Why can't something be both charitable and self-serving at the same time
So, let's say a company (IBM) "donates" code that allows an Open Source software package support some unique (patented) feature on their hardware.
Is that charity, or a marketing expense to help the company sell more hardware?
Seriously, what 'Wiki' are you quoting? Why not quote actual IRS regulations?
A couple points - first off, there were hundreds of Patriot/Tea Party groups that applied, not just one monolithic Tea Party organization - each application was unique and individual.
I'm not sure how many of what you refer to as 'Occupy' applications were submitted, by your use I assume it was one.
The Occupy group that got a denial is actually years ahead (literally) of several dozen Patriot/Tea Party organizations that are still waiting YEARS LATER for a decision up or down on their application... So what? A group can not appeal a decision until it is rendered, by denying the Patriot/Tea Party groups a decision, they denied them the chance to appeal, and the appeal process would overturn baseless political denials. A delayed decision is effectively an unappealable denial - your 'Occupy' group, by getting a denial, could appeal - the Patriot/Tea Party groups can not.
Your lone counter-example proves/dis-proves nothing.
BTW, did your 'Occupy' group have their private donor information shared by IRS employees with other, non-governmental groups? Tea Party groups had their donor lists handed over by the IRS to Democrat groups...
You would benefit from an expansion of your news sources to include, maybe source documents and/or actual, under-oath testimony from the people involved...
If one of their treeâ(TM)s shade falls on a cafe table and cools the cafeâ(TM)s patrons as they enjoy their espressos, does that mean the tree-planting organization is no longer a charity?
If the cafe, through it's donation, is able to direct where the charity puts it's trees AND the charity places the tree in a location solely for the benefit of the cafe, then that charity is (in my mind) no longer a charity, it is at least a part-time landscaping firm.
Unless they hire women/minorities directly out of this program, this does nothing to change the mix of new hires at Google.
How many programmers hired at Google are only high school graduates? Have only two year associate degrees? Bachelors degrees?
Google wants to hire 'the best of the best' and someone who's interest was sparked by an offer of free classes isn't likely to be 'the best if he best', and even if they were, how would their application ever get past Google HR, beating out Ivy League PHDs?
you don't really think Google is going to hire everyone who graduates this silly little code school, do you?
Not one 'graduate' of this three month 'school' will ever get hired by google - ever.
So google will underwrite a few thousand three month programming classes so that those women who never programmed before will be qualified to work a google?
As for your vegetable soup example, what Google is really doing is more along the lines of this:
"I want vegetable soup now, but all I have are potatoes. So I go out and buy a few thousand packets of vegetable seeds and hand them out to people."
If Google wants to hire more women, they can do it quite easily - they simply start hiring more women. If they have to lower their hiring standards to accomplish that, that is their choice.
Simply put, google feels bad about it's white male dominated workforce, but rather than change hiring practices they are throwing money at this and treating it as a PR problem.
I can pretty much guarantee you that not one person that gets free tuition for this three month programming course will ever work at Google...
50-51% female birth rate, with actual population skewed a bit more towards women because they live longer (on average).
Why the need for gender equality in the workforce?
Gender equality in OPPORTUNITY is important, but it makes no sense to argue that 50-51% of all engineers, programmers, etc. must be female...
Why isn't there a corresponding push to get men in what were traditionally female occupations (nurse, teacher, caregiver, etc.)?
This type of remedy presumes to address an affordability issue, not an interest issue...
The only 'news' here is that 'thousands' of women and minorities will have access to a resource that was already available to them, but now at no cost.
Why is there no corresponding effort to encourage men to enter occupations typically taken by women (teacher, nurse, caregiver, etc.)?
Germany shut down nukes, used mothballed coal plants to pick up the slack.
Germany invests in solar/wind alternatives, but their power supply is 'bursty' and requires coal-fired plants to maintain power levels on cloudy, windless days and nights.
As time goes on, Germany starts replacing older coal-fired plants with bigger, cleaner coal-fired plants.
Eventually, when Germany has shut down their last nuke, and they max-out on solar/wind generation installations, they will still be running the recently built dial-fired plants because people like to have electricity at night, during rain storms, in winter, etc.
Germany tied it's future to reliance on coal and gas-fired power generation when it committed to shutting down their nukes.
Taxing energy that was generated for 'self-consumption'? Amazing, even if you choose to not be part of the national electric grid you are obligated to pay for it!
Is solar 'affordable' with or without subsidy? If it requires subsidy, then in my mind it isn't affordable, it's a more expensive form of power generation that the government forces your neighbors to help you pay for...
How 'green' of Germany - this is gonna blow a big hole in the 'see, Germany is doing fine without Nukes' argument, since an argument to follow Germany's lead inevitably leads to new coal-fired power plants... At least as a bridge until solar/wind become more affordable.
Just imagine that instead of Dem. Mayor Rahm Emanuel dropping these around the city of Chicago it was former President Bush - would this still sound like a good idea?
Why does this seem like a good idea under Mayor Emanuel?
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach
