MTG Salvation

Quote from Life1ess »

My current favorite social media topic is the idea that the Dems have rigged the election. I like to ask people online why it would matter for me to vote Rep if the election is rigged anyway.

Well it isn't a conspiracy theory. There are plenty of leaked e-mails showing how the DNC did multiple things to influence the primaries towards HRC. This year I am grateful that we have the Electoral College that will make sure America makes the less badder choice.

The irony is that if the RNC was that smart they might have been able to nominate a candidate with a better chance to beat her.

Quote from Life1ess »

The irony is that if the RNC was that smart they might have been able to nominate a candidate with a better chance to beat her.

Yeah. At least there's an excuse for why HRC is the Democratic nominee. The Reps just have no logical reason for their plight.

I'm so irritated by the Donald right now. I'd have picked stupid greedy narcissist over gleeful killer any day, but that debate was abysmal. Chris Wallace threw Trump an easy layup with the criticism of the Clinton Foundation and donors getting favorable, profitable contracts in Haiti, and he spent the whole time slot talking about flying the american flag and getting penalized for it. Criticizing Hillary Clinton is not a difficult thing to do, and he failed at every single opportunity. When he loses, the fault is entirely his own.

Well it's kind of hard to hit people with critical facts that may change their opinion when your entire platform up to this point has been post-factual.

At this point both major candidate has been given ample opportunities to really dig into their opponent's real flaws. And all that will accomplish is to make America not want to vote for either of them.

Quote from cryogen »

At this point both major candidate has been given ample opportunities to really dig into their opponent's real flaws. And all that will accomplish is to make America not want to vote for either of them.

That was a waste, they didn't need to have a debate to make me not want to vote for either of them.

On the plus side, I learned that "bigly" is a real word.

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from Bur »

Curious. Around here, they are really emphasizing that going to a trade school is totally okay and depending on your trade can actually net you more money and better chance at getting a job that going to high school/university...

I too considered it, but since I really didn't have any trade I was interested in back then, I chose high school and then continued to university...

It's true that you can make good money without traditional college, but over here it is beaten into your head by the establishment that not going to a four year institution is the equivalent of being a high school drop out bum. And being blue collar is looked down upon, no matter how much you make.

This is a realy shame, because the idea that college is a must is really terrible, and part of the reason our higher education is so messed up.

I think about half the people I know with Bachelor's degrees absolutely don't need them for whatever work they're doing. I think most Americans would be better served in trade schools than in college. There are so many people for whom it's just not the right fit, but they scrape by through undergrad and end up getting jobs completely unrelated to anything they did.

Quote from Life1ess »

Rifftrax Live for Godzilla 1996 was a blast. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise.

It's an amusing film, there just isn't much 'Godzilla' in it.

The 90s cartoon about it was excellent though, and the animators clearly knew the history with riffs on Destroy All Monsters and Mechagodzilla.

Quote from Jay13x »

This is a realy shame, because the idea that college is a must is really terrible, and part of the reason our higher education is so messed up.

I think about half the people I know with Bachelor's degrees absolutely don't need them for whatever work they're doing. I think most Americans would be better served in trade schools than in college. There are so many people for whom it's just not the right fit, but they scrape by through undergrad and end up getting jobs completely unrelated to anything they did.

In defense of college degrees, there is something to be said for demonstrating that you can follow through and complete a BA/BS, even if the content isn't relevant to a job. It's not the only way to show that, but if you're a hiring manager with a stack of resumes you need some way to winnow them down. I'm wholly in favor of more promotion of trade schools and other alternatives to a college degree in the US, but a history BA implies more than just a knowledge of history. My wife works in a museum (wholly unrelated to history) on the administrative side, and I suspect her history degree did more to prepare her for that than any trade school would and it certainly helped her get a foot in the door. All that said, I'll admit again that I'm horribly biased when it comes to education, work in a job that I wouldn't be able to do without my MS, and know a lot more white collar than blue collar workers.

Quote from Weebo »

Quote from Jay13x »

This is a realy shame, because the idea that college is a must is really terrible, and part of the reason our higher education is so messed up.

I think about half the people I know with Bachelor's degrees absolutely don't need them for whatever work they're doing. I think most Americans would be better served in trade schools than in college. There are so many people for whom it's just not the right fit, but they scrape by through undergrad and end up getting jobs completely unrelated to anything they did.

In defense of college degrees, there is something to be said for demonstrating that you can follow through and complete a BA/BS, even if the content isn't relevant to a job. It's not the only way to show that, but if you're a hiring manager with a stack of resumes you need some way to winnow them down. I'm wholly in favor of more promotion of trade schools and other alternatives to a college degree in the US, but a history BA implies more than just a knowledge of history. My wife works in a museum (wholly unrelated to history) on the administrative side, and I suspect her history degree did more to prepare her for that than any trade school would and it certainly helped her get a foot in the door. All that said, I'll admit again that I'm horribly biased when it comes to education, work in a job that I wouldn't be able to do without my MS, and know a lot more white collar than blue collar workers.

It's a shame that undergraduate degree is the only way to get a job these days when job training programs should exist to teach the same skills, especially when it's now locking people out of fields where they could previously jump in after high school (Law Enforcement comes to mind). It creates higher education inflation, essentially. That's a problem, because it's only going to get worse unless we stop telling kids they have to go to college or they're failures.

Heck, that's half the reason to choose the military over college, you get paid to learn job skills (if only they were better at transferring over to the civilian sector where degrees and not knowledge and experience rule the day).

