Agilent now dumping its U.S. employees -- I'm going to boycott them

In that case there is no shadow of doubt, GWB lied about reasons to invade Iraq. Note that this is totally orthagonal to whether or not Iraq needed invading. GWBs lies are much worse, in that they have cost many lives.

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A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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CBFalconer
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What has this *entire* thread got to do with "comp.arch.embedded"?

Regards, Sachin

Reply to
Sachin Garg

Figured someone would segue this to GWB. It was inevitable.

Reply to
FLY135

Why don't any of you consider the fact that those technologically advanced countries when they were exporting their products, it affected the jobs in the countries that were importing these hightech products?

Similarly why dont any of you start thinking that "Companies sell products or services" & "individuals sell their services". Companies are the customers for the individuals "services". Like any customer, "Any Company" should have their consumer rights about what they wish to buy. It is only Fair that companies are given such rights. It never pays to "Demand" but it always pays to "BE IN DEMAND"

Reply to
hyd1_akak

Nothing other than we all members of a society and it does no harm to discuss socialogical issues on occasion as long as it doesn't become excessive or degrade to personal attacks.

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

Perhaps there should be a corollary to Godwin's law that says a discussion is finished when any participant invokes a current or past POTUS unless it is strictly on topic.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

It is a cute page, but it is full of deceptions and false statements. For instance it says that the Bowling film said that the NRA rushed to Littleton after the killings and asserts that this is false. I tries to prove this by saying that they had planned their meeting there long in advance.

In fact the film never claimed that they decided to come only after the killings. It even made it clear that they had planned their meeting there long in advance. That was in the film. The point Moore made was that they showed up for their conventional immediately after the killings, ie. they did rush in after the killings even if the timimg was only coincedental. The point the film obviously made was that it was rather insensitive of them to hold their convention in the face of all the people dealing with the senseless death of loved ones days before.

I found the page full of proofs of things that would have been false had they been in the film, but they weren't in the film. Of course I only saw it a couple of times in the threater and a couple of times from a friends DVD so I probably noticed what was really in there and what was not. That page seems to be a reaction to film that was never made. It proceeds to prove that the things that it mistakenly claims were in the film were wrong. But they weren't in the film, so it is rather deceptive.

It complains that they used editing for effect. Ah, films require editing. It claims that parts of different campaign commercials were edited together for effect. I think that is probably true. But they films require editing, and without it they would have no entertainment value or educational value at all. No one could possibly sit through even the hundreds of hours of raw footage let alone all the film and campaign commercials that were gleaned for the effect that the film was trying to make.

Also, most importantly, that film was about guns. This thread was about corporate downsizing and outsourcing of jobs. I injected some comments about the use of prison labor that I saw in a different film by Moore directly related to the subject of this thread.

I think that companies that use prison labor and market products for embedded computing is a relavent topic. I really don't see the connection to guns, or movies about guns. That is about as off-topic as the page about some film that someone 'saw in their minds eye' was off-topic of the film Moore did about guns.

But outsourcing, downsizing, deceptive advertizing, etc. will always remain hot button topics for many people and are likely to digress into debates about guns or politics in usenet.

I thought it interesting also that usenet is not just a US phenom. It is worldwide. If jobs left the US then they went somewhere else. The US loses, someone else gains. That's the pattern. People in the US may be concerned, but people someone else are likely to be happy about it. I found it funny that the thread was so US centric.

What about automation? Robotics and embedded systems have no doubt taken away menial jobs from American workers. Does that mean that people in this newsgroup are against the idea of embedded systems and automation?

I just hope that people don't get so upset about these things that the topic of gun violence does become on-topic to the thread about corporate downsizeing and outsourcing. Let's hope the topics only have MM movies in common. ;-)

Best Wishes

Reply to
Jeff Fox

The "someone" was predictable, as well.

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Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
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Reply to
Alan Balmer

That is true. Unfortunately most laws tend to over react to the problem, so in stead of a suitable balance one either get extremely restrictive, or very liberal labour laws. Also a set of laws that might provide a good balance for one industry, might be everything but suitable for another industry. The politicians also very rarely understand much about most technical fields. What is needed is probably more engineers and other technical people going into politics.

Regards Anton Erasmus

Reply to
Anton Erasmus

From the other side of the pond only seeing the film once, that was my view on *that* film. Also we tend to see after several shooting incidents like Colombine, the NRA on the news very quickly and in the vicinity.

....

The web site like the film is just ANOTHER opinion, not fact, both are opinions, based on some facts.

The same could be said about ANY film/programme/documentary and sometimes news coverage! Welcome to the media world.

My thoughts and why I resisted posting before.

...

It is just history repeating itself, look back over the centuries and major market leaders in one industry that moved elsewhere can be seen as global, and always will be.

Nobody wants to do menial jobs but will complain bitterly about the number of immigrants (in *ANY* country) who are there, but are the only ones willing to do the jobs!

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Paul Carpenter		| paul@pcserv.demon.co.uk
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Paul Carpenter

I disagree. Technocracy has generally not worked out well. The technologists are generally there because they prefer compliant machinery to herding people or cats.

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Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net)
   Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
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Reply to
CBFalconer

Technocrats make piss poor politicians - to that I agree. But being good at technology does not mean that one are not good with people. Currently it seems that most politicians are good with people. What is needed are people who are good at both. Going too far in any direction is normallly not a good thing, including democracy.

Regards Anton Erasmus

Reply to
Anton Erasmus

engr wrote: : A recent article in the L.A. Times detailed what they're doing. :

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: I thought Agilent was supposed to be one of the good companies. : They made a decent product. One I'd be proud to own. : Now they spit on American tech workers.

You are overreacting. This piece is an obvious tear jerker of the worst case. Sure, it sucks to be him, but... The lesson of the day is "Get over it!"

We'll all find work in niche areas, at less pay, but hey, what is money? Welcome to yet another round of changes. It happens all the time.

The word on the street from Agilent employees is that the company is still the best one going to work for, even with this kind of thing going on. IT has been given to India and China, not the core Agilent stuff which involves making cool instruments. Remember that.

Before anyone accuses me of insensitivity, let me say this: I worked for HP for 21 years before becoming a candidate for workforce reduction program. I too signed the "gag" agreement so I can't talk about it. The reality of it is that I was tired of my job anyway and now I'm out doing what I really love to do, embedded hardware and software. I have to learn to drum up my own business, handle deadlines, quality control and manage schedules. I don't make half what I used to, but that can change and at the end of the day I love what I do, so there are positive aspects too.

We make our own fortunes and no one owes us a job. Abraham Lincoln once said "We are exactly as happy as we want to be." Or something like that. Go, get drunk, cuss at your clueless bosses and go be your own boss, the final revenge.

IMO, YMMV, TANSTAAFL, DLC

: OK. I'm boycotting them. I'm in the market for a bench power : supply. I looked at B&K, and Agilent. :

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: Agilent looked like the better product.

: But now, I just can't do it. That could be me. I will not : help a company that willfully targets and destroys its American : workers. To take away someone's job and bring in a complete : foreign mercenary as a replacement is in fact a form of economic : and physical genocide. Agilent can just go to hell.

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* Dennis Clark         dlc@frii.com                www.techtoystoday.com   * 
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Dennis Clark

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