"On call" means she's always on the clock and therefore has a billing claim against her employers. At least, that's how it theoretically works in England (RCN V London NHS,

Most likely, she is an "exempt" employee. In this context, "exempt" means that a lot of employee protections don't apply. Specifically, exempt employees normally don't have specific hours of work, so the employer can claim that they are paying her for 24/7 work.

It's your money, so if you want to rank perceived fairness over effectiveness it is your right. Being a pragmatic person, I just find this attitude frustrating.

I'd argue that it is about helping people. If hiring good people lets you do more good, than I don't get caught up in how much the employees make. How many low-overhead charities were able to help in Nepal? I'd be surprised if you could find one that made a meaningful contribution in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.

How can a huge organization expect to be successful with lower-than-market salaries? It's not reasonable to expect good people to work for a fraction of what they can earn in the for-profit world. You end up with a much shallower talent pool.

That's not a fair characterization of the United Way. They do all of the overhead fundraising stuff so that smaller charities don't have to. Then those smaller charities come out fantastic on those brain-dead "overhead" rankings, because someone else spent the overhead money.

Similar criticisms leveled at the Red Cross are misguided. The Red Cross is huge and has corresponding overhead, but they have to stockpile massive amounts of stuff and then just sit on it waiting for something to happen. It's never going to be "efficient", but they are the main and first"boots on the ground" at every major disaster, and they are at every residential fire with blankets, clothes, and shelter. Sometimes it is worth paying people who are good at their jobs.

Sort-of. He is building a giant battery factory in order to get battery prices down. He needs to sell that capacity. Tesla has other constraints on the number of cars that they produce, but I think mainly there is a recognition that battery is where his competitive advantage lies. There are dozens of companies capable of building high-quality automobiles, but only a handful of companies who can make automotive-sized batteries. Tesla has no chance in hell at selling cars if they are the smallest player in a huge industry, but if they have class-leading battery technology, that changes the game.

Indeed, I do say that about Fukushima. In isolation, it looks like a disaster. In perspective, it was a very small element of a much larger disaster. The part that makes it "special" is that the people are displaced by an invisible hazard and they have to deal with a government that seems to alternate between lies and incompetence. Or maybe just delusion.

IIRC (and we have a former Homer Simpson at work that translates all of this crap for me), the problem wasn't a lack of generators - it was that all of the electrical equipment was destroyed by the salt water. They recognized that the original emergency generators were vulnerable to flooding and moved them to higher ground, but they left the original electrical in place. It was all fried, and so there was nothing to plug into.

In the US, plants are required to have some kind of mobile generator. I don't know if their electrical systems are supposed to be redundant or somehow different than the Japanese plants - but I doubt it. A tsunami could probably put a US plant in a similar situation, but in order to get to Indian Point, it would have to kill a million or so people on the way, so the meltdown wouldn't be that big of a deal in the larger disaster.

Not going to happen as long as Snowden and his conspirators are fugitives from justice.

No amount of willful lack of understanding of security clearance work, which thrives in Snowden supporters, will change that fact.

I take it back - we did not fly out of LGA for that flight.

I've been to Nassau, Bahamas from there. But like you said, pre-cleared customs in the Bahamas.

Even though leases make my skin literally* leap from my body in disgust, I have to admit that the numbers look very nice in your case. There is no disputing that getting a car for less than $1000/year is a good deal.

*Obviously, it would figuratively leap from my body, but I'm going for effect.

If you maintain things properly, then people won't see how obviously great your idea to spend a gazillion dollars to replace it is. It's like you've never done anything in government before... :)

Philly to NYC is a no-brainer: train. Amtrak in about an hour if you are feeling spendy, NJ Transit for a more leisurely ride at 1/5 the cost.

Depending on the time of day, the bus is actually the best option - almost as fast as Amtrak and cheaper than even NJ Transit.

It is primarily North American flights. When we lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it was much easier to get to than JFK so we used it when possible. People get too hung up on things looking old. I'd rather have an old airport nearby than no airport or an airport that takes over an hour to get to on 3 trains. The approach is either fun or unnerving, depending on your personality. I found the approach into the old Hong Kong airport "fun", so you know where I'm at :)