News Stories

[Xagzan]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...,4180453.story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two people were killed and at least eight wounded in a shooting outside New York City's Empire State Building on Friday, creating chaos and shocking tourists and commuters who witnessed the bloody scene outside the tourist attraction.

Oh for fuck's sake, this is getting ridiculous

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Xagzan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/s...,4180453.story



Oh for fuck's sake, this is getting ridiculous

Especially when the cops shot some of the victims.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...08-24-11-49-15

Police killed the suspect and at least nine others were wounded, some possibly by police gunfire, city officials said.

Some of the wounded were grazed by bullets and others hit directly, but all were expected to survive, officials said.


Also, NYC has a ban on concealed carry without a license and permit.
Stories like this prove that determined individuals don't give a shit about the law.

[Paranoid Android]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

What's the worst job at Google ?

So, any takers ? Just think of the pay if you can survive the trial period.

Wow, that's a really tough job. How sad they never get formally hired. How do you even pick people to do that. What if they actually get off on what they're seeing lol Q__Q

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

What's the worst job at Google ?

So, any takers ? Just think of the pay if you can survive the trial period.

it is contract job, you are out after one year.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Android

How do you even pick people to do that. What if they actually get off on what they're seeing lol Q__Q

That's why it's on a contract basis. If you are caught doing something illegal with said material, there's no ties implicate the company.

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

it is contract job, you are out after one year.

Still, the pay must be good while it lasted as nobody said anything about Google being a miser. You might have a chance to get re-contracted too.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Still, the pay must be good while it lasted as nobody said anything about Google being a miser. You might have a chance to get re-contracted too.

not entirely sure of the labor laws but if they recontact you, they might have to make you full time. Which would include things like work comp and health benefits.

still if you have a mind already in the gutter, one year of it isn't bad.

[Anh_Minh]

It sounds like a lot of people who thought their mind was already in the gutter grossly underestimated how deep said gutter ran.

[Xion Valkyrie]

They should just hire people from /b, no therapy needed.

[Irenicus]

Eh, most of the /b/tards are probably just posturing. A circlejerk of "we real cool" and witty comments isn't even close to a 9-to-5, continuous one-year exposure to the worst of humanity.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Eh, most of the /b/tards are probably just posturing. A circlejerk of "we real cool" and witty comments isn't even close to a 9-to-5, continuous one-year exposure to the worst of humanity.

What if they employed psychopaths to do it?

Or Prison inmates?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

What if they employed psychopaths to do it?

can't trust them to report this stuff.

Or Prison inmates?

unless they are lifers, you don't want to release someone who spend a couple of years watching this stuff.

[Anh_Minh]

Well, there are a lot of inmates. Especially in the States. You don't need two years from each of them.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Eh, most of the /b/tards are probably just posturing. A circlejerk of "we real cool" and witty comments isn't even close to a 9-to-5, continuous one-year exposure to the worst of humanity.

Didn't read the article, eh? It wasn't 9-5 (8 hour shift). It was 12 hour shifts, all year long. He ate all three meals there, so it was likely 6-6, 7-7, or 8-8, unless they didn't count the time he was eating, in which case it could be upwards of really 15 hours there.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

can't trust them to report this stuff.

Just make it worth their while. Psychopaths think only in terms of how something benefits them. Raw greed.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by GDB

Didn't read the article, eh? It wasn't 9-5 (8 hour shift). It was 12 hour shifts, all year long. He ate all three meals there, so it was likely 6-6, 7-7, or 8-8, unless they didn't count the time he was eating, in which case it could be upwards of really 15 hours there.

Of all the things to nitpick on. I didn't read close enough, I guess.

I noted the all three meals thing, yeah, but wasn't it supposed to imply a good thing, as in, Google's got good services if you work there? And only then did he go to explain how the good first impression hid a not very nice job.

Plus the main problem was that, aside from the nature of the task, the contract didn't amount to anything after a year of sacrifice (it's like getting thrown out after a challenging "hardship post" in the US Foreign Service), not that the shifts were longer than usual; his direct manager was apparently sympathetic, but Google management didn't really care (they did give him "some" therapy) and even Google recruiters don't really know what he had to do.

[MakubeX2]

The article didn't really go into details of what the job is about, just hinted that it's a form of self-censorship to close off any liability the company might get itself exposed to. And that includes those employed as Censors when they are done

The curious part is that why didn't Google just be outright honest about the job and get psychological profiling as part of the interview. It just seeems that they have no faith in how much one can stomach before they breaks down. I believe some of those FBI and DEA agents who deals with the Mexican drug cartels had it worse.

[aohige]

I still think the job for JR where you have to go around the nation, picking off body parts of idiots who stood in front of the train and cleaning the tracks is worse.

It's infamous urban legend of "job no one wants to do but someone has to" in Japan.

It's one thing to look at pictures, it's another to peel flesh and flying body parts with a pair of tweesers.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by aohige

I still think the job for JR where you have to go around the nation, picking off body parts of idiots who stood in front of the train and cleaning the tracks is worse.

