I'm ok with the Tax Gas -> Why spend it though, we already spend more than we take in... Why not just use the extra money to reduce the deficit instead.

Why do we have this, oh lets raise taxes to spend more money mentality, it is short sighted and stupid. We should raise revenue or cut spending until we have paid off our debt, and then spend the extra money on programs that will raise the prosperity of the country more than not taking the money from individuals can do it. Trust me that is a pretty high bar.

You must work for very piss poor companies. Most of the companies that I have worked for make 400-500K per employee. Yes, at that level most of us can be paid enough to live on.
Burger flippers may only make 100K per employee - but then that is a minimum wage job that pulls down 20K a year, plus fees/expenses/overhead etc. no wonder they can't make it at 15 dollars an hour.
If you think your salary is the most important part of the equation - you are mistaken, COGS, buildings, benefits are a significant cost there. 100K per employee means 50K in profit per employee (If you have a 50% gross margin)... Think about that.

Very true.

When did our schools become police states. I don't ever remember even seeing a police officer at my high school /*mumble*/ years ago (Now get off my grass). Now the schools have police officers on the property as an assignment, and trivial things like this become fully punishable by the state. What is wrong with two weeks suspension (Which I still think is heavy for a simple student prank) without needing to get the police involved and the threat of being arrested and tried as an adult (at 14 - really?)

So yes, handle it as an internal school disciplinary issue, and don't have the police or local government get involved at all... There is no need to ruin children's lives at such a young age

I am required by the government, over penalty of a large fine to do business with corrupt insurance companies. I MUST purchase their product, that provides me nothing that I can't provide on my own. I like how now we equate having insurance with having access to health care. Currently I pay about 10,000 dollars a year for insurance that provides me about 5000 dollars in services a year. What could I do with that additional 5,000 dollars a year for the next 10-15 years that I am running a surplus to create a saving account that I can pay for services when I am older and running a deficit.

To make it more plain. On average the country pays more to insurance companies that they are provided in medical services... otherwise the insurance companies would go out of business.

So, yes currently the government compels me to do business with a company that I don't want to

What do you expect... There is only one person that MIGHT have a computer background on the paper... This is pure academic fluff, compare an in-memory database with a spinning rust based database and see how many operations you can get out of each one performing the same operation.

Here is how you make the results faster.

Compare:
1) Calculating 1MB of data and writing it to disk
vs.
2) Calulating 100K of data, writing it to disk, repeat 10 times.

If the time to write to disk is what takes most of the time, then getting the operation started early and writing to disk in parallel to calculating your data will always win. In their case - what they have done is made the in memory operation exceedingly stupid so it takes too much time. I could trivially write C code that blows their operation out of the water, unfortunately - their Java/Python code are hiding a LOT of inefficiencies in the in-memory operation. So compare their disk operation, with a cache line optimized in-memory calculation and a disk cache optimized disk write operation... It won't even be close.

I'm Cured

There are two ways of approaching the problem... Get a tool and make your process conform to the tool, or document your process and get a tool that can be modified to support the process. One of these ways works, the other never does.

That said - most engineering organizations have documented a process and adapted one of many tools to support this process. Sounds like in this case they don't even know what the process is - heck, everyone probably does their own thing so there is likely to not even be a process.

Try this
Step 1: Determine how you want issue tracking to work
Step 2: Get everyone to follow this process without bringing in a tool, your process will change during this step
Step 3: Document the final process from Step 2
Step 4: Bring in any tool that can be lightly customized to support the documented process

Note the hopefully lightly customized part above... Yes there is probably work to do here, regardless of what tool you choose. Most likely you want to pay for the tool that will require the easiest/lightest customization - it will be cheaper than trying to get a tool for free and using a small team to massively customize it.

Austin Lounge Lizards

But not as we know it.

A tear just left my eye.

Yes, most women I know keep a bottle of it in their purse for usage. Not quite what you were thinking - but a much more common usage

Please don't tell me you placed a monster ad, or even worse Craigslist. Are you working with a GOOD recruiting firm? Are you big enough to have an internal sourcing team to bring you candidates?

So many people think this is easy and won't pay for the expertise to hire "the best" (Everyone wants the best, everyone also wants to pay industry average wages... Moneyball doesn't work in Tech). A good recruiter will be able to talk to you to find what you are looking for, find you a couple candidates - listen to you on why you didn't like them and change what they are sending to you, repeat until you find what you are looking for

Honestly it sounds like you have a specific set of filters you are looking for that you haven't applied (cryptographic systems, security maybe) and are bringing in generic candidates that weren't screened for these skills. I can trivially answer your questions - but then I have been in that area for 20 years, don't ask me how to write a database query or setup a JSON parser.

The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade

And of course the sad ending

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
--- Rush 1978
Remember, you can never make yourself better by having someone else chop the other person down. Very powerful song - still resonates today.

I would be happy if the Senate shitcans it and actually votes on something else. Would be better than what H.R. has done for the past 6 years which isn't to even to bother voting on a budget, much less one that could actually pass. Lets hope the Republicans can do a little better and actually vote on a budget, even better if they can get 6-10 Democrats to vote yes (and even better if 3-4 Republicans vote against it)

Have to disagree with you a bit here.
If my preferred college has 100 openings there is a finite number of successes (people allowed in). If I allow people who aren't as qualified as I am into the college, and I don't make it in because I am not a particular color, sex, sexuality, etc. then I have been pushed back and must go to a less desirable college. This is happening today in MANY college admissions (with colleges being sued because they continue to discriminate on the grounds of sex and race/ethnicity).
Now lets throw in other factors where sex and race are used to determine winners and losers and it is demonstrably provable that for every person you push forward, you must push another person back.
If you believe a rising tide raises all boats are you a firm believer in trickle down economics as well?