Jenksismyhero

Lol: http://deadspin.com/#!5797122/of-pomp-and-circumstance

i'm tired of debating this. im gonna do some legal research and see what the courts have actually decided. might not be until monday though

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 02:52 PM) Rent-A-Center v Jackson, which I cited a few pages ago, involves mandatory arbitration that barred the plaintiff from filing any judicial suit; they were required to go to arbitration, even if the arbitration clause itself was at issue. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-497.pdf RAC employees were contractually barred from filing suit against RAC. Everything had to go through an arbitrator. Why do we want to hand over our judicial system and our civil rights to mandatory arbitration proceedings that are not held to the same standards and requirements as judicial rulings but contain the same weight of enforcement? This is not a blanket attack on all arbitration; clearly, it has its benefits. But it is an aggressive questioning of the courts' willingness to hand over the rights of consumers and employees to corporations who are free to bar them from their right to judicial litigation. From reading you quote there, it sounds to me like they have to force you to go to arbitration first. I've said that's fine. I don't see anywhere that says that's the only recourse and that if they're not happy with the arbitration decision they're precluded from filing a suit. The rest of the language deals with issues relating to interpreting the agreement itself, which again, needs to be put through arbitration before proceeding to litigation.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) At this point? Yeah, it is, because I've supported my claim thoroughly. no you haven't.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 12:07 PM) AT&T's current Arbitration Agreement! You waive the right to trial by jury or to participate in a class action regardless of the forum. So what exactly does this mean: You're confusing mandatory arbitration (you have to attempt arbitration first before going to court) and binding arbitration (the arbitrator's judgment is the final word and you cannot file suit to get a different judgment). Pretty sure from the beginning we've conceded that these agreements can force you to arbitrate first. My contention was that you keep claiming that they've blocked access to the courts. That's not true. Moreover, I like that I cited Scalia's summary of the agreement, which for 2 pages you claimed was inaccurate, and then you cite the actual agreement that is pretty much word for word what Scalia said. So what's your beef with that again?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 11:36 AM) I'm going to open a McDonalds out in the middle of the field where the full day is spent doing manual labor and after 3 weeks you have to pick up and move 50 miles. The issue isn't that Americans won't do the jobs. Its that Americans won't do those jobs for menial pay. So you'd agree that minimum wage isn't menial pay?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) Interesting analysis of AT&T v Concepcion. I'll again note that every single thing I have read regarding this case, sans Scalia's description, points to mandatory arbitration and AT&T blocking the filing of any civil suit. I'll take the summary of Supreme Court Justices and their highly qualified staff who, you know, actually look at the records produced and listen to the arguments presented before them, over the summary of a blogger or reporter. Not to mention that this summary you cite doesn't even address what the actual agreement contains. Edit: Although I'll admit this isn't just any blogger, and it appears he reviewed the oral arguments. But still, I have yet to see anyone actually say Scalia's summary of the agreement was flat out wrong.

Remember in the immigration debate, when people were claiming that the jobs held by illegals wouldn't be taken by Americans because "Americans don't want to work in low paying jobs like that?" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/m...an-planned.html A million people in the country applied for 62,000 jobs with McDonalds. Obviously McDonalds isn't the worst job in the world, but I think most people would consider it one of the low paying jobs that Americans typically don't want to have.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 09:48 AM) I think a lot of countries had it right when they kept a monarchy but stripped the power. People in the country seem to want something to illustrate who they are.We even try to force it on the President and their family to host these diplomat meetings and be the country's hostess but it's too awkward and we'd probably be better served just to name a king to have all that crap. so you'd be ok with 75 million of our tax dollars going to pay for a Bush or Obama wedding? I sure as hell wouldn't.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 09:47 AM) you think she's a 10? To me, it looks like she's been smoking too much for too long. She has a smokers face. Back to the subject, i think it has a far different meaning to the people of England then it does to the rest of the world. Maybe not a 10, since 10 would be perfection, but for sure a 9. She's got a beautiful smile and has a smoking body.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 09:40 AM) I don't get why people say this. Sure, Season 2 was significantly better, but I thought Season 1 was alright, certainly better than 90% of the garbage out there. Because the parts that make the show funny - Ron (my favorite), Tom and Andy - were not really the characters they've become. I think they started to become that in the last few episodes of the first season, if not the second.

scary, I was a second away from posting that.

