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[Truean]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Subjectivity:
Here is what I am saying "Private meaning you ascribe to your words in your mind doesn't register to people reading them." That is the exact opposite of reading your mind, it is stating that what is in your mind isn't registering or relevant, not that I am registering or thinking it is relevant.

Words have ordinary meanings understood by ordinary readers. You must know these if you are to communicate effectively. Ordinary meanings, not what you want them to mean, determine how your words will be read, period. This is something that has repeatedly gotten you in trouble here, I recommend you learn from it.

I recommend you learn from it.  Do not read into what people write.

Here's the exact post:

There is no practical way for a single municipal vendor to keep enough linemen on call to handle this kind of wide destruction. And even if they did, they would risk loosing their workers and stored materials to storm damage. It really is better to have the material and workers distributed so that they can perform normal work most of the time, but be available to respond en mass to rare destructive events.

Also, I believe that line workers are among the best paid "blue collar" jobs that you can get:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos195.htm

Here's what you thought I was saying:

Your point was, as plainly stated, that line workers were, "among the best paid "blue collar" jobs you can get."

I said:
[spoiler]

That's because you don't get it. "Most line installers need several years of on-the-job training." Then of course there's the high on the job mortality (death) rate, and the fact that all those electrical fields you're pointing out give you cancer if you're a lineman too, especially so because you're around them all the time, up close and personal.... http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/156/10/913.full . Historically it was one of the single worst jobs with 1 out of every 2 linemen dying due to work related causes http://ibew765.org/. Electrocutions were the fifth highest type of work related cause of death in the most recent reports. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/98-131/ This is the problem with America, people don't know half of what they think they do, look at a website without knowing anything and say "I could do that, they have it pretty good!' Then the next logical step is saying they have it "too good." Then we take stuff away from others who deserve it because we haven't figured out it isn't easy, they are good at their jobs and make it look easy. "It's harder than it looks."

I gave you specific examples of why it is NOT all that great and directly refuted your point with cited answers. You don't get [it] that linemen have a not so glamorous job, and I illustrated points showing that they don't.

(underline emphasis mine)
In that single post there was no mention of work condition.  You implied that I meant well paid == glamorous.  Nadaka was talking about the cost to municipalities.  I added to that.  You interpreted that and added words to my post (my mouth.)  You implied that high pay somehow equated to safe work conditions. (see links)

I said they get paid well.  It could have been taken to mean that that's a greater burden on the municipalities... it could have been taken many ways.  You decided to take the confrontational meaning and tried to pinpoint me as anti-worker.

Glamorous = type of good, high pay = good
First, Glamorous is a type of good, it certainly isn't a type of bad, or neutral. Thus it is a specific type of good. Second, the specific type of good glamorous is http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glamorous  "Excitingly attractive."

If glamorous is a type of good, specifically excitingly attractive, and high pay is a type of good, specifically excitingly attractive, then high pay =glamorous.

So high wages are good, and excitingly attractive, and thus glamorous.... The word fits, beautifully.
This is especially true especially after conceding the next point that high wages = good.

High Pay as Good, Bad or Neutral

Is "Among the Best Paid," A.) Good, B.) Bad, or C.) Neutral in common usage?

Good, but that doesn't mean the conditions of that work are good.  You are filling in blanks.  You can have terrible pay, but be doing something you love.  Pay =/= condition of work.

The condition of work is not relevant here, please be so kind as to see next point immediately below:

And now you try to back-pedal and state that this was never about condition of work?  You are trying to weasel your way into the belief that you are not wrong here.

It's still about you not understanding that you need to use "Common, ordinary meanings"

I did.  It was an opinion about the fact that line workers are highly paid.  They are also "blue collar" workers (you like using definitions... Wikipedia is a publicly editable forum where people collaboratively decide on definitions and rules.  If you don't agree with the meaning, feel free to change it.)

