Chile Forum

JHyre wrote:Those of you whom I normally annoy.....just drive through, come again, thank you. For the rest of you, I do not think Audi saw any irony in this ad. I view it as Al Gore's Wet (ewwww) Dream for the erstwhile Land of the Free (or mostly free based on recent survey): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM

John Hyre, with plastic bag over head

My wife and I were watching the superbowl on a cruise ship when we saw this ad play. I didn't see it as funny. I agree with the message that being green is better, but completely disagree with the method by which the commercial uses to force others to comply. It's scary how close to reality this could become.

I am not normally in the habit of favorably quoting the New York Times, as they are not normally in the habit of writing non-fiction. Here's a link to an exception, discussing the scam that is law school. In my personal case, the degree has served me well and with a very low level of debt. But I do see an awful lot of what this article describes. Oddly for the NYT, the article is accurate....and as the title to this thread indicates, completely irrelevant to things Chilean.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/busin ... ral&src=me

John Hyre

ahhhh, The American Delusion. One of may favorite topics.

yea, I get a fairly steady stream of email from new attorneys just out of law school or about to finish law school in the States offering to work for nothing as interns for us in Chile to gain some international law experience. Honestly, there is likely no more useless skill in Chile than being an American attorney. From a biz perspective, I could not even justify the cost of the office floor space they might occupy at any price (perhaps we should try charging them by the hour to work for us). We do a lot of legal work involving the States, but our clients already have plenty of U.S. attorneys. Adding one of our own, would just make a mess of things.

I have also not been terribly impressed by the law degree mills in the States either in recent years, vs. the sorts of world changing lawyers the generation that my father and his friends came from ( a bunch of civil rights attorneys in the 60's to 80's ). Guys that really had to make whole new sections of American law to get something done, not just memorize the law.

For example, I got a simple stock consulting contract from a rather large American company the other day for some work we were doing for them, written by their in house council. After picking apart the incredibly dense and totally unnecessary waisted language, my wife and I came to the conclusion that there was not single clause in the contract that had any relevance to what we were being hired to do for them in Chile (like missed it by more than a mile), and even if it was relevant was totally unenforcible. I called the CEO back and said I have no problem signing this contract if it makes you or your attorney feel better, but it is kind of waist of paper. We are either going to do it or we are not going to do it.

There was clearly missed practical connection to how the real World functions in that American contract, that is particularly important to private international law where the U.S., in spite of the propaganda, has little to no relevance. Possession is still 9/10ths of the law, here, there, and everywhere. International law is the new wild west, and perhaps what civil rights in the U.S. were to my father's generation. It is where the World is struggling to make sense of and organize an explosion of new human activity like it has never existed before.

So, as with the aforementioned sexually and socially dysfunctional world of American mating rituals, politics, environment, and so on, we could throw in the American higher education system. That was one of the last strong-holds of the U.S. influence (e.g. raising other countries leaders), and it may be influential for many more years to come, but there is a sense that it has past the prime. If that goes, so goes one of the biggest footholds that America had in other countries (mostly dismantled after 911 anyway by government order). I just need point to the Pinera government as an example that almost all the ministers graduated from an American grad schools of one sort or another. If in another generation that is gone, so is the influence it once had.

Here's another completely irrelevant snippet that caught my eye as I readjust to Ca time this am

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... -gay-slur/

Errrr, is "gangsta rap" banned too? And let's look at the paragraph

"Mr. Cohen said the decision is final and not appealable. He said membership in the self-regulating Council is voluntary, though its 760 members include almost all private Canadian broadcasters."
How is it that the same people appear all over the World to regulate media? I think we should be told.
OK, back to planning my Daytona NASCAR TRIP.

Well, admin, the last bastion...higher education. Hate to burst your bubble but here's a news story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110119/ap_ ... e_learning

A new study provides disturbing answers to questions about how much students actually learn in college — for many, not much — and has inflamed a debate about the value of an American higher education.
The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.

Ripsigg,

I wonder when the tipping point in general happened? Hopefully post mid-80s after I got my Liberal Arts degree with Honors at a Pac-10 uni

RCX trying to distance himself from the brainwashed younger rabble

I think the tipping point was the 1990's.......in the early 1990's when I was in college, there were a lot of students passing who shouldn't have been passing....

http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2011/02/ ... iting.html

I found the 2nd letter quite funny. But then again, I am very insensitive.

John Hyre