Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Ripsnort on April 10, 2006, 09:43:23 AM
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/11cnd-france.html?hp&ex=1144728000&en=ddb1f2fd9333a8e9&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Who here did NOT see this coming?
PARIS, April 10 — French President Jacques Chirac announced today that a contested labor law would be taken off the books, handing a victory to student groups and labor unions who have demonstrated in the millions in recent weeks to have the measure scrapped.
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Me.
Truly.
I consider Chirac a bufoon.. but thought he'd not sell out France on this one.
I'd also be interested to hear what Straffo and Frenchy have to say about it cause I'm no expert on French Domestic Policy.
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I was watching a special on the situation in France and the thing that struck me the most was the complete lack of upward mobility in their society. People expect to get a job out of school, and they expect to have that job until they retire. Nothing ever changes and noone wants it to. There doesn't seem to be any spirit of motivation or resolve to improve. The student riots are a symptom of a nice idea (complete government coverage of all possible problems) gone horribly wrong.
Sad really.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
I was watching a special on the situation in France and the thing that struck me the most was the complete lack of upward mobility in their society. People expect to get a job out of school, and they expect to have that job until they retire. Nothing ever changes and noone wants it to. There doesn't seem to be any spirit of motivation or resolve to improve. The student riots are a symptom of a nice idea (complete government coverage of all possible problems) gone horribly wrong.
Sad really.
I've read (was it here?) that the number of "worthless" degrees is quite abit higher than degrees that actually help you in the working world (Arts degrees, compared to, say, Engineering degrees) Not sure if there is any substance to this claim though....
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Originally posted by midnight Target
The student riots are a symptom of a nice idea (complete government coverage of all possible problems) gone horribly wrong.
Sad really.
And may that be a lesson to us all here in Les États-Unis.
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See Rule #2, #5
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So a system that allows an employer to dismiss staff without explanation purely based on age is not disagreeable?
Why shouldn't people get a fair crack of the whip?
Seems to me legislature is not neccessary. The employer should offer contracts that have a 6 month probabtion. In my experience, one month is enough to evaluate someone's worth.
Ripsnort - if it weren't for 'worthless' degrees, as you put it, the world would be a pretty dreary place. Degrees like Media Studies I would agree are largely a waste of time, but to make sweeping generalisations is a little puerile.
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they made their bed, now they get to lie in it ..
strange how countries like this butt their noses in biz of a country like ours ..
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After this kind of post
Originally posted by Cthen
See Rule #2, #5
in now way I'll decipher the french politic.
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Straffo, ignore him.
He's either incredibly new or more likely a shade just striving for attention. Don't give it to him.
I know there's many of us that would value your opinion on this situation.
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Originally posted by Toad
Straffo, ignore him.
He's either incredibly new or more likely a shade just striving for attention. Don't give it to him.
I know there's many of us that would value your opinion on this situation.
I agree with toad. We want to know if you've drank the Kool Aid. :D
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Originally posted by midnight Target
I was watching a special on the situation in France and the thing that struck me the most was the complete lack of upward mobility in their society. People expect to get a job out of school, and they expect to have that job until they retire. Nothing ever changes and noone wants it to. There doesn't seem to be any spirit of motivation or resolve to improve. The student riots are a symptom of a nice idea (complete government coverage of all possible problems) gone horribly wrong.
Sad really.
Upward mobility is mainly a myth anyway. Even in our vaunted land of the free.
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"I was watching a special on the situation in France and the thing that struck me the most was the complete lack of upward mobility in their society. People expect to get a job out of school, and they expect to have that job until they retire."
What's wrong with that? Things used to be similar in this country until people began to accept being laid off every few years. To me, it looks like the French know something most Americans don't--money isn't everything. Who cares if you make millions; you can't take it with you when you die anyway. As long as I make enough money to support myself and my family, that's plenty. To modify a Ben Franklin quote: Work to live, not live to work.
Of course, the corporations would love it if we went back to the days of 6 day/12 hour work weeks. They're getting us there, bit by bit (witness increasing average workweeks at the same time as declining real world wages).
J_A_B
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See Rule #2, #5
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hu ... right ... my how I see this : Chirac and Villepin shot in their feet themselves.
This law was not necessary and won't have produced any visible result for the average French citizen.
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I agree with Toad. As a show of solidarity with our Francophone bretheren, I will also ignore Cthen.