A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who typically performs manual labor and earns an hourly wage. Blue-collar workers are distinguished from those in the service sector and from white-collar workers, whose jobs are not considered manual labor.
Blue-collar work may be skilled or unskilled, and may involve manufacturing, mining, building and construction trades, mechanical work, maintenance, repair and operations maintenance or technical installations. The white-collar worker, by contrast, performs non-manual labor often in an office; and the service industry worker performs labor involving customer interaction, entertainment, retail and outside sales, and the like.

Does it say anything about the danger levels?  You implied that with your post above.

You saying your comments were about "blue collar" is wrong, because your words and your citation, only go to PAY.... You may subjectively, internally, mean something else, but if so you have failed to describe this outside your mind where the rest of us can read it.

And you filled it in with what you thought instead of asking for more information.  See the problem here?

Please let me illustrate specifically why the common ordinary meaning dictates that your words, whether or not you wanted them to, are not talking about "blue or white collar" but rather would be understood to be talking about pay by the average, ordinary reasonable person.

Also, I believe that line workers are among the best paid "blue collar" jobs that you can get:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos195.htm

First, the words in this sentence have little if anything to do with working conditions. Your "belief," as it is expressed in words in the sentence went to pay. You didn't discuss working conditions, or compare them to other blue collar jobs, or white collar, or anything. You DID NOT SAY, "are among the best treated," or "have the best working conditions of," or anything else like that. You DID SAY "best paid." The comparison word "BEST" modifies "PAID," not "BLUE COLLAR" and thus your words were, to the ordinary reader using common ordinary meaning, talking about and comparing pay. You DID NOT SAY "Best blue collar jobs" YOU SAID "Best Paid 'blue collar' jobs." Thus, if I had to interpret these words in court, like in a contract, I'd say you were talking about pay. I'd win that one, because everything points to "paid" or in a different tense "pay."

Right... so why did you bring up work condition?  I'm not sure how you think you "win" anything here.... maybe the ability to twist conversations.

You've had a long history of this happening in thread....

Yep, and you keep presenting it like it's some kind of scarlet letter that will always make you right... when, in fact, you are terribly wrong right now and trying to turn it around.

Everyone who is not currently relaxing should cool it.  The thread nowhere says that bickering and biting pieces out of each other is a good idea.

Perfectly cool here, but I'm being labeled as a bigot and I don't appreciate it.

Wow: It's 6:28 PM

I'm leaving just another day at the office for home currently. I've been interpreting laws, legal encyclopedias, contracts, and cases all day, while talking to you in my spare time, and now I'm done til tomorrow. I've tried to work with you and typed dozens if not a hundred pages responding to you in grand total. I'm not entirely sure specifically how I'm calling you a "bigot," or what you have against what I say that repeatedly comes up, but I'm just not sure I want to deal with it anymore.

It's a picture of a cat saying something like a person might.... It isn't there to threaten you; I'm not sure I want to know why you think I chose my avatar to do that.
__________________________________________________________________

Here is only a small portion of what is to be gained by having a faster electrical restoration after blackouts: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/07/13/long-power-outages-cost-restaurants-thousands/
Think of all that food being thrown away in warehouses, grocery stores, restaurants, even your own individual refrigerator. That adds up to lots and lots of money.

Truean. In this case, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. For less than $1000 those restaurants could buy a small gasoline generator which would easily be able to handle their freezer. Stock up on fuel before the storm and they'd be fine. (We ran our generator for more than a week, which powered 2 household freezers with more than enough capacity on less than 100 gallons.)

For a few thousand they could buy one that would be able to run off of the natural gas lines which (likely, if they're a restaurant) run straight to their business. Most of the time those lines aren't disrupted.

Well, actually I'd have to respectfully say not necessarily. I'm not entirely dismissing your point, just trying to add something specifically about generators.

I just bought a generator on sale cause I was without power for a couple days. Around here, that price will get you about a 5000 watt Generator that will run 10 hours on 5 gallons of gas ($4/gallon) at 50% load capacity. Your average household refrigerator uses 700 of that 5000 load. That might work for a home or a rather small store, but for a refrigerated warehouse or a grocery store, you're looking at a far more significant investment in hardware and fuel.

