Scumbag mercenaries who used to go by Blackwater. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Worldwide

  Also see : dyncorp, another outfit of security contractor "heroes". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyncorp

So, this explains the US Cxx class and all their wonderful and logical decisions.

It's actually not too bad either, although it is an acquired taste. You need some small growing trays for your indoor "lawn".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatgrass

If you have a cat, you can do the same thing with oats, they love to chew on them. Every fall (like soon now) I spread a bag of wheat and a bag of oats around our lawn. Keeps it green all winter, the critters like to chew on them (dogs and cats), and some I bag up with a push mower and feed to the chickens, they gobble it down. This year I am going to do one of my garden spaces all wheat, and let it to to real wheat heads next spring, just for a hoot. Try to get enough for one loaf of bread. I tried it before but it got too weedy to harvest well, but that was in a more wild area. This time on clean, rototilled a lot in advance, garden dirt.

Well, I was just joking.....heh. Anyway, good for you you got some loot to help out with your hobby.

Lawn mowing pays better than that around here though....well, not for me it doesn't, but for guys who have multiple clients it does.

Which is amazing to me to this day that people pay to have their lawns mowed, when it is actually fun to do.

If I could make that kind of loot locally here for that sort of work, I'd need a forklift to carry around my stash of gold bars..as I tooled around on my ten square mile estate

Heck, what do your relatives pay for lawn mowing ;) Might pay a round trip ticket for me + hotel! Well, maybe not the hotel, but close enough. I guess painting their house might be worth a new Unimog...

just some random, better off nuked from orbit just to be sure:

Goldman Sachs, BP, Xe, Government Motors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the "Federal" Reserve, Haliburton..aww shoot, could go on for awhile....

So you want more people to use mass transit, but to hell with those people who aren't using any of your particular stops? Trains are cool with you as long as it is your personal train, only starts and stops where you want it? Your particular definition of what is big enough and important enough? The rails already go to these places, they are cities, why can't the residents there have as much of a right to board or disembark as you? It is NOT the same as driving to a large airport, of which there are far fewer You are special because you live or embark from one of the larger and more "elite" areas?

Then you can be riding your elite "only the big end point" trains for you "special" people and start posting with your laptop, a nice rant about all those unimportant subhuman energy hogs who live "out there" in the useless wastelands and "drive personal cars everywhere, probably SUVs, why don't they take the train"!!

Why not just sit it out and take the two weeks pay? Isn't that a lot of loot? If they restrict you from doing regular work for that time, big deal! Goof off, post on slashdot, play some games, read a book, do some of your own coding stuff..whatever.

Money is money. And also, you have stuck to YOUR word in that case, you offered two weeks, and stayed there, it is their fault and loss if they don't want you to do legit work during that time. Now actual *abuse* is a different story, but even then, document the abuse (short of physical I mean, and if that occurs you can go right to the cops) for the full two weeks, then let a lawyer take a glance at what you have. It might turn out to be quite lucrative.

Keep the moral and ethical high ground, and get paid to do it.

I guess these business guys just don't grok that in Mexico, people who don't want their irises scanned or to be tracked, stuff like that, are known to cut off the heads of people who are trying to dick with them. And that's *after* they have some "sport" with them.

They might as well issue these iris scanner techs *red shirts*.

and I want to add two more possibilities

The "great cull" using plausible deniability bioplagues or similar. No need to sweat payments if they are all dead.

General global war-still a distinct possibility, any number of planetary wild cards could happen, or be made to happen.

Either or both are enough of a distraction to institute draconian crack down measures, and to insure that the fatcats stay in power, even if they can't control all the turf. Sort of like the situations we see in iraq and ashcanistan, bases where the occupiers are relatively safe, then the outlying countryside and ghettoes, where they can only travel in armored columns.

Governments have a historical habit of getting really violent when their existence is threatened. I don't see the federal USA government being any different, and they apparently have enough armed order followers now in the military and paramilitary "civilian" police forces to at least give it a whack. Plus, they can always recruit more, when "jobs" are really scarce. The worse the economy gets, the easier it is form them to recruit, three hots and a cot, plus a check, plus take advantage of young guys sense of adventure and getting to fight against "terrorists" or what they will call them then, "terrorist traitors and protesters".

Economically though, agreed, toast, overlapping ponzi schemes. It just ain't possible to keep it going very long. That's the main reason I went into semi emergency "learn to deal with not much cash" mode some years ago. I ran the numbers...it ain't gonna work.

They outlined in their own PNAC documents what they intended to do, how to do it, and went and did it. And the process continues. They also succeeded in transferring trillions to their insider circles, putting everyone else into their "debt" for years to come, to keep those monies flowing to the insiders, and also gutted the Constitution "legally", and stripped a lot of rights from the "we the people" folks, with the patriot acts, homerland security jazz, etc. Now they have everyone putting up with "enemies of the state" lists, bow head and be silent and don't question your betters at airports and random checkpoints, got the kids brainwashed into accepting "zero anything we don't like" tolerance crap in schools, all of that stuff. Cameras everywhere, all of it.

I can't see it as being stupid when they hijacked a nation lock stock and barrel and got clean away with it, looks more like a well executed plan and *coup* to me. And because it goes across both major party lines, well...there's a lot of behind the scenes cooperation going on, even though in public they keep using those "differences" in the "divide and keep them conquered" mode. They STILL have most of the victims pointing fingers at other victims while they all chant in unison, "it's all your fault"!!!

The WTC was already a collection of sacred buildings, dedicated to the god Mammon and how a nation was conquered and what real "laws" and practices take precedence.... so this mosque deal is just a variation on a theme, they all do it...

Someone with ties to Washington (legislative process), or a mass letter/comment writing effort to the FCC and see if a regulation would be in order to address this issue. They sure as heck always take the full price for the service. Now they want caps plus speed limits, etc, fine, there should be a mathematical formula they are required to use when the charges go out every month. Taking into account speed plus transfer. (seeking math nerd input there for this formula)

    And if they ALL had to follow that formula, every ISP, maybe they would be more interested in honest advertising and actually improving infrastructure. This would also address the issue the ISPs have with bandwith "hogs", their term. The more you get, and the faster you get it, you pay more. Less, pay less. About the same as any other utility (sort of).

...tell them you will pay them "up to" the agreed on price for their service, but you will determine what the real sums involved will be.