Here I am, ignoring Cthen. I'm not thinking about Cthen, or what Cthen posts.
Still ignoring Cthen.
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Originally posted by straffo
hu ... right ... my how I see this : Chirac and Villepin shot in their feet themselves.
This law was not necessary and won't have produced any visible result for the average French citizen.
Straffo, was not the measure to help boost opportuniteis for young workers? Is it not true that many can only find short term contract work at best? The way I understand it is, some employers do not want to take on new staff because its very difficult to lay a person off if they are no longer needed or if the person turns out to have bad work habits?
True, some larger employers could misuse the law, but I would think the French Government has some sort of labor board that would review a claim that a person was unfairly dismissed, similar to what we have here in the USA...(shrugs) Do you not have such a labor board for unfair labor practices?
With an all-time high unemployment rate, you would think younger folks would welcome this law, put more to work....(Shrugs again)
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See Rule #2, #5
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
Straffo, was not the measure to help boost opportuniteis for young workers?
In theory , but we won't know if it would have worked.
Is it not true that many can only find short term contract work at best? The way I understand it is, some employers do not want to take on new staff because its very difficult to lay a person off if they are no longer needed or if the person turns out to have bad work habits?[/B]
Depending of the kind of contract there is allways a trial period.
Example for the CDI (I guess it's the equivalent of the long term period)
it can be 1 to 2 month or for the engineer hierarchy 3 to 6 month.
[/b][/quote]True, some larger employers could misuse the law, but I would think the French Government has some sort of labor board that would review a claim that a person was unfairly dismissed, similar to what we have here in the USA...(shrugs) Do you not have such a labor board for unfair labor practices?
[/b]
With an all-time high unemployment rate, you would think younger folks would welcome this law, put more to work....(Shrugs again) [/b]/quote]
The high unemployement rate is for the young who got 0 qualification at school.
need to go now I'll complete this post later
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Originally posted by Tarmac
See Rule #2, #5
They could be pouring tea into the harbour pissing and moaning about paying taxes I guess.
What they should do is all take up arms and overthrow the whole established government, that would be a much more civilised way of getting the law changed.
Or just drop the whole 'get a bad law revoked' idea as trivial, it is just about wether or not you can get a job, nothing important really, and just riot about police brutality, criminals really should be treated nicely after all.
With your constitution proclaiming the need for a man to be armed as a means of defence against government gone wrong to be an inalienable right, you would think the young people of France standing up to their government would attract nothing but support from America and her citizens.
Get a bunch of those 'retards' and 'buttholes' together, arm them, string a few riots together back to back, call it a war and they would all be heroes.
Tax laws and employment laws.
Burnt cars and valuable ship's cargoes dumped, whats the differance?
The country you guys are so proud of and love so much had it's beginnings in exactly the way you express so much contempt for here, you even celebrate the fact every fourth of July and the rebel leaders are your national heroes.
Blatant follow the herd French bashing.....all because their government, not their people, disagreed with your government about an armed riot (on a massive scale) to overthrow another government who's laws and policies were somewhat disagreable to your people and government (and apparently not too disagreable to a sizeable chunk of that overthrown government's people.)
The world would be great if it werent for all the bloody people and governments, we would all get along just fine.
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Originally posted by Bluedog
They could be pouring tea into the harbour pissing and moaning about paying taxes I guess.
What they should do is all take up arms and overthrow the whole established government, that would be a much more civilised way of getting the law changed.
You're just jealous, you colonial. :D
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Originally posted by Bluedog
With your constitution proclaiming the need for a man to be armed as a means of defence against government gone wrong to be an inalienable right, you would think the young people of France standing up to their government would attract nothing but support from America and her citizens.
Young People of France?
Or, Young People of Islam?
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Originally posted by Bluedog
With your constitution proclaiming the need for a man to be armed as a means of defence against government gone wrong to be an inalienable right, you would think the young people of France standing up to their government would attract nothing but support from America and her citizens.
Get a bunch of those 'retards' and 'buttholes' together, arm them, string a few riots together back to back, call it a war and they would all be heroes.
Tax laws and employment laws.
Burnt cars and valuable ship's cargoes dumped, whats the differance?
The country you guys are so proud of and love so much had it's beginnings in exactly the way you express so much contempt for here, you even celebrate the fact every fourth of July and the rebel leaders are your national heroes.
