[vision-master]

Slide Fire Solutions SSAR-15 Demo - Updated Feb 2011

SSAR-15 ... 100 rounds of FUN!

[crude_intentions]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'F')ull auto is over rated.

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crude_intentions', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'F')ull auto is over rated.

[Pretorian]

how long do they last --15-20 years? more?

[Pops]

Since this is THE Walmrt thread I'll post this - h/t SAR:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..the 2010 Citizens United decision, in which the Supreme Court, in a frenzy of anthropomorphism, ruled that corporations are actually persons and therefore entitled to freedom of speech and the right to make unlimited campaign contributions...

But Wal-Mart's defense against a class action charging the company with discrimination against its female employees -- Dukes v. Wal-Mart -- throws an entirely new light on the biology of large corporations. The company argues that with "7 divisions, 41 regions, 3400 stores and over one million employees" (in the U.S., as of 2004, when the suit was first launched), it is "impossible" for any small group of plaintiffs to adequately represent a "class" in the legal sense. What with all those divisions, regions, and stores, the experiences of individual employees are just too variable to allow for a meaningful "class" to arise. Wal-Mart, in other words, is too big, too multifaceted and diverse, to be sued.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')oung and old, well educated and uneducated, they're all coming here for the same thing: a job at the new area Walmart, which has set up a hiring center inside the hall; and most of them don't care how many hours the store can give them, what they'll have to do, or even how much they'll be paid. They just want a job.

First requirement: Humility.

"I'll take anything," many say.

In less than two weeks, managers have fielded well over 1,000 applications for just 300 jobs.

(snip)

Parella, a graphic designer with an associate's degree, has been out of work for the two-and-a-half years since her company went under. She long ago exhausted her 99 weeks of unemployment, and she now finds herself filling out up to 25 online applications a day, many of them well outside her chosen field.

(snip)

Such desperation is evident in the jobs numbers. Although the unemployment rate fell slightly last month to a still-dismal 9.1 percent, the small dip was primarily due to discouraged workers dropping out of the workforce. Meanwhile, many of the job gains we've recently seen in health care and retail -- these Walmart positions are a good example -- have been obliterated by public-sector losses as state and municipal governments pare back.

So aspiring workers have come here to the hall to scrap for a job that's become shorthand for "low-wage," despite the fact that most of them realize they won't get a position. Another troubling sign of the present downturn: many of the workers interviewed by The Huffington Post don't factor into that 9.1 percent figure. They already have jobs. They just aren't getting enough hours or a wage high enough to survive. They're the more nebulous "underemployed," those who want full-time work but still can't find it.

"It's bad -- really bad -- and I'm blessed to be working at all," says J, a father of three who's applying for a job with his teenager in tow.

J didn't want to give his full name because he already has a job at Home Depot. He's technically a part-timer there, though he works more or less full-time hours. He receives no health insurance through the job, and the pay isn't enough to support his family. His goal is to work night shifts at Walmart on top of his hours at Home Depot, for more than 70 hours total.

(snip)

The last applicant to leave for the day is Rob Ernst, 54. Ernst been looking for work for more than a year. He spent a long time inside the hall trying to nail the Walmart application.

"It's been one hell of a battle," he says of his unemployment. "I've been living off my savings, which is almost gone."

In 2008, outsourcing to India cost him the quality job he had had for ten years, doing graphics work for telephone books. With help from the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps people whose jobs go overseas, Ernst went back to school and earned an associate's degree in computer-aided design. An honors student, he wound up with his picture in the local paper when he finished last spring. But the jobs weren't there.

"They were having jobs fairs at school, and some of the companies weren't even showing up," he says.

He's applied for around 50 jobs in his new field, to no avail. "I've given up on the specialty work," he says.

In addition to Walmart, he's put in applications at Staples, Kohl's and Target.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/walmart-job-seekers-desperate_n_924419.html

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')Not enough jobs to go around. What will America do?