While reading some comments here about the low-wage worker strike going on against some of the largest fast food chains, this one caught my attention.
The author brought up a perspective that had not even occurred to me. Because these workers are paid so little and often qualify for welfare benefits, McDonald’s is essentially passing the cost of their labor force on to the entire tax paying population. If they paid their workers more, the price of the meals might go up but then the cost is only on those who eat there. A consideration would be to look at how much upper management have been taking home in bonuses. If they are taking home large sums while we pay to subsidize their workers, a line is being crossed.
However, I don’t think any major problems will be solved should the strike be successful. My view is that there is a chicken or the egg relationship between inflation, taxes, and minimum wages. That being said, I do hope the strikers obtain some level of success and I will gladly pay more for a burger if it means the person behind the counter is getting a decent wage. Also, speaking out like this is may be the only effective way for workers with no capital investment in the company to represent themselves.
Since there were only 10 responses, I went ahead and took the time to format them in Word so I could post them here.
The questions on the survey were,
1. If the opportunity existed, would you live in space?
2. In a few sentences, what are your thoughts on the possibility of living on another planet?
3. In a few sentences, what are your thoughts on human activity in space?
4. What are your religious preferences?
5. What is your political party of preference?
And here are the responses,
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It seems like a pretty good time to plug our current crowdfunding campaign, Stott Space Inc. The CEO has an upcoming interview with Spacevidcast on March 9th at 9 pm UTC (that is 4pm EST). They also have a presentation at the Space Tech Expo. I’m hoping that at some point we start to get seeing a little more in terms of actual equipment and technology that will be used. Staging a mission to bring back asteroid material would ostensibly involve multiple agencies, cooperation between several different pieces of hardware (e.g . will the device that gather asteroid material be robotic? Then there will need to be some software development), and a centralized “mission control.” I definitely think it could be done in the next decade, but there’s a lot to do and I’m eager to see what the $100k from Indiegogo will be used for.
Some other cool crowdfunders we’re into are The Crystal Crypt, which is based on a Phillip K. Dick story and looks pretty cool. Also Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History caught my attention. I’ve long thought that a history about “normal” people would be pretty interesting and Long Hidden will be something along those lines.
The Crystal Crypt looks so cool, I went an upped my backing to get a signed copy of spaceship concept art (sample below).
This Beer Friday has me breaking from my typical gravitation towards lagers and going into pale ale orbit. Abita Restoration Pale Ale to be exact. It caught my eye mostly because my friend from Louisiana keeps bragging about Abita beers. After taking initial sips, my impression was that the beer is sweet at first, then follows with the usual hoppy pale ale taste. Looking over the description at Abita.com, they say the beer has “caramel and carapils malts.” According to an article I found, caramel and carapils are part of a family of malts in which a step called “stewing” is added to the “kilning process.” During this stewing process the starch in the malt turns to sugar. This would explain the sweet taste of the Restoration Ale. The beer is definitely a smooth one, and is seems to be one of the few Pale Ales that I can actually stand.