Also, the hats. Why? http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman...ests-style.html

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 09:02 AM) Michael Scott has been an annoyance on that show the last 3 seasons or so. They bring in a huge group of guest actors to throw their hat in the ring as the next boss since clearly DeAngelo Vickers isn't going to work out. I absolutely loved Dwight leaning into Jim and saying, "uh oh" as Vickers lost his s*** with the cake. Anyway, clearly none of the "newbs" wins out (Will Arnett has a new pilot with NBC and Christina Applegate next season, Ray Romano, Jim Carrey [wow, nice work keeping that one quiet, NBC!], and Ricky Gervais won't be taking the job), so I'd expect Jim or Andy to be the next head of "The Office". I dunno, I'm excited for post-Michael Office. Either way, nothing really matters as long as the funniest show on television, "Parks & Rec", stays so impossibly hilarious each episode! That show was so bad through the first few episodes. But at some point they really hit their groove and it's been hilarious ever since.

So, my wife was interested in this stupid wedding that just happened. I was interested because that chick Kate is like a 10. I caught about 10 minutes of the coverage this morning before I left for work, and I had watched a little bit of the "history of/what to expect" programming last night. It just made me laugh and feel bad for the people that actually care. I guess I understand the angle of a woman being interested in a big fancy wedding. But I don't get the people who actually view the royals as important people. They hold a ridiculous amount of wealth in that country for having done nothing but be born into that family. There's a scepter they have that no one has touched but the Queen for like 100 years and it's got a 535 carat diamond worth a half a billion dollars. How is this s*** allowed? How is it celebrated? It's 2011! The revolution is over. The commoners won. Ugh.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Apr 29, 2011 -> 08:18 AM) Last Office with Steve Carrell was last night. Thought it was done pretty well. Seeing who the guests are in the coming weeks for the job has me excited. Hoping it goes to Arnett. Romano will forever be Ray Barone to me and I don't think Jim Carrey would carry over to sitcom all that well. I thought it was pretty solid, but I think it's so lame that they have to reach out to other guest actors to keep people interested. I'd be fine if they didn't bring anyone in. Bring in a nobody character or two and let Andy, Dwight, Darrell, etc fight for the top spot. I don't think Carrell carried the show all by himself. I also thought they should have ended the show as Michael walked away. That felt like the proper ending. I didn't need the 10 second bit after the commercial.

Nice name: http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/ncb/news/story?id=6443546

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 12:01 PM) http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-marka...r-more-fox-news Liberal response: Fox News covered the issue because they believed it and wanted to perpetuate the myth, MSNBC/CNN indirectly covered it by talking about how dumb people are for believing it.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 12:55 PM) On 2nd thought, you said, student loans carried by a bank. Those are similar to personal loans and a Chapter 7 would wipe them away. In fact, if any student was taking on a ton of debt, I could see significant reasons for why I wouldn't take a ton of government debt. God forbit you end up 200K in debt and its owed to Uncle Sam...you'll never get away from it (unless you land a big time gig). Bankruptcy is probably something more people should do now a days. Especially if they are severely under-water. They wouldn't waste money paying stuff that theyll eventually lose or won't recover for a period of 7 years, where as the bankruptcy would free them from most things (the exception to this would be if you had a lot of cash or savings/liquid assets; your 401k I believe is protected in a bankruptcy). And your credit would eventually recover (something like 7 years later, but it would recover). I don't even think it's that long really. You basically have to have no assets though for this plan to work though. If you're out of school with no house, car, job, etc, maybe it's worth the risk of getting that terrible credit. But they'll take everything else in your bankruptcy. And really government debt is about the most friendly in terms of paying it back. They charge you the interest, but they don't charge you a crazy amount of fees, they'll never garnish your wages, and so long as you pay SOMETHING to them they're more than happy to alter your re-payment plan.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 10:47 AM) If you signed that AT&T contract, you can and did sign that right away since you have to go through individual arbitration to resolve any disputes and you can appeal that decision, but you can't file a new suit in court. You're barred from filing a suit in court, either individual or class. Just because you keep saying this (wrongly) doesn't make it true:

