ConroyBumpus's comments

ConroyBumpus | 9 years ago | on: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

Not unique to the cruise industry. Filipino crews make up a lot of the maritime industry's labor force. Container ships, tankers, offshore drilling, you name it. Some of the best food I've eaten offshore was on vessels with Filipino catering crews.

The cruise ship guys, comparatively, have it good. There are innumerable stories of entire freighter crews being marooned in third world ports by shipowners who didn't want to pay them.

The global shipping industry is, unfortunately, a race to the bottom. Every time that John McCain proposes the repeal of the Jones Act, I cringe with the thought of what it would do to what's left of the American merchant marine.

ConroyBumpus | 9 years ago | on: The Fall of Avalon Hill (1998)

What amazed me was the overlap between serious tournament MtG players and professional poker players. A lot of the mechanics are more transferable than one would initially think.

ConroyBumpus | 9 years ago | on: The People’s Code

We had them, for decades. They involved the use of punched cards and a butterfly ballot. The voter could physically inspect the ballot to determine which holes were punched. Sadly, the "hanging chad" of Bush v. Gore (2000) pushed many states into using electronic machines, with predictable results.
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