The mystery of what the hell employers are looking for continues

I really wish I knew the answer to that question. But like so many things in the business world, the answer has to be a big secret. Which in itself is a red flag: typically when something has to be a freaking secret, it’s because there’s something embarrassing or corrupt or something that can’t be justified if it were to become common knowledge. As mentioned on an earlier post, I have a job lined up, thank the noodly appendages of the Great FSM. It starts in a couple of weeks. It’s a real job with real benefits, and it pays a living wage. But by living wage I mean, after adding up pay and bonuses and perks, it only pays about 17 bucks an hour to start. I can survive on that, it’s not pretty, but with zero debt and my dismal, frugal lifestyle, I can get by. But I’m always open to better jobs and as luck would have it, a recruiter for a prospective company contacted me about one that pays closer to 50k a year. [Read more…]

Militant atheism vs militant religion

Throughout the summer we have been bombarded by images of ISIS, a bloodthirsty group of medieval savages threatening to torture and murder anyone who does not subscribe to their specific version of Islam. ISIS is guilty of every allegation made and odds are, when and if the desert dust ever clears, we will learn of even more horror visited on innocent bystanders. Nick Cohen explores this further and contrasts it with atheists organizations in The Guardian: [Read more…]

ISIS hoping for more support among the oft overlooked female fanatic

During my short August sabbatical, ISIS again dominated news coverage. I may not have posted anything here, but rest assured my Godless friends, I weathered many slings and arrows fired by my right-wing Texas pals about how ISIS is the new biggest threat ever and it’s all Obama’s fault. Each winger being either blissfully unaware or willfully ignorant in his or her own way of the fact that roughly 100% of non-partisan Middle East analysts worried or flat out predicted that the Bush led 2003 Iraq invasion would ultimately generate even more violent Muslim extremists than we were already facing.

ISIS has garnered compliments for their deft use of social media in proudly spreading images of dismembered heads. Maybe the average head-chopping fanatic is feeling the heat of that negative manly PR, because they’re now reportedly making a concerted effort to woo more women: [Read more…]

The song and comments remain the same

Hello FTBers! My cable was out for a few weeks, I managed to keep up with current events using my cell phone, coffee shops, and an occasional loose cable signal from an unwittingly helpful neighbor. Besides, I wanted to stay out of the way while the new format was debugged, and it seems to be doing fine. It’s rare when a major overhaul goes that smooth, so grats to Ed and the design team!

Not much changed for me over the month of August. I did find a new job that pays a living wage, but it doesn’t start until the end of September. As for cable being out; after paying off my past due balance thanks to the fruits of reader contribs a few weeks ago and little backbreaking minimum wage manual labor — and I do mean literally manual labor — my access is restored. Have you ever worked  cash-under-the-table part time construction jobs in the middle of a blazing Texas summer at age 52?

Whenever I hear some privileged whiner whine on about how hard they work and that’s why they should get another fat tax cut on their millions, it’s worth a good loud laugh. I can tell you what it’s like to work real, real hard for shit money, because that’s what I’ve been doing all month long. But some people, who are probably not poor, have a very different idea why people might be struggling and very old, very bad ideas about how to help. Follow me below for the punch-lines.

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