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 09:20 AM) But your point is demonstrably untrue. That's the whole issue with mandatory binding arbitration. Yes, you can go to court after arbitration, but it's very rare and even more rare that the decision is changed. They can and do say "your only recourse is through arbitration." In the RAC ruling last summer, the SCOTUS even ruled that you have to go to arbitration even if you're challenging the whole arbitration clause of the contract. It's absurd. So you're forced to go through mandatory individual arbitration first, and then you can appeal that decision to a judicial review. I'm not clear if you'd ever be able to bring a class suit. And now just about every consumer agreement has these sorts of clauses, and more and more employers are adding them to employment contracts. Now you're forced to pursue arbitration as an individual, which is unlikely and unrealistic over small dollar claims, which protects companies engaging in wide-spread low-individual-dollar fraud. This is a hugely pro-big business ruling, and you haven't made any argument to the contrary. How is it untrue when you admit it to be true? Just because it's rare doesn't mean you don't have that opportunity. The fact is they can force you to try arbitration first, but if you don't like the results you can sue in court. What more does a person need? Also, you're looking at this as though every claim brought by any person against any company ever is based on a wide spread fraudulent practice. At the end of the day arbitration is appropriate, for all sides, because it's cheaper and faster than litigating small disputes in court in 99.9% of cases. And from my skimming of the opinion, it's not barring class action lawsuits. I'm not even seeing where it says that you can sign away that right. It's just saying that the California law that says you can void the arbitration agreement based on unconscionability doesn't jive with Section 2 of the FAA. I think Justice Thomas even says that barring you from being a class member in an arbitration agreement is an issue that's not being addressed in this case and it might need to be briefed and argued in a different case.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 08:58 AM) I've read that, and it doesn't seem to support what you're saying there. Regardless of the specifics of this AT&T contract, since this ruling has broad reach, many of these agreements have mandatory binding arbitration, which means you must go through arbitration first, the arbitration is binding, and only then can you bring a suit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_arbitration My point was that you can force people into arbitration, but you must provide them the choice to sue in court at some point. You can't just say "your only recourse is through arbitration." I don't see what's wrong with that. Don't sign the contract if you don't want to agree to that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 08:45 AM) If something is broken, I know it's broken. If some company is engaging in deceptive advertising, billing, etc. practices, it is much less noticeable and most people aren't going to know that they've been defrauded and deserve compensation. Would I ever think to sue AT&T over $30 in taxes on my free phone? No, and maybe the Concepions would have lost the case anyway, but with the system we have after this court ruling, at most AT&T is out $30 + some legal fees for arbitration vs. having to defend a multi-million dollar class-action suit because most people who would be party to the class-action will be unaware of the fraud or not feel it's worth the individual effort. So these people didn't notice that they were charged $30 bucks in tax for a free phone? Seems to me they were average people who didn't think that was right, so they made a claim. And at most all of these plaintiffs were out $30 bucks. Why do you think they're entitled to more than that?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 08:46 AM) Yes, they do. That's the whole issue with forced or mandatory arbitration. And many companies are forcing employees into the same situations as well now. Go read what I posted from the opinion where it summarizes the agreement. You can choose to sue in court before going to arbitration. It's not mandatory.

I met Jenks on a couple of occasions and decided that he was my b****. Then, unfortunately, he became a jerk and left.