Blatant follow the herd French bashing.....all because their government, not their people, disagreed with your government about an armed riot (on a massive scale) to overthrow another government who's laws and policies were somewhat disagreable to your people and government (and apparently not too disagreable to a sizeable chunk of that overthrown government's people.)
The world would be great if it werent for all the bloody people and governments, we would all get along just fine.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be an incomprehsible rant or a semi-intelligible argument. There's a big difference between burning your neighbor's car and dumping a cargo imported by your colonial masters' government monopoly.
If you want to call youth riots the beginning of the great French socialist revolution, go ahead. I doubt their "revolution" will take hold as long as their anger is directed at the cars on the streets and the windows of roadside shops.
And as for French bashing, you must be a mind reader or a psychologist or something. So I'll sit down on your couch and explain myself. I hardly follow the herd on French bashing. I've never hopped on board one of those "look at how many times the French surrendered" threads, because there was one time that my infant country was on the verge of surrender itself -- and the French came to our aid. They are our allies for a reason, and it is because we have more in common than we have in opposition.
I'll criticize the French people when they deserve it, the French government when they deserve it, the American government when it deserves it, and the American people when they deserve it. To trace my previous post back to Iraq is making quite a jump because... ta da, I disagreed with the Iraq invasion, just like the French that Sigmund Bluedog says I love to bash because of their dissent. The only reason I support the war now is because its our colossal **** up and therefore its our responsibility to fix.
I criticize the protesters' attitude in which they feel the government is required to give them a job, give them health care, give them vacation, and give them a retirement. I see these views to a lesser extent in America, and they frustrate me to no end. I oppose this attitude when it is prevalent in America; I detest it when it has saturated French society. I see these protests as a manifestation of the view of government as a provider. The protesters seem to have forgotten that the government does not provide jobs, that their neighbor the businessman does. And that every law they pass that steals from him is one less job for one of them. The government, for one moment, recognized this and attempted to give business an incentive to hire the young, and the young responded by demanding not an opportunity, but more handouts and protections. If they continue on their course, someday they'll have all the protections in the world but nothing to protect.
Back to the retards and buttholes, the word "someday" implies that it is not the current state of affairs. Right now, there is only one group - the protesters, the "retards," if you will - no offense to actual retarded people intended. The government giving in to them, and their tactics, is a failure of will, of education, or of negotiation. Regretfully, people usually get the government that they deserve and this case -- a case of the French government trying to rise above that low standard -- has resulted in them being beaten back in line.
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Hang,I thought the riots were all about youth employment laws, or at least laws making it difficult for the French youth to obtain work, I didn't realise there was a religeous undertone.
I understand there is a great deal of unrest regarding Muslims in France, but I didnt think this incident was related.
Riots to change bad laws I can understand, I don't know that I think it is the right way to go about the whole thing, but I can understand it.
Religous extremism, rioting is pretty hard core after all, is a differant matter.
So is race differances as was the case down here at Cronulla a while back.
If it is all about religion/race, arrest the bloody lot of 'em for conspiring to commit, and commiting terrorist acts.
VOR, you betya I am :)
My countrymen jacked up, built a fort and started loudly complaining about the taxes imposed on miners....the Brits(or at least the Police of the Colony of New South Wales) walzed in and kicked their arses.
They did change the miner's rights though.
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Tarmac, I wasnt meaning to direct that post at you personally.
If you wish to take it so, go right ahead, but it wasn't the intention when I posted it.
The Boston Tea refferance admittedly is a long stretch, but boiled right down to the nitty-gritty heart of the matter, the Americans were angry at their current 'masters',the legal government of the time, over what they felt to be an unfair law.
Just as the French are now.
That the British were ruling from offshore is irrelevant, the fact is they were the legal government of your country at the time.
Exactly who owned the cars and tea chests is pretty irrelevant too, civil unrest is civil unrest.
Destruction of someone else's property is what it is.
I'm quite sure the odd wagon or two belonging to Americans was destroyed back then too.
Sure there are differances, but there are a hell of a lot of similarities.
And if anyone made even the slightest refferance to retards and buttholes when discussing Americans, regardless of past, present or future hypothetical tense,the post would immediately be removed, and quite rightly too, why should the French be not afforded the same respect?
