MikeD

Let's say your salary is $100,000  but your pension will be 75% of your salary which is $75,000.  But out of your $100,000 salary you only get 65% take home pay but out of your pension you will be getting 90% of your salary.

So if you compare gross pay then it's like comparing apples to oranges.  Would it be correct to say something like "even though my pension will only be $75,000 it will be the same as making $100,000 while working because there won't be as many deductions?".

My texts are usually like this "I'm downstairs", "I'm coming", "where are you?".  Usually when people start texting more than 1 or 2 lines or they start wanting to have a conversation, I immediately call them instead and they don't answer.

Lately I don't even bother replying anymore and I don't call since I know they won't answer.  But what is up with these people.  Are they just killing time or bored that they want to text you a whole conversation.  Why don't they answer their phones then?

I don't think anyone, including me, has written a check in years.  The government doesn't send out checks.  Even rebates and refunds are now in the form of prepaid debit/credit cards or electronic payments.  Why do people keep calling these payments "checks"!?!?  NO ONE is going to get a CHECK.

If your employer disconnects your office phone number after you no longer work there and you call the phone company and to get that number on your personal phone can that old employer sue you for stealing their business if you never signed any agreement not to use that phone number and they wound up disconnecting the number anyway?

This was no easy task.  The phone number was on a landline and it's in a different area than my home.  Landline numbers are pretty much tied to a geographic location.  So I had to find a friend who lived in the same area as the employer and I had to order a landline to be installed there.  I requested the disconnected number and the phone company was able to assign it to me, though they charged me a vanity number fee for having to manually look up and assign that number.  

Then after about a I week after the landline was installed, I had to port out the number to a cell phone so I can use it at my house.  That was about $200.00.  And I am getting calls from old clients that had that number for years.  In the meantime, coworkers from my old job heard that I got the company's old number on my cell phone and the boss is really upset.  But they had the line disconnected so what do they care?

Recently my friend from Poland said that he was Polish but that he's not a Pole.  I guess I was thinking that they were interchangeable.  He explained that he was born and raised in Poland but that his parents were Lithuanian so he considers himself to be Polish but not a Pole.

I have also heard something like this in the UK.  If you say you are English that just means you are from England.  But if you are an Englishman is means that your ancestors came from England.  Then there's Scot vs Scottish, Spaniard vs Spanish, Turk vs Turkish, Persian vs Iranian, etc.

When I went to Rome with a friend born in the US both of whose parents were Italian, the people in Italy didn't understand how he could claim to be Italian.  They would say, maybe your parents were Italian but you are American.  I know for the most part ethnicity is a choice, but why do some ethnic groups have multiple terms?

I have been a godparent 17 times.  For baptism, the Catholic Churches where I was godparent usually required one meeting and then reminded you that you had to be a practicing Catholic who has been Baptized, Confirmed and received your First Communion.  They either assume or take your word for it.  There was not a single baptism where I was asked to present any documentation.

However, almost every time I was a godparent/sponsor for confirmation.  (BTW, I use both terms because I notice in different parts of the country and different cultures refer to Confirmation sponsors as godparents).  But anyway, every single time I was a godparent for confirmation I had to present my own baptism, first communion and confirmation certificates to my own church office along with a form from the church where the confirmation was taking place.

I had to sign the form, my pastor reviewed my documents and then signed it.  They affixed the parish seal and then I turned that form in to the church where the confirmation was going to be.  The form even said that it is only valid one year from the date it was signed.  There was a lot more preparation for the Confirmation.  We had several meetings, a retreat and several practices.

So why so much fuss about confirmation?  Thanks.

People always assume that pro-lifers are motivated by religion but I have met quite a few atheists and agnostics who are completely against abortion.  I usually hear different arguments.....

1.  Abortion kills a living baby.  You don't have to believe in God or that there is such a thing as sin to understand that life is important and that had that baby not been aborted, it would have grown up to be a human being.

2.  It's a safety net that encourages people not to consider the consequences of their behaviors and their lifestyle choices.  It sets a bad precedent that you can whatever you want and there's no real consequences.  (I have heard this same argument about why public aid hurts people).

3.  Many studies show women dealing with prolonged grieving and mental issues after abortion.  And in the case of the mother feeling pain and regret, it's totally on her.  The father of the child can say that it was not his choice to abort and have nothing on his conscience.  It's sexist that only the woman will suffer.

4.  Abortion is discriminatory because in many countries where male children are preferred, female children are much more likely to be aborted.  And with possible future development in genetic testing, if you find out your unborn child has features you don't like...dark skin, will be short, gay or lesbian, you can just abort them.

So what are some other non-religious arguments against abortion. 

So if there was some kind of DNA test to show that the brain of your unborn child would swing to the left and support abortion, would someone else who supports abortion support you aborting this child because he/she will support abortion?

It seems like the message being pushed in most commercials with interracial couples is for blacks to marry whites and to eventually mix in and disappear into the general population.

