Still Hating America.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Adder
Because it isn't loathsome?

No, no. He's saying that if you can pay to defend your loathsome behavior, as Enron execs were able, then it's cool. But if you can't pay to defend it, then, well, no one else should pay for it either. It's very free-market!

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
No, no. He's saying that if you can pay to defend your loathsome behavior, as Enron execs were able, then it's cool. But if you can't pay to defend it, then, well, no one else should pay for it either. It's very free-market!

The Enron executives weren't LOATHSOME. They just displayed a little bad judgment and were unlucky. Alternatively, they are victims of over-regulation.

[Adder]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
The Enron executives weren't LOATHSOME. They just displayed a little bad judgment and were unlucky. Alternatively, they are victims of over-regulation.

I took Slave to be saying that defending Gitmo detainnees (or, more accurately, trying to get them into a foreign in which defense was possible) was the loathsome behavior.

To the extent that a given Gitmo detainee actually is a terrorist, I have no problem labelling his terrorist activities loathsome.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I'm sure. And not just the suppliers' activities, but those suppliers' employees activities. The idea that pro bono increases law firm rates is ludicrous. It's charitable giving that comes out of the partners' take-home pay (and, increasingly, out of the associates' time, because it's not counted like billable hours). That's why there's so little of it at most firms. If it were true corporate largess, as it is at most Fortune 100 companies who give to charities left and right, thereby reducing profits and dividends, there might be an issue. But it's not.

Spoken like a greedy partner trying to defend ever increasing billable rates.

Well done!!!!

[SlaveNoMore]

ltl/fb
Evidence that decisions made will benefit the company over the long term, and not just push the stock price up and increase dividends in the short term?

Comparison of company's stock price increase to others in the industry, and tto he overall stock market, to tell whether the company is just a ship on a rising tide?

Knowledge that if the company starts to go in the shitter because of emphasis on short-term returns and/or perception of execs doing well because the industry did well, and the execs get sacrified, they will suffer at all financially and not get either an amount just under the golden parachute line, or over the golden parachute line but with a gross-up?

You clearly work for a dog of a company

[SlaveNoMore]

Adder
Because it isn't loathsome?

Yes, we know, we know. You're with them.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky

http://www.signonsandiego.com/union...ed14bottom.html

This link didn't work for me.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
On a personal level, why shouldn't we?

On a business level, tell me why my Fortune 100 company should have to pay ludicrous BIGLAW hourly rates, if that money is going to subsidize this loathsome behavior?

Why do you think your fees are subsidizing anything? It's not like you're paying them more than you'd pay their competitor, no?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Why do you think your fees are subsidizing anything? It's not like you're paying them more than you'd pay their competitor, no?

I think what he's saying is that they're wasting time billing extra hours in order to allow them to pay for working even more hours.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I think the controversy over this subject was the Bush Administration's hint that what those firms was doing was wrong and should be punished via boycott. I view that as heavy handed and an uncomfortably fungible notion, applicable to areas including firms' providing defense for impoverished and wrongly convicted people.

Not to mention that it looked bad for the official responsible for giving these people fair ("fair") trials to be trying to scare off their defense counsel.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
You clearly work for a dog of a company

The practices are prevalent because the incentives are stronger for short-term than for long-term success. And I don't think you know where I work, because I'm pretty sure you fucking LOVE where I work (or at least one or two or four divisions of it). Now. It changed w/in the last 6 months.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I thought that quote was a joke. I had no idea it's real.

Thank God she's as electable as she is fuckable.

Uhm......Janet Reno might have a differing opinion from you on the latter item......nttawwt.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Spoken like a greedy partner trying to defend ever increasing billable rates.

Well done!!!!

Um, ok.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Why do you even bother to write this crap?

Your first paragraph was actually reasonable, made a point and was worth listening to. The second paragraph (above) was completely unnecessary, overgeneralizes, and designed to shove a thumb in peoples' eyes.

