News   Nov 12, 2024
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President Joe Biden's United States of America

Some big announcement tomorrow. Odds are Trump is announcing his plans to run. Let’s see if Pence does anything now.


I would love to see Trump run. If the Midterms are any indication he is a liability not an asset.
 
Agreed. I think the big question now is does Biden run again. He’ll be 80 soon. And if he doesn’t run again, I don’t think Harris is the right person to replace him. Which means the Dems have to have primaries all over again, which they better start soon.

Harris will be very annoyed to be turned over. But she said some nasty things about Biden during the primary debates and I’m sure Biden has not forgiven those - No one holds a grudge like the Irish, maybe Italians. Which is probably why Harris has been mostly cut out of anything important.Compare how much we saw VP Biden and Obama together, relative to how little we see of VP Harris working alongside Biden.

If they do replace Harris, it can’t be with two old white guys. It needs to be a Woke ticket, so probably a woman, ideally a brown one. Throw in Buttigieg as VP. Harris can be Secretary of State.
 
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Agreed. I think the big question now is does Biden run again. He’ll be 80 soon. And if he doesn’t run again, I don’t think Harris is the right person to replace him. Which means the Dems have to have primaries all over again, which they better start soon.

Harris will be very annoyed to be turned over. But she said some nasty things about Biden during the primary debates and I’m sure Biden has not forgiven those - No one holds a grudge like the Irish, maybe Italians. Which is probably why Harris has been mostly cut out of anything important.Compare how much we saw VP Biden and Obama together, relative to how little we see of VP Harris working alongside Biden.

If they do replace Harris, it can’t be with two old white guys. It needs to be a Woke ticket, so probably a woman, ideally a brown one. Throw in Buttigieg as VP. Harris can be Secretary of State.

The problem with having someone too radical like a woke ticket is that not everyone will vote for them.

What they need is another Clinton. Someone who can be serious but that everyone can relate to. If you have a grassroots hippie like Bernie Sanders or a Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the mix, they will lose badly.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, they tend to put their base before the general population. They put someone on the ticket who will win over Democratic voters but not someone who will win over GOP voters. That being said, US Politics is so fractured that no one candidate can win over both parties.
 
Geez, Biden really doesn't give the impression that he's with it. It seems like he is just reading a teleprompter and not really grasping what he's saying. They even had at least one jump cut in him delivering those remarks.
 
Geez, Biden really doesn't give the impression that he's with it. It seems like he is just reading a teleprompter and not really grasping what he's saying. They even had at least one jump cut in him delivering those remarks.
For an eighty year old I’d say he’s pretty sharp. I do wonder what happened to my generation X that somehow never had a shot at POTUS and instead it looks like it’ll go straight from Boomer to Y.

And what the heck is happening to the US southern border? They’re being invaded, where’s the border security?

Title 42: This is what El Paso looks like amid border crisis https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64046726
 
The NYT is reporting this morning that with the Colorado River continuing to hemorrhage water with an increasing threat the Hoover Dam may even become non-viable for electricity..........

That urgent cuts are needed to water rights use by the various states..........cuts on the order of 20-40% in current use, with the number likely on the higher end of that scale.

Even cuts that deep will only spare the river basins drying up almost completely within a few years..............

The States were supposed to agree on how to make those cuts on their own, but seem unable to do so.

It looks the U.S. Feds will have to impose the cuts.

If you think food prices are high now, just wait til you see what happens to lettuce among other things when California and Arizona agricultural production tanks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/climate/colorado-river-biden-cuts.html (pay walled) (but if you google the article title, not the link, google's link will jump the paywall)

From the above, one graph worth a look-see:

1674829371112.png
 
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An NYT Editorial today lauds the Governor of Pennsylvania for moving to make 'degrees' less important in hiring state employees for non-professions (ie. doesn't apply to doctors or engineers etc.)


From the above:

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“Degrees have become a blanketed barrier to entry in too many jobs,” Mr. Cox said. “Instead of focusing on demonstrated competence, the focus too often has been on a piece of paper.”

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NYT taking on degree inflation and encouraging other State Governors and the U.S. Feds and big business to follow suit.

While it strikes me that this is less of a barrier to employment in Canada as degrees are more widely held here and the cost of post-secondary education lower; there is no doubt this does form a barrier here.
There are many people, not merely, though certainy disproportionately low income earners who lack a degree or a specific credential desired by an employer but who would more than capably fill a job and could fairly easily prove it in short order.
I think Canada would be well advised to follow a like strategy and roll back degree inflation.

I feel like @Undead might have thoughts on this.
 
Hiring managers need better tools to assess the competence and knowledge of applicants.
 
Hiring managers need better tools to assess the competence and knowledge of applicants.

I feel like the art of a good interview has been lost for many positions. The desire is to screen at the resume level only.

Getting to meet someone and assess what types of life-skills and career skills they possess, their suitability for a job, their willingness to learn are all very practical things.

W/O discussing my CV in detail, I got into a sector post Uni that I had no particular desire to be in, and no specific training for; but rose through the ranks quickly, because I understood tech, the internet, efficiency, customer service, and had a number of compatible soft skills and quickly learned my profession.

Meanwhile I joined a board elsewhere, moved to chair said board, and later became senior staff there, also in an area where I lacked any formal education on-point.

But people who knew me and talked to me understood that I could handle the challenge and were happy to let me take it on.

Getting to the interview is rather important.

*****

To better encourage the right candidate and discourage the wrong one, I'd love to see larger employers make videos showing what's involved in a job, obviously redacting client-specific info.

If people could watch a proverbial youtube video and see......oh that's what an international sales manager for industry 'x' does; or that's what a member of the brand-building teams for industry 'y' does; it would be helpful.

****

Beyond that, however, we in Ontario (and places elsewhere) have made certain things tightly credentialed that maybe shouldn't be. There needs to be some quality assurance........

But do we need to license barbers/hair stylists and insist that everyone of them know how to colour hair, when maybe they don't wish to offer such a service?

Do we need to license paralegals for every type of function they serve? My father started in that profession w/o even having a High School diploma, under the supervision of an existing paralegal and a law firm; in essence, an apprenticeship. I'm not suggesting that we eliminate the community college programs for said profession or let anyone hang out a shingle so to speak; but allowing for an 'under supervision/apprenticeship' alternative to some class room experience might be reasonable as well.
 
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Used to be that to get a job (police officer, office clerk, etc.), they only needed to prove they can read and write. Usually, just grade 8 was enough. Then it became 2 years of high school (grade 10). Nowadays, employers want some sort of college degree.
 

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