Unfortunately, we find much of this same short-sighted idiotic MBA behaviour in the US government [salon.com] over the past several years:

There's a reason for that. George W Bush *does* have an MBA from the Harvard Business School...

Doesn't matter-- you just can't get around the fact that they currently make 1/10th of what we do and bill out at 1/3 of what we do.

This is part of the problem with the kind of short term "thinking" that a lot of the MBAs who decide to outsource a lot of this stuff engage in. They don't realize and/or don't care that paying 1/3 of what it would cost to write it here is actually more expensive in both "money cost" and missed opportunity (which is often the *really* big price that causes a lot of companies to go under) when you have to do it several times over before you get something close to usable.

Instead, they tend to see things more like this: "I cut our expenses by x%. I want a bonus. Now let me find another place to work before this decision catches up with me."

You raise an excellent point, which only begs a very interesting question, what should we call it then? What's your idea?

AFK =]

I would also suggest just going to things that interest you. Chances are that you'll find people there that you find interesting and who find you interesting. Plus you'd already have something in common.

The thing is that "I have to go to this place and find people who will like me" should not be your goal. You should go to things that you want to go to or are interested in. Going places just to meet people with the "will you be my friend" thing tends to make you come off as weird and not in the good way.

I met most of my really good friends that way. So have a lot, if not most, of the people I know.

And Olberman offered to give $1000 to charity for each rock that Hannity had thrown at him =]

Microsoft cannot vote.

Okay. It's time for a reality check and/or to pull your head out of your nether regions.

A company is not a person. It is a construct created at the sufferance of the people. It exists to, among other things, limit the liability of the people who control it and, believe it or not, actually work for the good of society while making a profit.

A lot (if not most) people in this country seem to forget that, *especially* the people here who think that the "free market" is the answer to everything.

The representation granted is to the people who control the company. Ballmer and the other people who control Microsoft most certainly CAN vote provided they are citizens and have not been convicted of a felony, and most likely do so.

As for taxes, this country was founded on tax resistance. Anyone who pretends that it's unpatriotic to resist taxes today needs a remedial history course.

Actually, this country was founded on, among other things, not paying taxes to a body with which they had no representation. You remember, that whole "no taxation without representation" thing.

Guess what. Ballmer has representation in this country as he is a citizen and has the right to vote.

I think you're the one who needs a remedial history lesson.

I've seen just as crazy and worse people in large cities. The mix of crazy is slightly different in a large city, but there is plenty of crazy in any metropolis, suburb, or rural town.

Crazy does indeed exist everywhere. The concentration of it in a lot of the small towns here, however, tends to be rather higher than I have experienced in larger cities.

You also have the fact that there tends to be quite a bit of, shall we say, "shady" activity that everyone who is halfway observant knows about but nobody talks about for various reasons (one of which is that they don't want to have an "accident"). Yes, I realize that happens in larger cities as well, but believe me when I say that that sort of activity pretty much owns a lot of smaller towns in this region.

Just about any town in rural America. PA, MN, OH, NY all have these towns where you can just walk into anyone's house without a problem.

I can't speak for PA, MN, or NY, but I grew up in small rural towns in Ohio. I can assure you that people certainly *did* lock their doors and that crime, while not *insanely* rampant, was far from rare. I am, however, told that people were less likely to lock their doors when my father was a kid.

I knew a number of people whose homes were broken into while I was growing up and the thefts have only gotten worse in the last year or two as crime rates have risen due to the poor economy.

Add to this the fact that there is a prevailing sentiment in a lot of the smaller rural communities here that the entire world should be Christian (and they are willing to trample the civil rights of others to that end), that anyone less conservative than W is causing the ruin of this country, that all Muslims are evil and want to destroy America (I kid you not. Actual comments from the local paper), and, frankly, that if you're not a white, "God fearing", good ol' boy that you should just get out.

Sadly, I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating. I will readily admit that there are many good people in this area, but there are also a very large number of people who display the behaviors and prejudices that I have listed above (as well as more than a few others). It's enough to give you a headache purely from trying to not scream in frustration.

Don't try to idolize the small towns as bastions of everything good in the country, because it's just not true.

Besides, given that knowing something is a kind of power in and of its self ("knowledge is power" and all that), omniscience could be considered a subset of omnipotence

Not quite. Being omniscient means that you *do* know everything.

Being omnipotent means that you can *do* anything, but not that you have to exercise that ability. Therefore you may have the *ability* to know everything, but you don't have to *exercise* it.

For example, I am perfectly capable of hurting people (as most people are), but being a fairly nice guy, I choose not to.

Appalachian people are generally pretty tough to get along with.

Yeah, they tend to be rather closed minded and isolationist. Out of curiosity, what part of Southern Ohio were you from? (I'm here myself at the moment)