I'd rather be in snow than heat. You can always put on more clothes, you reach a point where you CAN'T take off anything else without going to jail. Not to mention, jacket and tie in 117 degrees is near suicide.

Yep - all those places are green and pleasant. So why live in Phoenix? I don't get it - folks say Phoenix is so nice, you can go to those other places! Why live in a toilet just because the living room is nice?

Where the heck do you live? I've been in Phoenix most of my life and the place you are describing is not Phoenix. Go for lunch and overhear intelligent conversations? Good lord, every conversation I hear in this place is in barely intelligible and broken English - and that's from the citizens! Most of the illegals speak better than the high school grads around here. The climate sucks. Phoenix is a case study in urban sprawl and heat bubble affects. Outdoor pursuits, really? There are outdoor pursuits as long as you get in your car with air conditioning and drive somewhere ELSE.

Sure. Whatever. I get sick of pointing this out to folks. Sure, back east you may - occasionally - get near 100 degrees. We are over 100 degrees from about 10am till about 9pm or later for 3 months out of the year. The LOWS stay in the mid 80's and low 90's. Sure - it's a dry heat, but ya know what, your lungs feel like they are scorching. I had a vegetable garden once where the veggies cooked on the vine - in October.

Granted - February is wonderful. But you pay for it.

You wish. We've got a vigilante group here in Arizona, call themselves "Minutemen" than routinely walk the border. These idiots are are NOT cops. They are civilians with guns that shoot first. That's just a sample of AZ. I hate this place but can't afford to leave.

My question to this is... why be a sports fan? I just don't get sports fans. I mean, truly, is any year all that different from any other year? How many different ways can a ball be hit, or carried, or thrown. Not to mention, sports players are by and large, douche-nozzles.

I'm not trolling, this is a serious question. How can you honestly give a rats ass about a bunch of millionaires chasing a ball around and complaining that they're not being paid enough?

Except that the way the laws are written and the way they are interpreted (abused) are vastly different. ANY comment, can be construed as harassment due to the "offensive work environment" part. You can drop something on your foot and exclaim, "CRAP!" and I can file a harassment claim saying that I was offended by the remark and that the remark made me fell that I was in a "hostile" workplace.

I've seen it happen.

I have to disagree. I've seen FAR to many situations where the female in question is simply butthurt over nothing. Claiming sexual harassment because the boss has a picture of his wife in a swimsuit on his desk. Filing a claim over passing comments that were not sexual, not intended as sexual, and not directed at the person (see other poster's "we're screwed" post). Sexual harassment is serious, but MOST of what is claimed as harassment in this day and age is NOT.

Some people just can't be un-tarded...

My wife wants to volunteer with me. =) I'm right there in line with you.

Yes. This.

Full agreement.

My wife and I have already discussed something like this and would be willing to do it once the kids move out. Hell, the kids want to try it as well!

And yet there are people who would be willing to do it. Their names would go down in history - forever. The survival rate for LIFE is 0%, btw.

Every one of the numbers tossed around in this article make me gag. Those wages, even pre-raise, are ridiculously high for an entry level retail job. And as for your $30 and hour for the "genius" bar?? Please. My sister is an RN - you know - the people in the hospital that save your life? - and she gets about $25 an hour. I've NEVER heard of an IT position, especially one attached to a retail operation, making that.

I've two kids of my own and, amazingly enough, I was a kid once as well.

Monitoring and Filtering software is rubbish. All it does is create an artificial wall that your kids will see as a "forbidden" area. You are a /. user which means, most likely, you are a smart guy. That means your kids are probably smart too. Putting up a program like this - your kids will see a challenge and go out of their way to break/circumvent it. It's what I would have done as a kid...

Communicate with your kids. Educate them. Explain to them about the internet and life in general. There are things and places that are not good for them now and it's best if they don't go there. But do it in a way that doesn't insult their intelligence. Amazingly enough, education and communication work. Will they maybe end up with a nasty pop-up on screen? Maybe. But that might happen even with NetNanny installed.

Treat your kids like people, tell them of the dangers, explain WHY those things are dangers, and give them alternatives.

PS: No - I am not some, "Think of the children", bleeding heart freak. My kids have been spanked on occasion, they've been grounded, and done plenty wrong. They are kids. Shit happens. But by treating them like people and not pets, the shit that has happened has been minor and far less than most of my "Time-out" peers.

In my experience, the lack of employee loyalty is entirely due to the lack of EMPLOYER loyalty. Not a day goes by when you don't hear about company such-and-such laying off x thousand employees, then the companies balance sheet and stock go up. I'm sorry - my paycheck is NOT guarantee of my loyalty. It is a guarantee that I will do the job, no more, no less. If you want my loyalty, earn it. Treat me like family, make me think I'm secure in my job, help me assume that if I want to, I'll still be with the company 5 yrs from now. Currently, if you ask almost any worker how long they'd be at a company if they didn't quit, most will respond with 3-5 yrs tops.