I keep 20-25 gallons of water, a mix of food that will keep for a few days as well as some stuff that will last longer, fuel enough for a few days to allow running the cars - good way to charge batteries, a few UPS's, plenty of radio equipment (amateur 10-160m coverage plus scanners and shortwave), enough weapons and ammo to hold out for a while. No generator here and not a lot of canned or dehydrated food though.

Your attention to detail is admirable and something I wish more people were interested in or even competent at. Unfortunately that is not the case. You could offer to take on some of that additional workload, but that means more work for you. I'd discuss it with your manager in your 1-on-1 meetings. Your manager DOES do 1-on-1 meetings with each of his or her team on a weekly basis, right? If not, maybe it's time to move on to somewhere your efforts will be better appreciated and rewarded. You can only fight the tide and try to effect change for so long. If it's not working, let it be someone else's problem.

Nice, my first Apple was a IIc about the same time. I loved that it didn't need peripheral cards and had been using II+, IIe, and the clone Franklin Ace for some time at school. At around $700 it was a good deal for an all in one - computer and monitor with a 5.25" drive. Didn't touch another computer until the early 90's when I learned a bit of DOS. Then took a job doing PC support in '94 and about a year later had my first self built PC clone. I was an OS/2 guy, then switched to Linux, then over to Windows for a brief stint for games until buying a Mac again in 2005 or 2006. I'm on my second Macbook Pro now.

Why do you think removing children from a household with a parent or parents who demonstrate the inability to act responsibly and place them with families who have been subjected to background checks and financial analysis to determine their fitness to act as foster parents and who are closely monitored, things never done for actual parents, punishing the children? I believe quite the opposite.

There are jobs that pay minimum wage - generally unskilled jobs, especially in retail. Food service is another example. However if one doesn't rule out manual labor or jobs that require some level of skill there are jobs that pay significantly more. Unemployment offices generally (here in NJ at least) still provide some level of job training, not for the most pleasant or high paying jobs but jobs that pay 2-3 times minimum wage. The problem is people don't want a job that requires heavy manual labor, or so it seems. Many people will take these types of jobs in the spring or fall but bail out of them when winter comes around here in the NE/mid-atlantic areas because of the cold. They opt in many cases for unemployment. Unemployment was extended from 26 weeks to 99 weeks. Some states are finally starting to roll this back to 26 weeks (mainly because the states are going broke supporting these people), but the damage is done.

I would rather see our unemployment / job services departments work to find the type of jobs that people will enjoy and excel at instead of sending them out on their own to fail. That's not what we have in this country. We have people that do not necessarily know what they are or would be good at doing jobs far below their talent level in many cases and convincing themselves they can't do any better.

Even worse we have the trap you described well of welfare - hard to get out of once you are in it. The majority of those using our welfare system are single parent households where there is no option for one parent to work while the other raises the children. In addition many of these people have multiple children that they simply cannot afford. How about putting some restrictions on this? If you are on welfare and you have additional children, no more welfare. If you cannot support your children, they are placed into foster care until you can. Pitch that and the liberals in this country will crucify you. Instead we just let these people sit at home and collect the money that the mere 47% of Americans that pay federal income taxes continue to pay into the system. And Obama wants us to pay more.

Hold on here, how does one equate to the other? Let's assume you come home from your $30,000 a year job that allows you to pay your mortgage, food, all of what you need. You come home one day and find that your mortgage was "mis-sold" (not sure what that is, and I spent 10 years in real estate, but continuing on...), and let's assume you were smart enough to not buy the WaMu BS commercials and had your money in a real bank. I know there were a number of banks that failed during the downturn, mainly those that were heavily leveraged. However even in those banks your money was insured by the federal government up to $100,000 per account (savings and checking, not investment so if you stashed all of your money in an REIT you're screwed). Those banks reopened the in the days following their being seized. So what was lost in the case as I explained it here? You wouldn't have lost any money that was in savings or checking accounts, the mortgage issue might need some legal attention but I'm sure would have been worked out and you would still have the same job you had in the first place. Not everyone has the same choices in life, that's true. We all have the opportunity to make good decisions though - informed decisions. These days there is a wealth of information at our fingertips via the Internet - more than any generation has ever had before. Do some research. Make informed decisions. When you make a bad decision, learn from it. Don't just throw in the towel. That was my point. And, by the way, none of this has anything to do with minimum wage.

Two different issues.

Regarding lowering the minimum wage, the idea isn't to provide you with a wage you can live on and afford "things". The idea is to create an entry point into the workforce. From there you move on to jobs that pay living wages. You aren't meant to stay earning minimum wage for extended periods of time.