Argentina has a significant black population a couple of hundred of years ago. Today there are barely any Argentinian blacks.  For years, people hypothesized that they were killed by diseases, in wars or moved away.  But DNA testing has shown that they assimilated into the mostly white Argentine population.

Asians, Hispanics, Arabs, South Indians are always shown where both people in the couple are the same race....an Asian wife and an Asian husband.  So it seems like the message is, it's ok for Asians or Hispanics to marry the same race but blacks should assimilate so in a few generations they disappear.

I recently heard a group of males discussing why they were for total and complete abortion rights.  They said that banning and restricting abortion violated men's rights. Their reason for this belief is that men see the risk of pregnancy as something that stops men having sex with women whenever they want it.

Since women were made for men to have sex with, if you don't allow women to have an abortion then you are making the man fearful that he might get stuck paying child support if the woman gets pregnant and that violates a man's sexual freedom.  Abortion on demand is necessary so that men can have sex with women on demand.

This was their mentality and argument.  So could lack of access to abortion be considered a violation of men's sexual freedom?

So I did this DNA test where it finds relatives and my most distant cousins on there are 8th cousins.  But they are all in the US.  I was hoping to find distant cousins in the UK.  

My ancestry is mixed with European, Native American and African but most of my European ancestry comes from the UK.  But that was over 300 years ago.  That's like 14-15 generations ago.

So I guess someone in England could have the same great great great great great great great great great great great great grandparent as me.  So what degree cousin would that be?  

Would that be a 13th or 14th cousin?  Would there even be enough DNA to classify them as my cousin?  Is it possible to have more similar DNA to a perfect stranger than to a 14th cousin?

If you have to do something within one year of a certain date, does the one year period end on exactly the same date next year?  For example, let's say you were given a warning or put on probation for one year.  Or you have to do something within a year. Or you have to make restitution of funds within a year.  You can't be caught with a DUI within a year.  Etc.

For example, my employer allows you to take a year off without pay and return to work within exactly a year to whatever open position they have.  If you leave on 7/20/2019 what would be an exact year from then? 7/19/2020 or 7/20/2020.  Let's say you also get out of work at 4pm does that mean you have until 4pm a year from now to return.  

I left my job on May 4, 2019 and returned to the same position on May 3, 2020.  I rushed to fly back to the US just to go to Human Resources on that day to sign reinstatement forms.  When I mentioned how expensive the flight was and that if I could have come back the next day it would have been cheaper, I was told I actually had one more day.  But I didn't want to take any chances.

In Science a year is actually 365 and 6 hours.  A calendar year is exactly 365 days.  A leap year is 366 days.  Do you take any of this into consideration when calculating a year for legal purposes?  Can an employer, during leap year, insist that a year is 365 days and not 366?  Can they say you signed your leave paperwork at 4:15pm but now it's a year later and it's 4:16pm so you can't come back?

Maybe it's the younger generation, but it seems that the stereotypical effeminate gay man is fading away.  Most of the younger men who are gay are very straight acting for the most part.  They don't hide their gayness but they seem to be more mainstream and fit in with the regular crowd.  I am wondering what the reason for this is.

Here's what I thought of....1.  Being gay is more accepted so people don't really have to act gay anymore because they can just say they are gay openly.2.  People who act very gay might no longer identify as gay, they may identify as trans, non binary, etc.3.  There are a lot of straight guys who claim to be gay and are experimenting with other guys but they are really straight4.  Straight guys are more wimpy these days (ie soy boys, hipsters, metrosexuals, etc) that they make gay guys look more masculine.But I don't know the reasons, I am just guessing.  

There have been several news stories of white people faking that they were black. I read today about some activist in Indianapolis.  From my experience, in the U.S. and U.K. all you have to do is say you are black and in most cases, people will accept you as black.

There are even very light skinned "black" people and white people who have significant black ancestry, who identify as black when their skin isn't even brown.  And many of these people would NOT be visibly identified by others as black. 

On tv there was a lady who looked like a white woman who was complaining about being discriminated as a black woman.  Really?  How would anyone know she was a "black" woman as she claims if she does not have brown skin or African features? 

There were stories of this "black internet hacker" from the UK, a very young and good looking guy.  He was all over the news. But when I saw his white skin, red hair and freckles I thought, how could they say this guy is black?  

In most non-English speaking countries it does not work that way.  Your race goes by your skin color.  In Brazil, for example, you can have siblings who are different races because they count your race according to your skin color.  

I am 28% black genetically but I look like Scottish.  I don't go around saying that I am black, because my skin is white.  I look at lot like that internet hacker except that my hair is straighter.  I am not embarrassed by my black ancestry but how could I identify as black?

I can speak from experience that in Eastern Europe, religion is tied to your ethnicity.  For example, in Eastern Poland if you are Eastern Orthodox, Jewish or Muslim you would not be considered to be ethnically Polish, even though you might actually be or claim to be.  Polish people would not accept you as one of "them".

