SBS

Has anyone tried this new thing? It's an Outlook add-on that is basically like automatic social networking, helps find communication by person, organizes attachments, links to other people in case you forgot the name of some guy's assistant you dealt with a year ago, etc. Seems they still have some stuff to work out, but looks like it has a lot of potential. Anyone else have experience with it yet? www.xobni.com -s _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

That's hilarious! "This MIGHT be the stupidest thing I've ever done..." _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I think I would say something like "they believed that the villagers were not capable of elevating themselves or China as a whole." And just for discussion sake, when you say .5% poverty in urban areas, by what standard? Is that a local standard, or global, etc? Seems like there's an awful lot of poverty visible even in the cities (or what many by OUR standards would consider poverty). _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I don't know about the legality of it, but that's an awesome fuckin drawing. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

Horton Hears a Who... bout 20 minutes in...it's bloody, but a great scene... _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

It's like the recycling of baby disposal. Waaaaaay better for the environment. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I was going to suggest throwing in the verb "enculer" wherever possible... _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

The ones that I have known have been paid minimum wage or higher, and have paid more in taxes than those who make a similar wage who are legal due to the fact that if they were legal they would be able to be refunded the taxes that had been withheld from their paychecks. Agreed in principle. My argument is that in practice it is not that simple. As Chuck pointed out, we live in a society where people are afraid to get their hands dirty and "want to start at the top". The notion that the labor is just going to appear is ridiculous. It's equally ridiculous to think that people will not have a problem paying significantly higher prices that will result from higher labor costs. It's nice to say, but the reality is that people already have problems paying the prices as they stand today. And not yet mentioned is the question "what are we going to bitch about when they are gone?" What's going to be the next scapegoat of "what's wrong with our society" if we no longer have this argument? I don't know that I have EVER seen statistics of the negative impact that illegal immigrants have on our economy. I would be interested if someone does have some. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

More power to you. I don't have room on my apartment balcony for a lemon tree. I have tried to grow stuff and I can't do it for crap. In any event, as a society we did the grow your own food thing for centuries and the local farm, etc. The local video store was owned by a local family, Blockbuster was not a factor. Starbucks replaced the local coffee house, and McDonalds is the new local family owned hamburger stand. Through our actions we have changed the way things are done...why do we want to go back? Why can't we just let the machine work and go about our lives? I don't see the relevance. Because we elect to drive 90 minutes to pursue our hobby on the weekend, we should be ok with driving 30 minutes to a local farm to get our produce? I choose to spend my time on other endeavors and take advantage of the infrastructure that has been built to afford me the opportunity to do so. I'm sure that's not expensive...and how inefficient would that be to have someone deliver a bunch of asparagus, a head of lettuce, and 2 apples? BTW, as far as supporting your local farmer and screwing the big guys, where do we think the big guys get their produce? Those little guys have contracts with the big guys to provide fruit and vegetables...you kill the big guys, you kill the little guys. Sure, there are some who wouldn't mind going and selling a few hundred boxes at a local market, but their bread and butter is the contracts that they have to provide thousands to the Driscoll's and the Naturipes, etc. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I don't know. A) Legal workers would not do this for minimum wage unless we are talking about making those who are now illegal legal. B) They are already paid minimum wage or more. We are talking about immigrants, not slave labor. I would consider this a significantly different discussion if we were talking about people who were making $3 or $4 an hour or nothing at all. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

That would be awesome, if we all lived next door to a farm and could afford the time to go pick our own fruit. We could slaughter our own meat too. I can see the guy in LA walking out of work saying "no, can't go to the movie, gotta run down to Irvine to pick some strawberries", or in San Francisco, "sorry, maybe tomorrow, I have to go to Watsonville to get some artichokes". Where are the people in NYC going to get their produce? What about restaurants? Commerce was created to distribute product. Industry can focus on providing, and consumers can focus on what they are good at. Restaurants can focus on serving their customers, not harvesting their food. Sure, they each can have a department that does that, and then someone will come along and figure out that it is incredibly inefficient, and consolidate into a central entity that acts as the source for all of the local restaurants. Then they will see the opportunity to distribute to stores to get in on the growing consumer market. They'll be buying so much food that the farms are going to have to hire people to pick. I think this is about where we started this conversation, right? _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

This is an interesting point of view, because I think it's common that people believe that undocumented workers work for less than minimum wage and do not have health benefits. Speaking for the farm where I worked, they made minimally minimum wage, while making significantly more in the height of the season. Basically they pay hourly when the volume is relatively low, and when it is highest, they pay by the box. The day the per box pay starts, you literally see people running up and down the field with 2 or 3 boxes on their shoulder all day long. It's absolutely amazing. I have never seen such hard work. They didn't have health insurance from the company, and there's no 401k, but they are covered by workman's comp, just like anyone else. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

That's kind of the point, is that we are already in a situation that is dire. A small hit would put companies under...what we are discussing would be disastrous. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

