Um, yes, what's your point? I never said the US was worse than any place else, I just pointed out that it wasn't all that free 1910 as some people believe, it was only free for a certain privileged portion of society.

In addition to that, it wasn't even all that free for white males, depending on where you went. All that stuff in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, religion, etc.) didn't even apply until the 1900s sometime. Before that, it was considered as applying only to the Federal government: the Federal government could not pass laws restricting freedom of speech, religion, etc. and force the States to follow them. However, individual States could, and did, have all kinds of anti-freedom laws, official religions, etc. All these people who like to open- or concealed-carry firearms today? Back in the "Old West", there was no such right: any time someone entered a town, they had to surrender their guns to the local sheriff, and could only get them back when they left town.

You could argue that the last time the US was "free" was prior to about 1910.

Yes, before 1910, if you were a white male (and not Irish or some other undesirable immigrant), then you indeed had a lot of freedom.

If you were black or female, forget it. Women coudn't even vote then.

cant even have dinner conversation with someone over the age of 30 in the USA without rampant jingoism and political correctness.

You need to move out of the South and stop hanging around conservatives.

Yeah, but I'd think that on an island, the insects wouldn't be nearly as bad as in a mainland swamp. Isn't there usually more wind on islands? Bugs don't do well with wind.

Nope, not everything.

1) Cable companies: since they own the last-mile connections to peoples' homes, they basically have a monopoly on high-speed internet service. Unless you want to use your cellphone for all your internet connectivity, or perhaps you happen to have an alternative like FIOS (which probably isn't any better or cheaper than cable internet), you can't walk away from them.

2) Banks. If people walk away from them, the government will deem them "too big to fail" and give them all the money they ask for.

Steve Ballmer wasn't taken very seriously by various Slashdot users, and he ended up getting sacked by the MS board. He also made all kinds of dumb decisions during his tenure (which is why he was sacked, the latest dumb decision being Metro).

CEOs aren't brilliant geniuses, not usually anyway. They're just in the right place at the right time and don't screw up too horribly while they're there, like most successful people.

The Keys are a chain of islands with a very different culture from the rest of Florida. They even called themselves the "Conch Republic" at one point during a political stunt.

I imagine the weather in Key West is rather different than much of Florida, being a Caribbean island, whereas much of mainland Florida is swamps.

So don't let your experiences in Key West give you the wrong idea about the place where this company is setting up shop (Fort Lauderdale I believe).

You should just get a divorce and move. No marriage is worth that kind of misery. It sounds like your kids are already grown up and moved out anyway, so it's not like you have to worry about custody disputes.

The breed of crazy that will shoot you dead for walking home at night from a convenience store.

There's a lot of better states to move than Florida; two of them are directly north of California.

California is an excellent place to be an employee:
1) there's tons of companies there, so if one job doesn't work out, just walk across the street and get a new one.
2) non-compete clauses are unenforceable in California, so employers can't prevent you from working within your industry if you leave that company. The same isn't true in most other states.

There's a reason (or really, many reasons) why Silicon Valley is so successful, and why no one has been able to copy that success though many have tried (like "Silicon Alley" in NYC--what a joke). Many foolish places keep trying to pitch themselves as "the next Silicon Valley", but for most of them it's a pathetic joke because they don't make the changes actually needed to make such a place successful.

Florida is a terrible place to try to set this up for reasons others have stated here: it's a Red State (remember, you're trying to attract hip and well-educated 20- and 30-somethings who are generally non-religious, and a GOP stronghold is not attractive to them), it's full of old people and crazy people, the politics are insane, the weather is terrible (remember, we're talking about people living in the Bay Area, which has excellent mild weather), and of course, it's not already a tech hub unlike places like Boston, Seattle, or RTP, so if this job doesn't work out, they'll have to move back to California. The whole idea is just dumb.

But if you don't care about any of that and like cheap seafood and good ol' boy values, then maybe Florida is the state for you!

Well with the rise of Brogrammer culture, it seems like the under-30 men should fit in just great in Florida and its good ol' boy values.

Yep. Eventually the boss has to find a new job because the company (or at least that division/workgroup) doesn't survive with bad employees in the face of competition (which the good employees went to work for).

Yep, the open-borders advocates never think about that one. The Native Americans didn't enforce their borders very well (not that they had the firepower to do so anyway), and now where are they? Same goes for the Australian Aboriginees. Both are second-class citizens in their own ancestral lands.

It's called a JOB for a reason. It is work...you get paid for it, and nothing else.

If you want feelings time, and camaraderie, or ego stroking, go to a therapist or a bar with friends.

Or, you can quit the job and go to a job that cares a little more about their employees' feelings and happiness.

If there's no shortage of available workers for this job, then your employers with your attitude are probably OK; they can kick out people who need more hand-holding and find people who fit in well. However, if there is a shortage of quality workers for this job, and it's not just some brain-dead no-thinking job that any monkey could do, then employers with your attitude will quickly find, unless they're paying top dollar salaries, that they can't keep good employees around, and without employees, they can't produce any product and will quickly go under.