The ones I saw that could run a whole house were about $6000. From back when I worked in a grocery store, I'd really hate to think what it would take to power their massive inventory fridge. Again, you might be right, but even if you are $1000 generator isn't gonna cut it for your average Giant Eagle or similar supermarket. You're talking a rather significant upfront investment and the gas costs.... .

That said, maybe you could manage to find a cheaper generator or a more effective one, but fuel costs, particularly gasoline....

[Andir]

Why throw bricks at people when it's more fun to throw people at bricks?


Anyway, besides the suggestion to knit a scarf for grandma's kitty, you may want to think about why you are arguing. Because most of the arguments seem to be aimed at proving that you're not wrong, which to me seems kind of pointless when you're a.) On the internet and pseudonymous and b.) doing yourself a greater disservice by painting yourself as suborn then by backing down.

My argument is that I'm being painted as a liar and a bigot and a singular post in this thread is being used to ad hominem attack any position I make.  The only argument that I've made about me not being wrong is in what I said.  (It was one sentence... I don't know how much more clear and plain it could be.)  I firmly stand by the fact that what I've said was twisted.  If anyone disagrees with that assumption, please IM me.  I'd like to know where I screwed up.  I'm stepping away for the night per suggestion (so if you IM, I'll read it tomorrow)... have fun all.

[lemon10]

-massive argument about the meaning of the word glamorus as it relates to blue collar jobs-

To be fair, while andir is silly, often wrong and rediculous about a fair number of things, he is correct about this, being a lineman isn't glamorous and high pay doesn't make something glamorous (although it helps), glamor and good aren't synonyms.

full of glamour : excitingly attractive

an exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness

Is being a lineman "full of "an exiting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness truean""?

[TheBronzePickle]

I'd like to agree that Andir was correct in his defense of his statement, but I also feel that it might lead to more argument.
While the whole thing does fit with the 'Rage' part of this thread, it certainly did not fit the 'Chill and Relaxed' part. It also seemed to make very little 'Progressive' behavior either.
Perhaps we should just switch topics.
I don't know if he's been mentioned before, but I feel that the Youtube celebrity "Angry Aussie," while prone to being neither chill nor relaxed, would make a good compliment to this thread.

[GlyphGryph]

The Good/Glamorous thing:
I'm not implying anything, western civilization and common usage do. "Among the best paid," jobs are good/glamorous jobs in common usage. Yes or no? The answer is yes....

Truean, seriously, this semantic confusion you keep having where you misread something some has said and then blame "society" for your mistake is getting grating.

No one I know thinks of glamorous, or even good, when they think of high paid blue collar jobs. When I mention it in context of linesmen, I get responses ranging from "I guess there's a shortage to linesmen" to "well it must be dangerous or hard work then". A few people associated it with them likely being better off financially (which is obviously true) and no further. Not one managed "glamorous". Not one even came close. The idea that you could come to that conclusion based on "society" is ludicrous. You read a meaning into it that wasn't there and wasn't justified, just accept that and move on.

Anyways, on topic instead of quibbling over semantics:
From the arguments made here and elsewhere I've seen on this topic, the following seem to be the three main points of opposition to having a large reserve force to handle this sort of work (ignoring the fact that our current system is actually pretty damn good! Seriously! Could it be improved? Probably. But those sort of conclusions require actual research and evidence, and I doubt anyone here has any of value, so I'm going to stick to theoretical for the most part)
 1: There's not enough work to go around to keep that many linemen experienced enough to be useful (or happy). Even if you're keeping this linemen mostly in "reserve", they need experience. Relevant, recent experience. Preferably lots of it. Unfortunately, there's only so much work that needs to be done in an average year, so keeping a huge increase in employees properly skilled would be incredibly difficult. Even if there was enough work for the numbers you're proposing, you would have to admit each linemen is unlikely to have as much experience (since, currently, all the normal repair work gets done). In addition, these new linesmen would likely be competing with the old linesmen for work.
2: Linesmen are already one of the highest paid jobs and they can't find enough employees. Logistically, a 50% hiring increase is huge. It's already one of the best paying blue collar jobs, and people still don't want to do it - how much would you have to increase the price to get them too? Where would they come from? And most importantly, would it lead to a decrease in quality? (Considering the shortage the industry is in, they'd either have to relax standards or raise pay, probably both, to hit this number. And it would still take years to get there. And is raising the risks and deathrate of the industry by having less competent workers who get less experience overall due to a diminished workload really worth the trade off? Because if you combine less competent workers with less time spent working and more time "in reserve", there's a chance that's what you'd get.)
3: There are more efficient ways to tackle the problem. People have brought up generators - generator investments could go a long way towards offsetting the costs of disasters such as these, and may well be far more efficient than hiring additional workers. You're whole point at the beginning was that people seem to be short-sighted, so at least you're keeping an open mind about this one. Man would a cost benefit analyses be appreciated here, though!