So I think this sound reasonable, but is a little backwards...take the labor away, see what happens, and then give it back... What about step one being "reform welfare". That way, we don't suffer from higher prices because of increased labor costs, and companies have the opportunity to build a back up force before their A team gets torn away. Everyone here that is arguing for deportation of the illegals seems to be giving fantastic ideas for getting rid of them...that's the easy part. The hard part seems here to be written off to "eh, we can make it work". Amazon's is the first real offer of a solution that I have seen, while still skewed towards "get rid of them immediately". Does anybody look at the big picture here? Not the positive for the Capitalists by increasing the labor force, and not the negative to the labor by forcing down wages, but to the net result that their presence has on the economy and the negative impact that their immediate removal would have? What about the companies that would not be able to bounce back from the recession? We're not talking about a bad year, we're talking about a bad decade. What are they supposed to do when their labor force disappears and they haven't had the support to build a replacement? We can say "fuck em", but the fact is that they service us. We see that end result, and sure, they may lose their mansions, but we will all suffer. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I think that something that seems to be forgotten in this argument is that both of those groups, the capitalist and the labor are US. WE are the capitalists AND the labor. Robbing Peter to pay Paul ultimately does not work. Taking away all of the labor and creating demand for people who would rather sit on their asses and collect welfare than go out and earn an honest wage because they are "above that" or are "worth more than that" doesn't serve our country any more than letting anyone in who wants to come. There is a balance that needs to be reached that will included deportation of some and turning a blind eye to others. So how much do you suppose wages would have to increase to motivate Joe Blow Outta Work to get out into a field and pick berries? Do you propose that the companies just eat that extra cost? That cost will be passed onto us at a premium. They won't do their markup and then tag on that extra $5 an hour they are paying. They are going to tag on his fully loaded salary, $7 an hour, and then mark up their 30% or whatever they want to make. Now we're at $9.10 an hour in addition to what we were paying before. Now figure one company with 400 Acres, that averages 400 workers 8 hours a day for 6 months of the year. At $7 an hour, 8 hours a day, 26 days a month, that comes out to $3.5 million a year additional to what they are already paying. That is for a farm of 400 acres, producing about 5k boxes per acres. So, $1.75 additional per box plus mark up to the wholesaler, $2.25, plus markup to the store, $3.25, plus markup to the consumer, $4. Eight boxes of strawberries per flat, that's $.50 per little box of strawberries. How many companies do you suppose that would put out of business? Unless of course EVERYONE (meaning us) purchases no less produce, despite the price increases. That is, assuming best case, that $5/hour would be enough to supply enough workers to pick enough boxes in the same amount of time. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

What you've said is a reasonable statement, but is a very general overview of the issue...some will benefit, some will suffer, politicians don't have the balls, etc. What I'm wondering, which I don't have the time or frankly desire to do right this second (but may sometime), is look at quantifiable impact that a move like this would have. What we can't discount is the different impacts that it would have on different industries. Some may suffer more than others, and while one industry may benefit slightly, the other may suffer greatly, and we net out at a negative. Something else that I think is interesting, is that we always assume that because they are here companies will not hire legal citizens. Nobody is rejecting applications of documented workers...not like they disappear and all of a sudden there's a raid at the employment office of people who were just waiting for them to go away. If there are others in line for one's job then that person needs to work harder. If what people say is true, and all these people are going to come out of the woodwork when the Mexicans are gone and they weren't on the line fighting for the jobs before, then they weren't worth a damn in the first place. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

What was the influence that illegal immigrants had on the economy in the 1950's vs that of today? Was it comparable? If life without them would be as good or better than life with them, and the government has much better intelligence than we do and are well aware of operation wetback and many other methods by which they could stop illegal border crossing, then why don't they stop it? _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

Is this in reference to my post, or is it referring to Jeb's comment that he estimated that they were flying about 100 mph? I do know that when this was done previously it was done with a system that held the front risers down while they were flying relative and could be released to normal flight before landing. I don't know if that is what is being done here. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

Awesome, yeah, what could possibly go wrong??? Oh god, please don't do that!!! _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

*joking**joking**joking**joking**joking**joking**joking* If you want to start, about 10 seconds before you would normally flare, just pull down on one of your front risers as hard as you can. That's step one. Let us know after you tried that and you heal up, and I'll tell you step two. (To those of you who will say "what if someone reads that and doesn't realize you're joking, and goes and does it", I respond, "then when they ask, I will tell them step two") _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I have a friend who had an accident while performing said act you mention. Not a friend of a friend, not a story that I heard from a guy...my friend. They were in a minivan that rolled. They were unhurt, but when it came to rest there was a pole through her seat. So the act endangered and then saved her life... (I thought that was an appropriate face both for the shock and well...) _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

You are correct in the way that he would be going very fast. As canopies get smaller, though, it becomes increasingly important to create lift beyond what it does naturally in order to have a graceful landing. His speed becomes more horizontal than vertical, and thus can be run off easier. Speed creates that lift, so as ironic as it is, it is beneficial to go faster than the buttfuckin fast that he is already going. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I don't think stopping them is the problem. The question is what do we do when they aren't here? I would put money on the notion that the day illegals don't contribute something to our economy that is not otherwise available, Operation Wetback Numero Dos will be in place in a matter of days. We could always make them legal, but that would mean we have to let them stay and can't disown them at will. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

I don't discount that Bush has priorities that are not aligned with ours, but in addition to negatives I see many positives from immigrants, legal and illegal. Specifically to illegal, the amount of taxes many of them pay without the benefits that come as a direct result (ie - social security). Some (many) do not pay taxes, but how many American citizens get paid under the table? That has nothing to do with being a legal citizen or not. I would be interested to see an actual side by side analysis of the pros and cons of illegal immigration. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...

If they would be willing or you could get them to do work a tenth that hard, they wouldn't be on welfare in the first place. _____________ I'm not conceited...I'm just realistic about my awesomeness...