My work ethic comment is aimed at the abuse of unemployment and welfare plans. Too many people remain on these services - again meant to be short term and temporary - for too long. If an individual cannot find a job that "suits" them, they can remain on unemployment far too easily instead of finding a honest job that pays the bills. Welfare is similar - there is zero motivation for an individual who has no work ethic to reenter the workforce. This is where a significant part of the US lacks work ethic.

I believe the first half of your argument has very valid points, but your conclusion I do not agree with. There are other issues to factor in to the equation of what the minimum wage should be based on your post-war growth model. Yes, post WW2 the US economy grew dramatically. Manufacturing was high, wages were generally low for all workers, but everyday items were still affordable. Since the dropoff in manufacturing and the move to a more technical workforce, coupled with the availability of market trading to everyday people via computers in the past 20 years which skews pricing, plus periods of extreme inflation (some of us recall paying 25% interest on car loans), the math just isn't that simple any more. Valuation of the US dollar isn't near where it was 30 years ago, much less 60 or so years ago after WW2.

I believe the minimum wage is actually too high and should be rolled back. We also need "real" limits on unemployment and welfare. We need to get back to those post WW2 years from a perspective of work ethic. Workers should be able to earn a fair wage - something far above where I believe minimum wage should be - that allows them to afford a home, a car, and to feed and clothe their family. We should not "need" tow earner households, not that it shouldn't be an option if someone chooses it. We simply should be able to get by without everyone over the age of 18 working 60 hours per week at the cost of our society.

The majority of voters here have indicated they believe the minimum wage should either be increased or be dynamically determined by market factors. Based on this I can only assume these individuals would then be content to work at the minimum wage - that is the absolute minimum that the government feels your time is worth. Is this how we are supposed to be living - aim low, race to zero, do the absolute minimum? I don't believe so. Even after several years in the workforce I'm still aways trying to figure out how to better my scenario - earn more, save more for retirement, and most importantly buy more beer and toys. I don't understand the interest in minimum wage. It worked for me for my first six weeks of employment ever, and at less than half of what the minimum wage is now. Six weeks later I had a job that paid a whopping five cents more per hour than minimum wage. It wasn't much, but I think it set me on a course where I was always looking for something better. Less than 10 years after that I was bringing home a living wage and earning 30% annual bonuses.

I did say "by the fans", not by the people responsible for posting videos of other people's misfortune. Is NASCAR lying about copyrights worse than video bloggers looking for their next viral video at the expense of people heading for an emergency room? I don't believe it is. I also think "lying" is probably a bit strong. Misstated - perhaps. A blatant lie? Doubtful.

You are confusing two different things here. Minimum wage should not be a goal. It is a stepping stone for the young to enter the US workforce to gain experience in how worker - employer relationships work and to learn about responsibility and work ethic. The employer also needs to limit risk in bringing in these otherwise unexperienced individuals. The minimum wage allows us to build our next generation of workers. It is not meant to provide for a family or even an individual. Minimum wage jobs are meant to be short term, not careers.

Minimum wage is by definition not supposed to be a living wage. Minimum wage serves to protect against abusive employment practices and provides a mechanism for the young to enter the workforce at an entry level while limiting risk to the employer. We need a minimum wage to protect workers. That wage must be affordable to employers as well. We do not need to be concerned that the minimum wage is not a wage that can provide for a family, or even an individual. That is not it's purpose.

NASCAR will do and is doing the right thing by these fans I'm confident. This isn't the first time fans have been injured at events, although it does happen infrequently. Simply stated, the catch fence for the most part did it's job and kept the car on the track. The engine block and a wheel could be seen on the spectator side of the fence where the failure occurred. The fence was repaired (although the gate from the track to the stands was not replaced, but removed) for today's Daytona 500.

At least not in the US. Many US employers, beyond paying employees for a significant number of "non-work" days now be they holiday or otherwise, provide a "floating holiday" that employees can use for that purpose if they wish. Beyond that, this is what "PTO" time is for ("Personal Time Off" in the US is the new name for a combined pool of vacation, sick, and personal days that came into fashion a few years ago).

Fair usage based on your agreement with your provider likely prohibits this meaning you would be in breach of contract and subject to cancellation, at least here in the US, and rightfully so in my opinion. Secondly, sounds like something the child porn perverts would love to see happen to assist them in evading detection while they prey on our children. Sorry, I won't be participating in this. Ever.