“The proposed Bush rules, which the two Republican bills codify and expand, would: -- Exclude previously protected workers who were entitled to overtime by reclassifying them as managers. Companies are already using this ploy where they can get away with it. Say you're frying burgers on the night shift at McDonald's, making overtime, and suddenly -- congratulations -- you're the assistant night manager, with no raise and no overtime. -- Eliminate certain middle-income workers from overtime protections by adding an income limit, above which workers no longer qualify for overtime. You like that? You make too much to earn overtime. -- Remove overtime protection from large numbers of workers in aerospace, defense, health care, high tech and other industries. Pay attention, this one is coming right out of your paycheck.” http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14890&CFID=6823125&CFTOKEN=34857645 “What's emerged full-blown is the military-industrial complex famously predicted and feared by President Eisenhower fifty years ago. It's no longer possible to tell where the corporate world ends and government begins.” http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/042403D.shtml “When Congress rushed to pass the Patriot Act after Sept. 11, it made a dangerous gamble: It decided to trade away certain civil liberties in exchange for what it hoped would be more security. . . . What we know about the Patriot Act is not good. Since Sept. 11, the government has detained hundreds of people in secret. It has refused to disclose even their names and, in many cases, to give them access to an attorney. Many immigrants who had lived in the United States for decades have been rounded up and deported for minor visa violations, not for any connection to terrorism. A secretive court charged with granting foreign intelligence wiretaps blasted an overzealous FBI for abusing its power and lying to judges. The list goes on.” http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/5680912.htm ===== ~ solvitur ambulando ~ "The problem is solved in the walking." [-- St. Augustine] * * "Not all who wander are lost." [-- J.R.R. Tolkien] * * . . I'm on an unnamed walkabout . . . . with no whither nor whence __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com