I wasnt tracing your post back to Iraq either, just the anti French sentiment freely spewed around here all the time and the fact that it was the French Govt, not the French people who made the decision that upset so many Americans, yet it is the people who cop all the flak and abuse.
I dont think these riots are the beginning of any great socialist French revolution either(now who is reading minds?), I am merely questioning why an American, any American would express contempt for the people angrily taking to the streets in protest against their government when that exact scenario played such a big part in your nation's history.
I didnt mean to offend anyone, if you took offense, I appologise, my intent was merely to give everyone a differant angle to look at the situation from.
And I mean that, sorry man, I should have made it clear that my post was not aimed at you directly, I only quoted your post for the buttholes and retards bit, I reckon that was a bit rich.
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Originally posted by Urchin
Upward mobility is mainly a myth anyway. Even in our vaunted land of the free.
My father was born in a stone room in the middle of nowhere, Venezuela, went to France and got himself a few diplomas in electronics, automated systems, and 20years later has gone up from cheap hire at a French microanalysis company's Paris HQ, to pretty much the pillar of everything after sales for all of that same company's clients west of the mississipi.
His coaching from even before kindergarten meant I knew how to read, add, substract, multiply and exponent, and almost divide, as I was starting kindergarten. Some teachers were racist, others plain *****y, the french way of academics is a totally stuffy, anal, ungrateful **** of a system, but I'll be damned if it doesn't instill some thorough work ethics.
Most Universities I went to in the US were full of scrabble bellybutton poor students earning degrees and doing work at least as polished as anyone else on campus...
The only way out of that (for me) french ****hole was to be at the top, because there's no alternative to the best, because your superiors can only ignore the best work and the best results, if not being surpassed altogether, for so long before you do move on, upwards.
Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.
Jules Renard
I'm not calling you lazy, but in effect, a wrong solution is as effective to any given problem as no answer at all, except if you are doing your best, which allows you to fail better next time.
There is no excuse for ever doing anything less than your best.
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Thanks for your perspective, Straffo. Always appreciated! :aok
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Upward mobility is mainly a myth anyway. Even in our vaunted land of the free. - Urchin
Just a friendly suggestion, Urchin. Statements like yours are self defeating. Upward mobility will continue to be a myth - for anyone - unless they do a mental 180, and start thinking positive. Entrepreneurs are succeeding and improving their lot in life every day all over the USA.
I teach my kids that every day is an opportunity, and that the glass is half full, not half empty. They know that they are only limited by themselves. They alone are responsible for their own success or failure. A person's habitual thinking patterns can really limit you as a person - or make greater things possible.
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Originally posted by Gunthr
Just a friendly suggestion, Urchin. Statements like yours are self defeating. Upward mobility will continue to be a myth - for anyone - unless they do a mental 180, and start thinking positive. Entrepreneurs are succeeding and improving their lot in life every day all over the USA.
I teach my kids that every day is an opportunity, and that the glass is half full, not half empty. They know that they are only limited by themselves. They alone are responsible for their own success or failure. A person's habitual thinking patterns can really limit you as a person - or make greater things possible.
:aok
My children are constantly told a couple things each and every day, "Good things happen to good people"....and..."Whatever you are, be a good one!" (Abe Lincoln). The latter is a vanity license plate frame on my car. If you ask my kids "Whatever you are..." they will reply automatically "Be a good one!". Started brainwashing them with this mentality since they could talk, and its showing. :cool:
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The one thing I most value out of all the education I got, was one teacher in Toronto who emphasized brief problem solving exercises... I think by the second year with him (something like 6th grade), we were solving another class' (that was two or three years older) problems quicker than them, when they did manage to solve them.
That teacher was really one of the best I had, and I've moved a lot. It wasn't any specific ideology, just generic memory and logic flexing.
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Originally posted by Bluedog
Hang,I thought the riots were all about youth employment laws, or at least laws making it difficult for the French youth to obtain work, I didn't realise there was a religeous undertone.
I understand there is a great deal of unrest regarding Muslims in France, but I didnt think this incident was related.
I saw very few 'french' rioters on film shown here.. could be I'm mistaken. Another reason I need straffo's input.
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Apparently, some deliquent elements are taking advantage of the situation to get their rioting itch scratched. Even way out here in the tropical island Department.