Quote from Jay13x »

It's a shame that undergraduate degree is the only way to get a job these days when job training programs should exist to teach the same skills, especially when it's now locking people out of fields where they could previously jump in after high school (Law Enforcement comes to mind). It creates higher education inflation, essentially. That's a problem, because it's only going to get worse unless we stop telling kids they have to go to college or they're failures.

Heck, that's half the reason to choose the military over college, you get paid to learn job skills (if only they were better at transferring over to the civilian sector where degrees and not knowledge and experience rule the day).

I don't disagree with any of that. My point was more that there are useful elements to a BA or BS that aren't directly related to the subject matter. If your job gives you relatively free reign on research heavy projects that you're expected to report on, a job training program would look suspiciously like an undergrad degree. Saying that a history degree only teaches you the skills to be a history teacher is selling it short. I don't think that any of the options have to be mutually exclusive. I can be in favor of encouraging trade schools and apprenticeship programs as an option for graduating high school seniors without downplaying the value of a college degree. We need an educated workforce as much as we need people trained in trades.

I completely agree that requiring a degree for everything and public perception are things that have to change. Both because we need people in the positions that trade schools and similar programs train for and because higher education in the US is broken. I and I assume many other people grew up hearing that having a college degree in any field was basically a guarantee of a job. While that may have been the case at one point, it certainly isn't true now. Add in that the costs of getting a college degree have increased and are still increasing at an alarming rate (again, talking US specific) and you have a recipe for problems. I studied and am working in a field that will enable me to pay off the fairly sizable loans I took out attending a state school relatively quickly. If you go to school for a less desirable field at a private school and end up with a 6 figure debt that you're trying to pay off while working just over minimum wage, you're SOL.

Quote from Weebo »

...higher education in the US is broken.

Ban it?

Quote from Donald »

Quote from Weebo »

...higher education in the US is broken.

Ban it?

Typical magic player response....

"Honey..the pipes in the bathroom are broken."
"Ban it."
"...."

Well broken bathroom pipes aren't fun, so they should be banned.

Quote from Jivanmukta »

I support irl banlists.

I support banning you.

Quote from Donald »

Quote from cryogen »

At this point both major candidate has been given ample opportunities to really dig into their opponent's real flaws. And all that will accomplish is to make America not want to vote for either of them.

That was a waste, they didn't need to have a debate to make me not want to vote for either of them.

I still don't get why hillary is hated so much. I don't see why she can't just win in a landslide.
I can see why trump gets love/hate though.

Quote from ed06288 »

I still don't get why hillary is hated so much. I don't see why she can't just win in a landslide.
I can see why trump gets love/hate though.

I hate her because her (and Bill's) entire career is built off of secretive doing some ugly (and quite possibly illegal) things while using a public pretense of being this great person. She has attacked Trump for doing the very things that she did to protect her husband. She has received millions of dollars from Middle Eastern countries that treat women horribly. Six billion dollars has gone unaccounted for (note that this is much different than the "gone missing" accusation lobbied against her) during her tenure in the State Department, and no one in power seems concerned. There are serious concerns about her dual status as SecState and running the Clinton Foundation, which will only get more dubious as a sitting president who has millions of dollars from foreign countries and private corporations being donated to her. She has lied to the FBI numerous times and mishandled anywhere from a dozen to hundreds of classified e-mails, depending on the source. The DNC has been ousted a number of times during this election for voter fraud and influencing the election in her favor.

Any of these charges should have been sufficient to make any other candidate drop out of the race. Heck, we had one candidate drop out because he said he didn't read a bill he passed when his father died. And not only did she not have the gall to drop out, she is going to be elected as our next president in spite of her proven crimes which have put a number of people in jail. And the fact that this has been allowed to happen is because of her enormous power and pull she has within the government as well as within special interest groups. We are about to elect a person who will publicly fight for the people but the reality is that she will only successfully fight for those with the largest wallets.

fair enough. but i feel stuff would continue as usual with her. which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. maybe my bias is at play here.
im afraid trump is a con man though or has no idea what he's doing. his talk of getting tough on trade with foreign countries scares me... its not that easy. could be seeing some real consequences out of those actions. and more.

really liked trump at the start of the primaries but his lack of... i don't know, preparation and overall demeanor down the stretch here have really turned me off.

Quote from ed06288 »

fair enough. but i feel stuff would continue as usual with her. which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. maybe my bias is at play here.
im afraid trump is a con man though or has no idea what he's doing. his talk of getting tough on trade with foreign countries scares me... its not that easy. could be seeing some real consequences out of those actions. and more.

really liked trump at the start of the primaries but his lack of... i don't know, preparation and overall demeanor down the stretch here have really turned me off.

Don't get me wrong, Trump is beyond awful. And given the choices we've been told to choose between, HRC is the least worst of them. But that doesn't mean we have to like her. My greatest fear is that she will strengthen her way of political thinking and ideology and make it easier for others to follow suit.

And there is no sign of improvement.

To comment on the talk of getting tough on trade agreements, it's absolutely empty words from an ignorant mouth, but it's a lot less terrifying than when the woman who takes millions from Saudi Arabia starts casually talking about imposing no fly zones that clash militarily with Russia and Iran. If there's one criticism of Trump I've never understood, it's that he'd totally start a nuclear war where Clinton (who is persistently dismissive, manipulative, or combative to foreign powers) would somehow lead peacefully in comparison.