[Bauglir]

...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/bachmann-claims-hurricane-earthquake-were-god-messages-politicians-155051199.html

Any time I hear someone use "God" in a non-theological argument, I just wanna throw bricks at people.

Personally, I just like to reply that God has sent me to correct them or use similarly unfalsifiable logic.

[Truean]

-massive argument about the meaning of the word glamorus as it relates to blue collar jobs-

To be fair, while andir is silly, often wrong and rediculous about a fair number of things, he is correct about this, being a lineman isn't glamorous and high pay doesn't make something glamorous (although it helps), glamor and good aren't synonyms.

full of glamour : excitingly attractive

an exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness

Is being a lineman "full of "an exiting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness truean""?

Actually, my point was that being a lineman isn't glamorous, hence why I cited all those death rates. What I was doing, all I was doing at that point, was showing that no, they aren't highly paid considering the dangers they face. He was pointing to high pay, which I maintain was him saying it was a good/glamorous job, due to the high pay. He then went on about how this term wasn't applicable or what he said, lovely red herring. He of course disputes this and I could care less.

Glamorous = type of good, high pay = good
First, Glamorous is a type of good, it certainly isn't a type of bad, or neutral. Thus it is a specific type of good. Second, the specific type of good glamorous is http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glamorous  "Excitingly attractive."

If glamorous is a type of good, specifically excitingly attractive, and high pay is a type of good, specifically excitingly attractive, then high pay =glamorous.

That's the logic; agree with it or not. High pay = glamorous, aka excitingly attractive, was the statement I maintain his words added up to.

I maintain this was a massive red herring on his part, just like how my avatar is "threatening" somehow. He's done this before, repeatedly, which makes it more likely he's doing it again.

The Good/Glamorous thing:
I'm not implying anything, western civilization and common usage do. "Among the best paid," jobs are good/glamorous jobs in common usage. Yes or no? The answer is yes....

Truean, seriously, this semantic confusion you keep having where you misread something some has said and then blame "society" for your mistake is getting grating.

No one I know thinks of glamorous, or even good, when they think of high paid blue collar jobs. When I mention it in context of linesmen, I get responses ranging from "I guess there's a shortage to linesmen" to "well it must be dangerous or hard work then". A few people associated it with them likely being better off financially (which is obviously true) and no further. Not one managed "glamorous". Not one even came close. The idea that you could come to that conclusion based on "society" is ludicrous. You read a meaning into it that wasn't there and wasn't justified, just accept that and move on.