Does being involved in politics absolutely require a "dickhead" gene? If not, there seems to be a lot of self-selection.

S_A_M

P.S. When you admit that problems aren't so black and white, and try to rationally discuss them, your posts can be interesting. You actually know a lot of things, and have interesting stories. Far too often though, you have to undergo 3-4 rounds of attack posts before you even acknowledge that something is not black and white. Why do you start in an attack mode?

I don't think you are characterizing my posts accurately. I do not start off in attack mode; I switch into attack mode when people start making ridiculous attacks on me. I respond in kind. I made a post about what I thought were the problems with education, and people instead of making intelligent critiques of my points made blanket statements like what I said was groundless, dogma, not based in fact, I didn't know what I was talking about, and Republican talking points (in addition to being called an idiot).

All of which is absurd because I follow California politics, especially education bills, I sit on an education board, I have had first hand dealings with the California teachers association and have a nephew that was a teacher at an LA school (while he lived with me) and a college friend who was a principle of an LA school.

How do you expect me to respond to posts that don't specifically critique my statements but instead make broad brush groundless accusations? If people make intelligent criticisms of my posts I acknowledge that, and respond to their posts with my own critique but if they make blanket statements like (you don't know what you are talking about, this is stupid, the people you cite are hacks, this is dogma) I treat such criticisms like they deserve to be treated.

The posts you like are my original ones, and then when people start getting nasty I respond in kind. Follow the education discussion if you think I am not being accurate about my posts.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This link didn't work for me.

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Dance of the lemons

Bill lets principals pick their own teachers

September 14, 2006

Through the decades of shifting educational fads that Americans have inflicted upon their children, one timeless fact has endured: The best thing a school can do for kids is to stick good teachers in their classrooms. Indeed, today's push to raise test scores isn't really about evaluating children – used properly, standardized exams are how parents measure teachers and, broadly, the schools that employ them.

Not surprisingly, teachers are just like any other large group of people. The majority do a perfectly acceptable job; a few are terrific; and roughly the same small number are terrible. So managing a good school is much like running any successful enterprise. First you must fire the bad teachers, replacing them from the pool of adequate folks. Then you take the great teachers and give them students who need the most help.

If this all seems pretty straightforward, that's because you're not a school principal. California, along with most states, has crippled its public education system with work rules that block even the most basic steps to improve teacher quality.

For example, firing a lousy instructor is nearly impossible, the fruit of years of political dominance by teachers unions in the Legislature and on local school boards. Rookies get tenure after just two years. Tenured incompetents can challenge dismissals all the way to the state Court of Appeal, a process that robs kids of $100,000 or so in legal fees. Such deterrents matter. Los Angeles Unified employs about 35,000 teachers, but from 1990 to 1999 it managed to get rid of just one through its dismissal process.

Faced with such obstacles, principals resort to highly evolved techniques for getting unsuccessful veterans to leave voluntarily. Yet this doesn't help students much, because principals are forced by union contracts to fill job vacancies based on seniority and regardless of merit. So bad teachers simply move around the district in a ritual administrators call the “dance of the lemons.”

Certainly, not all transferring teachers are incompetents. Many are grabbing a chance to flee struggling urban schools. But this punishes kids from low-income families who typically need the most help.

Even in better neighborhoods, union work rules create chaos. Principals must fill a whopping 40 percent of vacancies with transferring teachers, many just before school starts, according to a recent study of urban districts conducted by The New Teacher Project, a nonprofit policy group.

At last, some cause for optimism has emerged: A bill passed the Legislature that would, once contracts expire, prevent unions at low-scoring schools from forcing principals to hire unwanted teachers. Gov. Schwarzenegger must sign SB 1655.

However, it's only a small step. Schools won't get much better until society demands a fair, functional system in which good teachers get merit pay, bad teachers find new careers, and parents can expect principals to help their children rather than protect unwanted employees.