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Subscribe to RSSWe hate meetings. Or maybe I should say, we love to hate meetings. Our Life Inc. post on how meetings can make you stupid was the most popular story of the week, read by more than 150,000 people and generating hundreds of comments, shares and retweets.
Anyone who has ever worked in an office has a story about useless meetings, and many of you were more than happy to share some of yours. A Newsvine user who goes by the handle NFIL offered up a colleague who "schedules meetings basically to justify his existence."
"Sometimes he invites himself into meetings and -- even better -- expensive business dinners he has nothing to do with. He was recently promoted. I'm preparing to leave."
Reader Marv Leit reminded us of the classic John Cleese video "Meetings Bloody Meetings." (Item One on the agenda: the agenda.)
Cleese, formerly of Monty Python fame, now makes a healthy living selling his video and self-help course on how to make meetings shorter and more productive. A two-minute trailer of the video is available on YouTube.
We also got lots of comments about a Pew study that found young people are having a tough time cracking today's tough job market but remain optimistic. In a possibly related development, young people today seem to be staying in the nest longer and getting more financial help from Mom and Dad, well into their 20s.
Perhaps inevitably, this opened a wide-ranging debate on everything from the nanny state to illegal immigration. Alohaman at least offered some useful advice to parents wondering how to get their grown children to move out of the basement: Don't charge them rent.
"Then I'd say: When you reach $5,000 in your bank account, you are outta here, on your own. ... I don't want your rent $, kid -- I want you outta here!"
Now if you will excuse me, I have a meeting to attend.
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In the title, the reference to "nanny state" seems to have been nothing more than subtle conservative propaganda, since the article itself has nothing to do with that and uses the term only in passing. (Conservatives are pretty much the ONLY ones that use the term "nanny state". The term is pure political rhetoric designed to cast a negative light on any government program designed to help the poor.)
Are you this brain dead? How is 'CHANGE' working out for you? The only ones helped by 'CHANGE' are those who are receiving the proceeds of this administration's socialistic redistribution of wealth. Nanny state is becoming more and more an appropriate description of our government every day this administration is in power. We are heading the way of Greece. Get a life!
What a total bunch of crap.......RWs are complete fools.
Nanny state usually refers to stupid rules. Like no vegetable garden in the front yard, or no tree houses, or salt limits in food etc. It is not usually equated to welfare, usually the term "Welfare State" is reserved for that.
mike1234 , The only redistribution of wealth has been the largest transfer from the 99% to the 1%. They took our homes through fraud and got bailed out for it. They are trying to reach a 26 billion dollar settlement where the banks get to control how they will take care of the people they ripped off. Nanny State for the wealthy and piss on the constitution and rule of law for everyone else.0% interest helps only one class of people and it isn't the bottom classes. The Federal Reserve does not care about anything except banks profits. As any private company does, that profit comes from debt. 73% of your federal taxes next year will go to paying the interest on that debt. WAKE UP
O, so buying a home with an ARM (lol what person in their right mind, would do this?), that you KNOW you can't afford, and then having said home taken back by the rightful owner is now fraud? Gotcha.
The banks, the mortgage companies, and ex-President Bush all acted irresponsibly and unethically.
But it was the people who bought homes they couldn't afford on terms only an idiot would accept while lying about their financial condition who actually committed fraud.
Then they whine because they lost a house they should have never had.
It's all nonsense anyway. You don't own something until it's paid for, so they never owned a house and probably never will.
@junicon said:
Pretty much all wrong. "Nanny State" refers to any government entity that thinks it knows better than I do how to exercise my rights, and/or live my life. Has nothing to do with "the poor".
Junicon you are exactly right. I was going to say the same thing. The use of that term is nothing more the gop propaganda aimed at the ignorant.
HA Junicon and offtheirheads, so you LIKE someone telling you what to do, when to do it and how to do it, and also what not to do and when not to do it? That isn't being conservative, that is nanny state-ism. It has nothing to do with poor people, but everything to do with all people. Case in point, you can no longer throw a Frisbee or football on the beach in LA. WTF??? It is a beach, people throw those two items to <gasp> get exercise and <shudder> have fun!!! THAT is the perfect example of a nanny state-ism. Someone might get hurt!
Anything that isn't conservatism is "nanny state?" Go back to FOX..since the only idiots that use that term are REPUBLICAN TEATARDS.
To Hell with Nanny, it's costing Grandpa! Who do you think pays for everything that Nanny doles out? Grandpa, that's who! And don't get me started on government hand-outs otherwise I will go on for months.
I kid you not, I once worked for a company that, first thing every morning, we all were required to attend a meeting in the conference room to schedule the day's meetings.
It seems to me the concept of the nanny state devalues people, and allows or even encourages them to live lives of dependency rather than a life of contribution to themselves and society.
Probably why some folks don't like the concept.
Prior to the meeting, please be sure that you have completed your pre-meeting pre-plan document, outlining your meeting plan contributions. Please be sure to include your out-of-the-box paradigm shift matrices as the resulting conceptualizations will be going over-the-wall.
Coffee will be provided.
Thank you for your participation
Maybe some people need the government to baby sit them because they are lazy or to dumb to take care of themselves. I wish the government would stop trying to micromanage our lives because they have no clue what they are doing.
Common Man, I also wish the tea baggers would quit telling me they know better than me about my reproductive rights. And you are correct, the baggers have no clue.
Hey Junicon -- I mentioned the "nanny state" because lots of people brought it up in reference to our post about young people living with Mom and Dad into their 20s. I thought it was interesting to see how the story was almost immediately interpreted through a political lens, as so many stories are these days. Plus I thought "nanny state" might get a few people to click on it.
Maybe you should try real journalism? That might put your life in danger though so stick with the fluff.
Where to start?
You see dear, the word "state" in the context of the phrase "nanny state" is a synonym for "country." The phrase is a political phrase, and so it is not particularly "interesting" that people "interpret it" through a political lens, any more than if people immediately thought of clothing when you referred to "Fashion Week."
Unless you're James Joyce, you don't get to make up your own words, let alone use established phrases and terms to mean something completely different. When you do that, people assume you are ignorant.
As for lying about the subject of your story in order to get clicks... you're fired.
I lived at home until I got married at age 23. But it was a great house-sitting deal for my parents who were able to retire when I got out of college and travel about in a mini-motor home. They didn't have to worry about the house, I was working two jobs (Oh GASP — I was "underemployed, woe is me"). But if they'd still had a mortgage and were still working, they would have expected me to pay rent. If you want to spoil someone, get a dog and spoil the dog. Spoiling a dog will NOT harm society- spoiling a kid will. As for "nanny state", I'm sure the term did get some extra clicks for the story!