No I'm not. I was forced out of San Jose because of the high housing prices. I'm not even going to try Palo Alto, Menlo Park or San Francisco. I'm way south of the Bay. Definitely not elite, even though I'd like to think of myself as someone skilled in network engineering.

You could not be further from the truth. I encourage anyone, from the janitor to the security guards, to take an interest in computer science and network engineering. I remind them that I never took any classes that are relevant to my job. If I can do it, they can do it. So can everyone else who is interested. I got to where I am today because I threw Windows 95 from my PC and installed Linux. That led me down a path of systems administrator, network administrator to the JNCIE that I am today. My formal education did nothing whatsoever to get me here. Nothing 31337 about that.

The God that created the Big Fart of course...

Actually, I kind of have to agree with you here. Yesterday I had a friend over who worked in the same team as I did for a large vendor of telecommunications equipment. For years (at least 5), there was one guy who was completely and utterly useless, did not perform and could not even complete the most basic tasks by himself. I always thought he had some compromising images of his boss or something similar that prevented him from being fired.

Turns out the guy was hired by a startup recently. I thought that would be unimaginable, but then I realized that I was mistaken. He is very well-spoken, has a nice personality and if you don't have to work with him, he is generally a good guy to have a beer with. It's just that he is useless as a tech worker IMHO. Oh, and if you read this: no offense :)

At least he has the cajones to admit his mistakes, with his username, COWARD.

In the specific case of Facebook, it is not about driving wages down. Facebook pays decent wages, even for Silicon Valley standards. It is about not increasing wages.

What Facebook et al need is a way to ensure that they'll be able to fill their positions without creating too much of a jobseekers market so they won't be forced to lure employees away from the competition. All those sign-on bonuses, recruiter fees and salary increases (usually roughly 10% if you jump ship) will add up quickly.

Truth of the matter is, in the SF Bay Area, it is hard to be unemployed if you're a properly skilled tech worker, citizen, green-card holder or otherwise. That doesn't mean I condone the way that the H1-B program often is being abused today. I've seen abuse, and we'll always see that. But this is only made possible due to the ridiculous limits on permanent resident visas vs the amount of H1-B visas, as I pointed out in this comment.:

Rknpgyl gung. "Rapelcgrq" qbrf abg nyjnlf zrna "Frpherq".

Space exploration may prove the only way for our species to survive an ELE.

See, this is the interesting part. I think we'll both agree that the permission part depends on me giving permission, so we won't need to discuss that. The next part is more difficult.

I have a two year old. We're weaning her off the pacifier, but occasionally, she manages to slip into her bedroom and finds a pacifier. When we ask her who gave her the pacifier, the reply is "I gave it to myself!".

The government is doing the same thing. It's the government that grants itself permission to take away my property. Putin gave himself permission to enter Ukraine.

In my first year of law school, I learned that legal scholars define something they call a "social contract", which says that in a civilized society, everyone has a contract with each other to "do the right thing". So again, I'm not debating whether or not we should pay taxes. I'm simply saying that the way things are going today, are open for improvement (to be very British).

Well, the dictionary disagrees with your:

The government is taking my property without my permission, and it gives itself the right to do so. The government partially does it secretly, and if I don't comply I will go to jail.

But you took my words out of context. I am talking about "general forms of tax". For example income tax, sales tax and all taxes that have no specific purpose. Buy an airline ticket? You pay security tax. Fine, fair and square. I choose to buy an airplane ticket and the government has to provide security, ATC etc. So I pay taxes for it. But why the F should I pay income taxes to the government can bail out "Too big to fail" crooks?

I am not opposed to paying taxes in general, I'm just opposed to that "we're taking your money and put it in our wallet, and we'll see later what we'll do with it. But trust us, it's in your interest" crap. You want my money, I want to see (and preferably have a voice as to) what you're doing with it.

General forms of taxes are legalized theft anyway. When the government just takes money away for their "general bucket", it is nothing more than stealing.

Instead, tax-per-use: road tax, school tax, environmental tax, so the tax-payer knows what happens to their money.

If governments would be more transparent, less people would have problems paying taxes.

Out of mod points when I need them the most. Mod parent up.

I have my handheld aviation radio. Tune in to 121.5 and someone is going to listen. I also have CB radio as a backup. Plus of course, said AM radio (but most people will have AM, even if they don't know it: just get into your car).

Congress funds the NSA. All you need to do is vote for representatives that will cut the funding.

While the other violated his NDAs and is now wanted for treason.

At least the NSA can be voted out of office.

I guess this hits the nail with the hammer

In the end, religion is like having a penis. It's ok to have one, and it's ok to be proud of it. But if you're going to take it out and attempt to shove it down my throat, we are going to have a bit of a problem.