It's infamous urban legend of "job no one wants to do but someone has to" in Japan.

It's one thing to look at pictures, it's another to peel flesh and flying body parts with a pair of tweesers.

That falls under the area of those coroners from the police force and hospital who had seen it all,I believe.

Speaking of which, one important aspect of humans is that we are adaptable creatures. The novelty of things tends to wear off after the first few exposure when we get used to it. This is usually true for things that we do for a living.

[sona-nyl]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Isn't declaring him insane then throwing him for life in a padded cell more suitable then? Declaring him insane also destroys his credibility

He was declared sane.

[Irenicus]

Time to dust out the old black flag.

Spain's Crisis Reignites an Old Social Conflict:

Originally Posted by NYTimes

The occupation was a demonstration of the class conflicts that simmer amid complaints about austerity and joblessness in Spain. Such protests have gathered pace in this farm region in Spain’s south in recent weeks, adding a volatile dimension to the country’s economic downturn. They have also pointed to a deeper anger about the shape of Spain’s economy and democracy.

The resentment here over land that has been left uncultivated at a time of deepening recession and record joblessness reaches beyond local politicians and landowners to European Union bureaucrats. Agricultural subsidies are criticized by many here as favoring landed interests, paying them not to grow crops when nearly a third of the work force in Andalusia is unemployed.

...

Three years into the crisis, the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has faced protests by miners, students, teachers, legions of jobless workers and any range of others unhappy with his austerity policies. But the protests here in rural Spain, which have tipped increasingly toward lawlessness and civil disobedience, contain the echoes of conflicts that have a special place in Spain’s history. As Spain’s biggest region and farming heartland, Andalusia was the site of many of the confrontations over land ownership leading up to the Spanish Civil War, when a landed elite resisted an agrarian reform meant to give farm hands better work conditions and job security.

Campesinos! La Tierra es Vuestra! Tierra y Libertad!

This echoes the Greek situation where many of the downtrodden and victimized simply "went home" to the rural areas and started making a living the way their ancestors used to. Of course, I don't think Spain is on the throes of another popular anarchist revolution any time soon. None of the agricultural workers here are quite CNT-FAI militia in the making.

Though I do wonder, aside from the obvious anti-bourgeois anger, how the European Common Agricultural Policy could be responsible for the ruin of these southern farmers, or, perhaps, conversely, how necessary it is in order to not bring ruin to every European farmer by sheer overproduction.

_____________

Meanwhile, in God-fearing, Bible-Blessed, America the Beautiful...

From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader:

Originally Posted by NYTimes

Not long ago, the atheist movement was the preserve of a few eccentric gadflies like Madalyn Murray O’Hair, whose endless lawsuits helped earn her the title “the most hated woman in America.” But over the past decade it has matured into something much larger and less cranky. In March of this year, some 20,000 people marched through a cold drizzle at the “Reason Rally” in Washington, billed as a political debut for the movement. A string of best-selling atheist polemics by the “four horsemen” — Hitchens and Dawkins, as well as Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett — has provided new intellectual fuel. Secular-themed organizations and clubs have begun to permeate small-town America and college campuses, helping to foot the bill for bus and billboard ad campaigns with messages like “Are You Good Without God? Millions Are.”

The reasons for this secular revival are varied, but it seems clear that the Internet has helped, and many younger atheists cite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a watershed moment of disgust with religious zealotry in any form. It is hard to say how many people are involved; avowed atheists are still a tiny sliver of the population. But people with no religious affiliation are the country’s fastest-growing religious category. When asked about religious affiliation in a Pew poll published this summer, nearly 20 percent of Americans chose “none,” the highest number the center has recorded. Many of those people would not call themselves atheists; “agnostic,” which technically refers to people who believe that the existence of a higher being can’t be known by the human mind, remains the safer option. The godless are now younger and more diverse than in the past, with blacks and Hispanics — once vanishingly rare — starting to appear in the ranks of national groups like the United Coalition of Reason and the Secular Student Alliance.

The movement has also begun cultivating a new breed of guru in men like DeWitt and Nate Phelps, the son of Fred Phelps, the leader of Westboro Baptist Church, which pickets military funerals and gay-pride events with signs declaring “God Hates Fags.”

A curious social movement. Once an Evangelical, always an Evangelical.

Well, actually I sympathize with them. My experience as an atheist has absolutely nothing to do with the very real struggles of these post-Christian individuals, but that's mostly down to luck, heritage and geography. I think I should be quite extreme with my atheism myself -- or more probably, dead by suicide -- had I been forced to grow up neck deep in Jesus and then lost every single relationship, my career, and the world I had known because I came out of the atheist "closet." Nice of those wonderful Christians by the way with their forgiving, merciful ostracism.

The article is kind of annoying though in failing utterly to acknowledge the vast majority of atheists, those who just don't think very much about religion, as opposed to the driven and the troubled who are compelled to fight back. Nor, for example, that people like Professor Dawkins mostly does actual science and only comes out to do science advocacy once in a while.