Andy9o8

I'm sick of all the cat threads. We needed a mouse thread.

I agree. Seems to me you are over-thinking this one... Talk to him and give him the mat!! The guy is not a mind-reader (and neither are you!), so he may not even be aware that you are quietly fuming in your corner... Passive aggression rarely solves anything (ie: getting up and walking away, giving him dirty looks, sighing loudly so he can hear, sneaking a mat on his desk...). These are all just the childish behaviours of someone who is not an effective communicator. People around you cannot know why you are upset, they can just guess... And a lot of people won't even bother trying to guess - they will just assume you are a weird guy, behaving in weird way. Have a discussion with the guy. Like an adult. I'll add my agreement to this, too. If you're sure he's already sensed your discomfort - you probably sigh or something w/o realizing it - then he'll know it's you; and yes, he's likely to view the feigned anonymity as passive-aggression (or even a conspiracy!). Kind of like leaving a stick of deodorant on the desk of the guy with B.O. - may very well breed more underlying hostility than the detriment of the original problem. Especially if he smiles at you. "Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer." - Josef Stalin

Would obviously be helpful if you would give us details of what you heard, please.

Und don't mention ze var!

Coulter does this once every few months when she needs to play the Outrageous! card to re-establish her relevance. "There is no bad publicity...", etc. Limbaugh, Malkin, Palin, Michelle Bachman, etc. all do this too, for the same reason. And to keep this fair and balanced, I think that's why Alec Baldwin does his shit, too- to keep his name in the public eye.

When you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Well, you can hope so, but understand that what you'd be hoping for would be "jury nullification". The judge's charge to the jury, explaining the technical aspects of the statutes charged, would essentially have to be ignored by the jury. Not impossible, certainly, but a gamble.

Note - For the record, I repeat: I do think the DA's office is being too hard-assed in this case. That being said... strictly as to the technicalities: @dpreguy - the predicate crime was reckless endangerment - i.e., of people below who could have been hurt or killed if the jumper had a mal or went in with nothing out, or just plain had a bad landing (it happens in demos, for example). BASE jumpers sometimes do go in with nothing out. And Google the photo of the woman suicide who landed on a car parked at the base of the Empire State Building after jumping from its observation deck in 1947. It can happen. Defending on the basis of the word "within" would almost certainly fail, since the jumper used the portion of the building on which he trespassed as the launching point from which to commit the act charged as reckless endangerment. @Hookitt - The 16 year old kid could only have been charged with trespass, there really was no other "crime within" to trigger the element of burglary - as contrasted with the BASE jumpers, as I discuss above. I hope so, too. I'm just the messenger, guys - please don't shoot me.

Chief county district attorneys are elected in the vast majority of states in the US. And in the few states where the top county prosecutor is appointed, the process is still very political. According to This Article, the overall figure is actually in the 18-24% range for the past few years. Still high as compared to the other 4 Boroughs, but those are the data points. I've been involved with criminal justice all over the country. On balance, I do think the DA's office is being too harshly zealous in this case. But all the NYC-bashing I've been seeing in this thread is silly to the point of juvenile.

Which, again, compels the simple question: Then what did happen? With all due respect to you, Jim (which is considerable), that still hasn't been answered.

As several in here have pointed out, it's probably a good and diligent business practice for DZOs to run criminal background checks on anyone they hire as an employee or "contractor", just as many other business owners do. That being said, I still have to wonder: are you fixing ("addressing", "discussing", whatever) a problem that actually exists in reality, or just a hypothetical one that you thunk up?

If you get him a mouse pad he just might respond by getting you a set of ear plugs.

Dude, WTF?? What part of " " did you not understand? Sorry you're humor impaired. I promise to never try it with you again. In the spirit of Miss Congeniality, I, too, have edited.

Really? For a Walmart employee? Loss of knowledge? Nope, it's plain and simple greed, IMHO. As Ryoder correctly points out, the practice of "key person" life insurance has been in existence for a very long time. The idea being, a company or professional can really take a huge financial hit overnight resulting from the loss of institutional memory, management capability and/or revenue-earning ability should a top executives and/or revenue-producer die. That goes for the top-most managerial executives at any company, even Wal-Mart. Per the article, since 2006 the law now limits this to the highest paid 35% of employees. Personally, I don't think it should be more than around the top 10%, but I presume the 35% figure was a compromise struck to get enough Republicans to vote for it to pass, and to avoid a veto by President Bush. Anyhow, for the top-most important people in a company (however that may be defined), I'm generally ok with it. Below that, however, I have the same moral discomfort with it as you do. .

Whoa!! They make drivers for those screws? I can't tell you how many kitchen knives I've fucked up over the years.

Pfft! Caveman.

I'm pretty sure you mean "at which most people wouldn't even blink".

Well, then what did? I reially don't understand why that's so hard to answer. Have you tried writing to the president of USPA to find out the facts about what happened? Thats what twardo suggested in his post. If you want to know what happened contact USPA instead of whining I'm not "whining", I'm making a simple, direct inquiry in completely respectful, non-judgmental language. To be blunt, I really don't appreciate the suggestion that I am "whining"; and I'm equally offended by various people's direct and implied vilification of those others who have also made the simple, direct inquiry, seemingly as a way of imposing a "chilling effect" on people making such inquiries. Those who know my posting history know that I never bring that shit into the Skydiving sub-forums; I treat them seriously and with respect. This isn't Speaker's Corner, and there's no place for that brand of chickenshit here, Krip, so just stow it. Like it or not, scrutiny of this incident has gone community-wide. The silly suggestion that each and every one of the... what, hundreds? at least? ... of us who are interested in this incident needs to have a direct communication with a BOD member in order to get a straight answer to a direct question - nothing more, nothing less - is just bullshit. There's no need for each of us to have to go hat-in-hand. The community at large has already, via multiple private and public means, made it more than sufficiently clear to "Those In The Know" that we - collectively! - want a direct answer to the simple question: What happened? It's long past time for them to just step out into the open and tell us already!

Mmm. Pass. I'm getting the test. But I'm getting the drugs, too.

My wife is bugging my ass (LOL!!!) to get a colonoscopy. Gosh, reading this makes me so eager!

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac is very easy to learn & play, and sounds great. Good strummin'-at-the-party kind of song. http://www.e-chords.com/chords/fleetwood-mac/landslide p.s. - if you haven't learned basic finger-picking yet, do so now. It's really quite easy to learn, and with a solo guitar a song like this sounds better finger-picked than strummed (IMO).

Yeah. I prefer pie to cake.

Well, then what did? I really don't understand why that's so hard to answer.

So you're saying W was right? Yes, that was precisely his point. Lock the thread.