So in the NE areas of Poland, you can speak Polish, claim to be Polish, your ancestors are from that area but if you are Eastern Orthodox then people would consider you to be Belarusian or Russian.  If you are Muslim, you would be considered Lipka Tatar.  If you convert to Catholicism, then you also "become" Polish in people's eyes.  

In the former Yugoslavia you cannot be Serbian and Catholic, you would then not be considered to be really Serbian.  Only Croatians are Catholic.  If you are Muslim then you are Bosnian and of course if you are Serbian you have to be from an Eastern Orthodox family.  If you are non religious or atheist people consider your previous religious affiliation or that of your family to assign you to an ethnicity.

So in the UK, if someone in Belfast identifies as Ulster-Scots but they are Catholic, would they be seen as Ulster-Scots or as Irish?  Conversely, if you live in the Republic of Ireland and are from a Protestant family, would you truly be recognized as being Irish?  If you change religion does your ethnic affiliation change?  How about the rest of the UK?  A Catholic Englishman or Welsh person?  

Any educated person can tell you that ethnicity for the most part is a choice.  It's whatever group you identify with.  And non-ethnic Americans have similar language, customs and traditions that will immediately cause them to be identified as Americans when they are in other countries.  I, along with over more than 30 million Americans, listed "American" as their ethnicity on the US Census. The Census bureau expects this number to be even on the 2020 Census.  

People don't seem to understand that every ethnicity is made from other ethnicities and that people have been moving on Earth for thousands of years.  The Egyptians today are not same people who built the pyramids, though I'm sure some of their ancestors were.  Mexico was colonized by Spain and Mexicans have Spanish, French and even German ancestry.  Kamala Harris is "Jamaican", but the original Jamaicans were Native Americans.

Personally, I really don't give a shyt what people think, I consider my ethnicity to be American, it's considered official on the US Census, if you don't like it, go phuc yourself.  But why do those people who don't consider being "American" an ethnicity take it so personally and want to shove their views down your throat.  

When I told my friend that there was no such thing as Polish people, the Poles are just a mixture of Lithuanians, Russians, Finns and some Asian he was really offended.  Even though DNA documents show people from Eastern Poland to have as little as 3-5% Polish ancestry.  

Scotland was settled by Celts from Ireland many hundreds of years ago.  A few hundred years ago Scottish Protestants settled Northern Ireland. So in effect they actually went back to the place where their ancestors originally came from.

So I am American and I consider my ethnicity as being "American".  When I took a DNA test it matched me up to the Appalachian Region of the US.  But it also matched me to Ireland.  Specifically, Belfast and Bangor.  My ancestors from Ireland were Ulster-Scots who settled in the US in the 1700's.

If a Catholic from Belfast and a Protestant from Belfast took a DNA test, would it show both of them the be from the same region and/or ethnicity.  On many DNA tests is shows Spain/Portugal as one ethnicity, on Ancestry.com is shows Poland/Lithuania as one ethnicity.  So I am wondering if people just choose what they want to be.

Would an Irish Catholic show up as the same ethnicity as an Ulster Scots Protestant on DNA test?  How about an Ulster Scots who happens to be Catholic?

I put "American" on the 2020 census for my ethnicity, but some people who feel a connection to their ancestors' origins say that they're 1/2 Italian, 1/4 Irish, 1/4 Polish etc.  I never gave it much thought.  I assumed, if your grandmother was from Poland,  you're 1/4 Polish.  But with DNA testing I learned.....

1.  You don't inherit 25% of your DNA from each grandparent.  It's possible your dad  can only pass along DNA from his mother.  So if his father was Italian and he didn't pass along any DNA from his father or just a few percent, then can you really consider yourself to be 25% Italian?  Full siblings can get different DNA results, one sister can show 25% Irish ancestry and the other can show 2% Irish ancestry.  Can the sister with one Irish grandparent but who's DNA is only 2% Irish, consider herself to be 25% Irish?

2.  People in all countries are mixed.  So unless you are from an isolated island or a remote jungle, you don't have pure ancestry.  The average native person from Spain is only 55% Spanish.  If one of your parents is from Spain are you technically 27.5% Spanish.  The average Polish person is only 65% Polish.  In Ireland people have on average 10-15% Spanish ancestry.  My 100% Polish friend who took a DNA test showed as 5% Polish.  He's from Eastern Poland, which was originally Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.  

What would most people go by?  The actual DNA they inherited?  Where their ancestors are from?  What ethnicity their ancestors claimed to be?

When many people speak about their lives they tend to make comments like that they were "the first generation to finish college", "the son or daughter of immigrants", "the child of a single parent", "survivor of sexual abuse", etc.

But you never hear anyone say that they are "the child of parents and grandparents who went to college", "part of a family where all of their ancestors for 10 generations were born in the US", :"their ancestors came on the Mayflower", "the child of happily married parents", "the product of a great household".

It's similar to when people brag about speeding, running stop signs or not paying their bills but no one says that they drove the speed limit, drove carefully and have a high credit score.  

Is it part of the victim mentality?  Do people think it makes them look like they've accomplished more?