Whatever else he may be guilty of, it's not treason. The founding fathers unsurprisingly had strong views on treason, having all been regarded as traitors themselves, and so in the US, treason is very, very, very specifically defined and does not apply to him.

I'm not sure this is the best example, because congresspeople would have another incentive to support the measure: all of their home town local shops will have also been calling them up (and directing their customers to do so as well) in support of it, at least I'd guess so. I've been to enough town meeting type things where there was a lot of talk about "buy local!" and such because the local businesses were being so undercut by the big internet giants (who also weren't paying sales tax). It's the kind of thing that riles up city councils everywhere.

Feminazis are a straw man. I've been very, very active in feminist and social justice circles, and i have never met these fable man-haters who want to oppress men. It's nothing more than the same old bull that people have been using to tar feminists since at least the early 19th century.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Also, feminazis? Really? Nice strawman you've got yourself there. If you knew ANYTHING, anything at about feminism, had spent any time in actual feminist spaces, you'd know feminists are some of the first people advocating hard for paid "parental leave" that is the same for everyone.

And yeah. They don't scream bloody murder about women getting 12 weeks of paid leave vs 8 weeks for the men if a company offers it, because it represents a huge giant step forward from the status quo. (Though there will be some criticism for it). Instead, they advocate for more leave, and more leave offered to both parents, but they're hardly going to try and get rid of it, rather than trying to fix it. Jesus Christ. It's not rocket science.

I'm so happy to hear that racism and sexism are a thing of a past. Boy, that's a relief. I mean, social activism is just so much work, it's nice to know that everything's hunky dory now.

Very true. There's less incentive to discriminate against women when men are equally recognized as caregivers for their families ( and are treated as such).

It depends a lot on what you mean by travel, I would guess. If I didn't move so damn much I'd definitely invest in a desktop, but I have noticed that a lot of my friends and family who have laptops and don't necessarily take them outside the home are nonetheless not setting them up at a desk, instead choosing to move them around the house to wherever they'd like to be - i.e. in the kitchen, at the table, in bed, on the sofa, on the back porch - but they're still using them for tasks that are better suited for laptops than a tablet, so it wouldn't be an easy substitution.

Sometimes it helps to actually click on the articles on google, and see what they cited. A two minute search turned up:
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap17.htm
http://www.worklessparty.org/timework/chapman.htm
http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5190.html
http://isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE97/Belenky97/Belenky97.htm

I'm sure a more thorough search would turn up that much more. There's certainly something on JSTOR, for example.

I seem to recall actually that the studies that said 40 hours were the magic number were actually for manual labor, and after that point you did start get errors...and injuries. Studies on desk work were around 30 or 35 hours of productivity. You could have it all in 35 hours, or you could get 35 hours spread over 60, but it all works out the same in the end.

So this culture of putting in more and more hours to prove that you're really dedicated or have a better work ethic than everyone else is ridiculously toxic. For one, it hurts business, because fried employees are not particularly productive employees anyway. Two, it hurts employees, because the ones that do play that game are sacrificing their lives to do so. And three, it keeps qualified, talented people from moving up the ladder. Not every employee is single, and free of dependents. If someone is capable of doing the job, but isn't spending an extra twenty hours a week at the office playing solitaire to prove their "dedication", that should be more reason to give them the job, not less.

Except study after study has shown that a 60 work week produces about as much as a 40 hour work week. Productivity goes through the floor the longer the hours get. So there's nothing to gain. (With the exception of one-time, short-term periods of longer hours, but it's not sustainable after a week or two).

There are a couple of different things to do, but one of the challenges you're going to run into is that most non-profits are kind of too short handed (or short of time) to be able to go, "yes, of course, that'd be awesome!" (That's how many volunteers get turned away as well, actually). A lot of time when volunteers (or donations) turn up, the random employee being offered them is going to be searching their brain for a way to put them to good use, and if one doesn't immediately come to mind, there more likely to turn it down, because they've got more than enough on their plate with everything else. I've been in this position myself. I was working for a collaboration of 60ish non-profits, and someone wanted to donate an old copy machine to a non-profit. They didn't care which, just any one that needed a copier. And it was a pretty good copier, but still. The actually collaboration office couldn't use it, didn't have the room for it, certainly didn't have the money to get rid of it or move it if that became necessary. I sent out many, many calls to every agency I could think of, seeing if they needed a printer. And I'm sure, somewhere, one of them did. But if they had the need, they hadn't yet realized it, or weren't talking about it. And few of the newer ones, that were more desperate for resources, were willing to take the risk of it needing repair work or finding a way to move it from the donor's place to their office.

So here's what I'd suggest. If you have a few good non-profits in mind, ones that you know something about their operations, and there's something *specific* they could use those computers to address....I would offer it to them like that. "Hey, I know you were looking for a way to get the kids in the shelter a way to get on the internet for their homework, I've got some computers for you..." Especially if you can volunteer to provide support. That will actually probably be pretty welcomed.

Second, if you don't have any specific charities in mind, you could see if there's a local non-profit dedicated to fixing up old computers and giving them away. There's usually one in every county, and they'll have the relationships and connections to know who could use it and how to get it to them. I'm sure they wouldn't complain about having the work already done for them.

Third, you could try just contacting various groups and seeing if any are looking for computers. Good groups to start with would be shelters, churches that run shelters/food kitchens/that sort of thing, *domestic* shelters (especially if they have a safe house, but don't be offended if they turn down an offer to help set them up. They guard the locations fiercely, because they must). You could also try the local Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts groups (though I'd recommend avoiding the nearest council, and just seeing about getting in touch with the local volunteers in charge). After school programs might be good, as well as any programs dedicated to helping the elderly and disabled be more self-sufficient. Start by explaining that you've refurbished them (so they're not just "old" computers that need repair) and also, if you're willing to help set them up etc. And there you go.

You probably won't read this, as it'll be at the very bottom, but if you do, I hope it helps.

I agree. I had to roll my eyes at this, from the article:

"Many anthropologists took to the navel gazing of postmodernism and swore off attempts at rationality and science, which were disparaged as weapons of cultural imperialism. Economists and psychologists, for their part, did an end run around the issue with the convenient assumption that their job was to study the human mind stripped of culture. "

And if they'd bother to talk to the anthropologists (or anyone actually familiar with post-modern analysis)...and actually listened, they might have known that it's damned hard to study the human mind stripped of culture. One of the first assumptions of a post-modern analytical approach towards an experiment like the one the article talks about is that the results would be heavily influenced by the culture of the participants. And to point out that using money is a problematic way to judge fairness, because there are such different cultural responses built around it.

Basically, what we've got here is someone walking around in wide-eyed wonder pointing out something that's been considered foundational for several decades as if it's some wild new discovery. It's a little silly.

Didn't this get posted last fall? (Maybe last summer)?

Those prices tend to include the assumption of subsidy for a phone, because pretty much everyone goes that route, so you're kind of paying for it anyway. Though I was reading that one of the carriers has a $40/month plan for people with their own phones (though the article specifically said iphone, I doubt it's restricted to iphones, that wouldn't make any sense) but that they were hardly getting any takers on it. (I think it may have been t-mobile?). well worth looking into, if I weren't moving abroad in two weeks.

You forgot Reno and prostitution.