Rex Kickass

Earlier this year, Northwest exited bankruptcy. From it's pilots, it extracted a 15 percent pay cut, followed by a further 24 percent pay cut. Upon exiting bankruptcy, it awarded its CEO compensation totalling $26.6 million. (That's a little over 4% of the total annual concessions that the pilots over the whole airline made) If you were being asked to take a cut in pay to save the company, how would you feel if every 20th dollar you gave up went straight into the wallet of the guy who threatened to take your job away from you if you didn't take a pay cut? If it wasn't "good business," it'd feel a lot like extortion to me.

Most of the "top talent" didn't stay.

Except, look at what happened after - the people "managing" the bankruptcy walked away with multi million dollar deals and the flight attendants/pilots/mechanics who don't really make that great money to begin with, walk away with 30% less. Workers concessions might have saved the company at that moment, but that wasn't the cause of the poor financial performance of most of these airlines. That had a lot to do with a combination of poor customer service (usually off aircraft), poor route management, an increase in fuel, a downturn in travel following Sept 11.

At the airlines? Look at what happened at Northwest and United? They asked the unions to take huge paycuts to survive, and when the airline exits bankruptcy, the same execs threatening to shut the airline down take multimillion dollar bonuses as they exit the company and Jane Flight Attendant? Working for 30% less than they were three years before. The airlines are a bad example of blaming the unions, because labor has been generally extremely flexible with management to keep people working and moving.

Nope. It's not in Brazil. The food is a starch, though.

If I recall, the way that Metra/PACE has been funded in comparison to CTA over the last several years has been a much higher dollar amount per rider for Metra/PACE rather than CTA, despite the fact that the infrastructure for their needs is considerably newer. The CTA system is an old system, with many of the tunnels and elevated bridges rapidly approaching 100 years old. They need more money to be maintained. And they haven't been getting it.

Didn't Russia suspend shipments to Iran of nuclear producing equipment and material under the guise of "nonpayment?"

She does work in a food factory. But not peanuts.

The President is supposed to call for a reduction of 30,000 troops by next summer within the next 48 hours, according to WNBC TV at 11PM. This will bring the troop load down to about what it was before the surge began. It seems to me that the conventional wisdom on this was that, there would have to be a draw down of about 30,000 people beginning in March or April because they won't have enough troops to rotate back in to maintain 20 combat brigades in Iraq.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 10:16 PM) Any word on who won 50 vs. Kanye? Yes I care. First day of sales pacing show the following to probably happen this week. 1. Kanye 700,000+ copies 2. Kenny Chesney 3. 50 Cent around 500 000 copies

Vacate the win! J E T S Jets Jets Jets Jets!

QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 05:21 PM) Yes, the DC train system (the metro) is really good. The buses in DC? Ye gods, an abomination. But I assume that's true of buses in most places. DC Metro is really not that convenient for most DC residents. It's really more designed for tourists according to my friends who live there.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 04:05 PM) To me the entire system is crap. When I first moved up here a few years ago I thought the El was one of the nicer commuter systems in the country, but after visiting cities like DC (the best), Boston, New York, etc, it really pales in comparison. It's dirty, frequently late, and especially these last few years, really slow because of all the construction. It's clear too that management is piss poor. Did you hear that if they go ahead with their doomsday plan it's going to cost the CTA 2 million just to implement it. And then if the state eventually decides to give them the money it'll cost them 5 million to get the system back to 'normal.' What is that all about? My solution to increase revenue: get rid of this stupid rate system. People traveling from Evanston to the Loop should not pay the same as someone who goes from Grand or Clark/Division to the Loop. It's asinine. Every other major metro area has different zones with an increased price the farther out you go. Why Chicago still doesn't do this is beyond me. I'd be ok if the state 'bailed' out the CTA because of unseen circumstances that took a toll on the CTA's books, like a natural disaster taking out a station and some track. But this problem is based purely on piss-poor management. Change management and give them the money. Don't just hand over a check so they'll screw it up again. And I won't even bother discussing the bus drivers/train conductors who somehow are pulling in 75k+ a year in salary... It costs $2 to take the entire A train line and that's 32 miles long. There is no zone system on the MTA subways and buses. This is a problem that is based on piss-poor management and a funding formula that favors PACE and Metra and disadvantages the CTA to the point where necessary service on rolling stock and infrastructure has been delayed and cancelled. The system is close to breaking - mostly because the funding was never there.

Good guess, but wrong continent.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 01:27 PM) Is the woman an advertisement for Laverne and Shirley syndicated on Telemundo? It is an ad, it's not for Telemundo.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 01:23 PM) And is the blurry pick on the far right from your trip to Iceland to see Bjork? Yes.

There was only one picture in Chicago of the five. 1._________________________ 2._________________________ 3. Millennium Park, Chicago 4. Corcovado, Rio de Janiero, Brazil 5. Club NASA, Reykjavik, Iceland Two of the pictures are from the US, but different states. Two of the remaining three pictures are from the same country. Full size pictures to be revealed as they come about.

Nope. I don't live near it.

No. But it is a ferris wheel.

Your 2/5 of the way there!

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 08:50 AM) Please note that I said it SHOULD be, not that it was. Move along. I'm just pointing it out. Very few people seem to realize that.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 09:12 AM) That's where I gleaned most of the points from. When it comes to Iraq, Democrats, at least the moderate ones, make some really good points that I agree with. The Bush Administration has defined victory.....when the Iraqi's can stand on their own.......the problem is that we're not providing them any incentive at all to do so. Right now they're getting a free ride and being allowed to dither about while we do EVERYTHING. I think most people would support the current "surge" policy if it were coupled with a more realistic exit strategy and some real pressure on the Iraqi's to step up and take charge. Another thing that's worthy of note is that the U.S. military is finally learning how to do counterinsurgency. It wasn't the surge that quelled the violence in Anbar province but the fact that we showed that we were genuinely there to help them. To his credit Petraeus did that in Mosul too. Then we kinda backed away and the situation has deteriorated there.

I did some travelling in the last 18 months. I took some pictures. Here are pieces of five pictures. Can you name where each one was taken?

We have a huge border. It's neither realistic nor feasible to think that we can catch every illegal alien that crosses the border. The best way to stop the illegal flow of labor is to stop allowing businesses to hire them.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 03:49 AM) What I feel we should do now that violence is way down is to get the Iraqi Security forces involved in everything. Make these bastards do their damn job. I say give them till spring to get their act together and then, ready or not, let them go on their own. At this point, we should reduce the number of U.S. forces drastically ( down to 100k) and change their role from beat cop to sealing off the Iranian and Syrian borders, counterterrorism ops against Al Queda, and protecting critical U.S. assets. When it comes to politics, both sides are right about some things and somewhere in the middle is the real right answer to getting this done. This kind of plan is out there Nuke, and there are a lot of Democrats supporting it. Republicans too. Sometimes I wonder if the call to just bring everyone home is because our mission doesn't seem to be evolving, just getting more and more confusing. If the Bush administration made this proposal and said we'll start this process on January 1. It would meet approval with most people in the US. But the problem is that there's no definition of victory from the administration - only definition of defeat. I think its hard to get behind people without a real plan, especially when it means putting American lives on the line.