Anyways, on topic instead of quibbling over semantics:
From the arguments made here and elsewhere I've seen on this topic, the following seem to be the three main points of opposition to having a large reserve force to handle this sort of work (ignoring the fact that our current system is actually pretty damn good! Seriously! Could it be improved? Probably. But those sort of conclusions require actual research and evidence, and I doubt anyone here has any of value, so I'm going to stick to theoretical for the most part)
 1: There's not enough work to go around to keep that many linemen experienced enough to be useful (or happy). Even if you're keeping this linemen mostly in "reserve", they need experience. Relevant, recent experience. Preferably lots of it. Unfortunately, there's only so much work that needs to be done in an average year, so keeping a huge increase in employees properly skilled would be incredibly difficult. Even if there was enough work for the numbers you're proposing, you would have to admit each linemen is unlikely to have as much experience (since, currently, all the normal repair work gets done). In addition, these new linesmen would likely be competing with the old linesmen for work.
2: Linesmen are already one of the highest paid jobs and they can't find enough employees. Logistically, a 50% hiring increase is huge. It's already one of the best paying blue collar jobs, and people still don't want to do it - how much would you have to increase the price to get them too? Where would they come from? And most importantly, would it lead to a decrease in quality? (Considering the shortage the industry is in, they'd either have to relax standards or raise pay, probably both, to hit this number. And it would still take years to get there. And is raising the risks and deathrate of the industry by having less competent workers who get less experience overall due to a diminished workload really worth the trade off? Because if you combine less competent workers with less time spent working and more time "in reserve", there's a chance that's what you'd get.)
3: There are more efficient ways to tackle the problem. People have brought up generators - generator investments could go a long way towards offsetting the costs of disasters such as these, and may well be far more efficient than hiring additional workers.

"Blame Society for my mistakes?" "Semantic confusion?" "grating?"

You do realize I interpret contracts and statutes for a living right? This is pretty standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person
That and using common or legal definitions for words....

If that's "semantic confusion," then the entire legal profession is guilty of it. "Grating," do you realize this is about 80% of what I do, especially in legal research? This is a big part of what lawyers charge for, and they charge a ton for it....

If you do what he did in a contract in a court setting, then standard objective interpretation, and contra preferendem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem means you lose. If you subjectively, within your own mind, meant something that doesn't appear on the page, you're screwed...

[Bauglir]

Clearly my last post was too subtle, but hasn't Vector explicitly asked the thread to move on twice now? C'mon, guys.

[Truean]

http://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-blocks-ala-illegal-immigration-law-190442307.html

And it seems people haven't learned from when Arizona tried to do the same thing.

Basic principles of federalism, some powers for the states, others for the federal government. Immigration is for the federal government. If you are a state and you keep trying to make laws about it, then the bench will keep tossing them out as unconstitutional on separation of powers groups/federalism, and because you states still haven't learned a thing.... [sigh]

[Bauglir]

Not that it matters, because laws like that aren't about making policy, they're about making it look like you're making policy. Now they get to claim activist judges overturned their States' rights, and possibly that there's a conspiracy to sell the country's jobs to foreigners. And these politicians are apparently the ones "Fighting the Man".

[Truean]

Not that it matters, because laws like that aren't about making policy, they're about making it look like you're making policy. Now they get to claim activist judges overturned their States' rights, and possibly that there's a conspiracy to sell the country's jobs to foreigners. And these politicians are apparently the ones "Fighting the Man".

[sigh] I fear you might be right. That's sort of a "set 'em up to knock em down" strategy. Who cares what crazy law you pass if you know it will be struck down (just like AZ state's was), so cash in on the political capital and make a scapegoat of the person who would inevitably knock it down. Feign shock when they knock it down, also feign outrage.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, more and more that's what it feels like. People don't see a law that overstepped its bounds; they see a law that supported what they wanted (for whatever reason), and they saw that law scrapped on "a technicality".

[Truean]

Yeah, more and more that's what it feels like. People don't see a law that overstepped its bounds; they see a law that supported what they wanted (for whatever reason), and they saw that law scrapped on "a technicality".

Yups, at it just seems like a massive waste of resources, including time. Especially after another state recently tried and failed at this, they should know better. We've got some serious problems and we need to tackle the ones we can manage. I'm not claiming to have the answers for the ones we don't know how to manage, but chasing impossibilities for popularity can't help.

[GlyphGryph]

Back on the subject of geek sexism, this is a pretty great blog, I think:
http://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/photos-from-gencon-2011-part-1-of-2/

Lots of other good articles, too.

[kaijyuu]

I know if I saw a booth with a practically clad adventurer/warrior woman on a banner (instead of a busty stripper) I'd check it out no matter what they were selling.