merchant.

The only negative might be smaller businesses that don't keep up could get burned, which would be unfortunate, but at the same time...I've been to a lot of small business that are cash-only, so.

All in all I am largely in favor of secure technology. Biotagging. Let's get it done!

Ah ok. I was too lazy to research it further than if they mentioned exactly why within the first few sentences of the story.

Apathy is the devil, sir.

There's an apt Woody Harrelson quote from that movie for this impasse. Enjoy some ELO instead.