Today I was studying in the uni's library, and there was some pretty loud partying right at the building's foot... by High School students.. they were dancing to the CPE law's junking, on the University's campus, with barely a handful of Uni students participating, by blasting music loud enough that everyone in the lib shuffled and turned in irritation, but nothing got done, no complaints were made because they're limp as sheep.
Usual hen house dynamics.
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Originally posted by moot
The one thing I most value out of all the education I got, was one teacher in Toronto who emphasized brief problem solving exercises... I think by the second year with him (something like 6th grade), we were solving another class' (that was two or three years older) problems quicker than them, when they did manage to solve them.
That teacher was really one of the best I had, and I've moved a lot. It wasn't any specific ideology, just generic memory and logic flexing.
Was this via word/picture memorization association?
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That sort of stuff was more common in France. One teacher had us memorize (among other things) this really long poem on liberty, something like 6 or 7 pages written in our medium sized paper notebooks.
Very dry stuff most of the time..
In Toronto, that teacher would dig up anything and everything, basicaly. The same way they teach you explicitely, in adult engineering courses, to think outside the box, boil down problems to their simplest mechanic, yadda yadda, he was inducing us into doing it instinctively, basic street smarts sharpened with as much discipline as he could while keeping it simple and fun.
It was anything from folklore riddles or more sophisticated stuff like that Einstein riddle (not that one specificaly, but that sort of syntax), to finding obvious flaws in newspaper articles, to playing that game where small groups had to find matched pairs of cards (turned upside down) with only one try allowed at a time.. There weren't any strict rules as long as we made an effort to tackle harder problems or find new solutions.
It was flexing our mental muscle, never limiting it to a single approach or context or type of problem/solution.. he'd walk around and talk really casually, and most of the time there was a hint or part of the solution hidden in some off topic comment.
Other teachers had other ways, like book reading and comprehension competitions. I remember that came down to me and this ubersnob chick, and I won it for the prankster team.. at something like 2.5 books a day for a week.
But that one teacher's problem solving games were the best.
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Originally posted by moot
That sort of stuff was more common in France. One teacher had us memorize (among other things) this really long poem on liberty, something like 6 or 7 pages written in our medium sized paper notebooks.
Very dry stuff most of the time..
In Toronto, that teacher would dig up anything and everything, basicaly. The same way they teach you explicitely, in adult engineering courses, to think outside the box, boil down problems to their simplest mechanic, yadda yadda, he was inducing us into doing it instinctively, basic street smarts sharpened with as much discipline as he could while keeping it simple and fun.
It was anything from folklore riddles or more sophisticated stuff like that Einstein riddle (not that one specificaly, but that sort of syntax), to finding obvious flaws in newspaper articles, to playing that game where small groups had to find matched pairs of cards (turned upside down) with only one try allowed at a time.. There weren't any strict rules as long as we made an effort to tackle harder problems or find new solutions.
It was flexing our mental muscle, never limiting it to a single approach or context or type of problem/solution.. he'd walk around and talk really casually, and most of the time there was a hint or part of the solution hidden in some off topic comment.
Other teachers had other ways, like book reading and comprehension competitions. I remember that came down to me and this ubersnob chick, and I won it for the prankster team.. at something like 2.5 books a day for a week.
But that one teacher's problem solving games were the best.
Ah, gotcha. Very good...he was teaching to find an answer, rather than get frustrated by not trying...a lesson in psychology! :) Sounds like an excellent instructor!
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Bluedog --
Sorry, I took it as directed at me. I dislike the knee-jerk French bashers with a passion, and get a little fiesty when lumped in with them. :)
The whole retards and buttholes thing was of course supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration - but I do see general rioting against your neighbor's car as different than throwing excessively government-tariffed tea into the harbor, although you're right that some Americans' property was probably destroyed too and goes unmentioned in American history books.
As for the revolution part, you compared it to the American revolution. I just threw the "socialist" part in myself - you never said that. I did, because that's exactly what these rioters want - government protection and control over the free market hiring process.
As for the American vs French on this board aspect, go ahead and call our LA rioters "buttholes" and "retards." If our pro-illegal protesters start burning things in the coming weeks, I'll call them far worse.
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Moot, you'll be happy to know that the canadian teaching methods are highly regarded here now. Almost all my wife's pedagogy books come from Quebeq.
Hang, I wonder if the footage that you've seen doesn't come from previous riots. From what I've seen here, it wasn't that bad and young immigrants weren't pointed as causing much violence.