Seriously, I've been amazed at watching the ipod over the years. They came up at 40 gig and it was quite remarkable. I bought an 80 gig model about 2 years ago when they had introduced those. But now you go to the stores and it's hard to buy a classic. They are pushing the nano.

That's usually the first sign of a product hitting it's peak in the business cycle. When they stop caring about the consumer, and start pushing the models which have the highest profit.

If I were MS, I'd stay in this market. Apple hasn't changed the ipod fundamentally since they introduced the color screen and videos.

I don't know. The "Vista sucks" theme really started spreading.

What has been interesting to me is the number of people who I encounter that say they bought a new computer, and while they thought Vista would suck, it's ended up being the most stable computer they've ever had.

$198 divided by 950 Kwh is 20 cents a Kwh.

That's double what I pay. Sheesh.

My Black Studies class was the single worst class I've taken,

Sounds to me like you choose this class hoping to pick a fight. I never took a Black Studies course, and never had any interest in such. Never had interest in Womens studies, or Religious studies either. I did take Cultural Geography and History to fulfill my electives in liberal arts but I found them interesting.

Lots of people here really seem to have a predisposition to disbelieve this. Skepticism is fine, because you don't know me or my son. I know my son, so I know that doubting what he says would be foolish.

I find your story HIGHLY unlikely. The only way a student can be thrown out of a class is if they are disruptive. Extremely disruptive. We're talking physical violence, or shouting and not allowing the class to proceed for a long time.

Children aren't stupid, and they're very manipulative.

The very fact that you are on this forum promoting this anecdote as some example of evil liberal professors will not be unknown to your child. He knows that this is going to be your reaction, that you have allowed preconceived notions to blind you from proper skepticism. So he's worded his version of the events to reinforce your behavior.

The red flag was when you said he made one mild statement, and the professor few into a rage and then he shut up. Come on, let's get real here. Nobody is going to fly into a rage because of one comment. Especially not a teacher who just asked for open comment.

What you just described is an event which will hit the newspapers. So while I'm very skeptical, I'm more then willing to believe your version of the events if you can send us a link to the school paper discussing this in more detail.

Oh great a rant by someone who knows nothing, providing no insight into a problem.

Must be an Op-Ed from a media pundit.

And they wonder why blogs are replacing them?

This is a Communist government, they're quite used to forcing people to do things they don't want.

I tried to do this with my Pearl when we went on vacation. Thought I could use my laptop on the trip when we wanted to find where to go, etc.

First roadblock is the cost. I pay $30 for my Blackberry data plan, can browse the internet... unlimited data they say. Except if you want to tether it to a computer that is another $30.

Then half way through the trip it just plain stopped working. I had to "reboot" the Pearl to correct the problem, where rebooting means pulling the battery out.

Otherwise I actually felt the speeds were decent, faster than dialup... probably 120k/sec, and this was over old-school GSM(not 3G).

From what I have seen of SOX, nobody knows what it means... and the consultants are using it as an excuse to jack up their billable hours.

I sat in so many meetings where I'd have someone tell me that you have to do X to be compliant. Since doing X was a lot of work and it wasn't clear what the benefits were I'd ask what the actual policy was that we were trying to implement. Perhaps X wasn't the right solution.

Nobody knew!

People need to go back to the drawing board. Fire all the SOX consultants, and take some time to actually read the policy and then appropritately apply that with processes that are appropriate for your company.

So we'd be better off with air we can't breath and water we can't drink?

Not necessarily a bad idea. So why arent unions in favor of this? Why are they so eager to resort to eliminating secret ballots?

Who says they aren't?

The unions aren't against secret ballots. What they're trying to do is eliminate a step in the process which is there for the sole purpose of preventing them from forming a union.

Why do you assume that the reason they want to eliminate the step is so they can use union bosses to strong arm people?

Wasnt it you who was decrying namecalling in another thread?

When did I call you a name?

I think many would argue that this is exactly what most non-union companies do. Examples: Publix workers and Toyota factory workers. Both have substantially higher morale than their unionized competitors. Both have successfully resisted countless union drives. And both have higher entry level pay.

So unlike Wal-Mart they didn't have to cook the books to resist unionization?

As was mentioned, because the petition isn't secret.

Why all the hatred and name calling?

2 years is very much the exception and not the rule. Employees being fired for signing a union petition is illegal and also fairly rare.

And rarely prosecuted.

If it is, it takes six years to get to a decision in the courts and by then it's too late. The court costs and settlement fees are a small price to pay.

And if they are really so concerned about hte length of time before the election why dont they just pass a law that says "the election shall be held within 60 days of receiving X number of signatures"? Why do they have to eliminate the secret ballot to do that?

Great, some compromising. How about making it illegal for the corporation to see the names of the people who signed the petition too while we're at it?

Enough with the bullshit dishonesty. You don't care about secret ballots. You just hate unions. At least the unions are honest about their intentions.

I got an idea. This may be radical, but why don't you try treating employees well? Pay them a decent wage, give them good benefits and don't shit all over them. Maybe then they wouldn't want to form a union, and the vote would fail on it's own initiative.