Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

I had this nutty idea years ago that minimum wage should be tagged to cost of living increases like Social Security, etc.

I mentioned this to some folks at work recently (people who are largely GOP, btw) and their response was basically "Yeah, they should have. But making an adjustment now would be bad for the economy because inflation".

That Kool-Aid works, sadly.

Cross thread shenanigans, of course, but while reading some source on minimum wage, I came cross one (darn if I'm going to go look it up again),

Also, who cares what it was intended to do in 1938?

Also, who cares what it was intended to do in 1938? In 1938, it was a step towards giving workers any rights at all and was passed during the Great Depression. More of the weird conservative obsession with clinging to stuff from decades or centuries ago as unchangeable or something. Is the specter of FDR going to rise from its grave and haunt us if we use his law as the basis for providing workers with a livable wage?

Except my point was to show that had we pegged it to inflation back then, we'd have a lower minimum wage today.

Really?

Gbaji was also the first person to mention the 70s:

Gbaji was also the first person to mention the 70s:
This was the comment that I was referring to when I noted that, at its 1968 height, it was actually $10.86 in adjusted dollars -- a good bit more than "slightly" over $7.25 (approximately 50% higher). But that's not a good narrative for him so now it's everyone else's fault for mentioning it. Of course, 1968 also wasn't in the 70s anyway so no one is picking that era except for him.

A California man went to an emergency room with a terrible headache and nausea, slipped into a coma, and was told a tapeworm larva had been living in his brain when he woke up.

College student Luis Ortiz, 26, of Napa said doctors told him he needed immediate surgery to remove it.

"I was shocked," Ortiz said. "I just couldn't believe something like that would happen to me. I didn't know there was a parasite in my head trying to ruin my life."

The surgery and the aftermath have greatly impacted his life, Ortiz said. He had to drop out of school, move back home and find a temporary place for his dog. He can't drive or work.

"My memory is like a work in progress," he said. "It gets better from therapy," but he has to remind himself to do his memory exercises and other daily tasks.

Ortiz's neurosurgeon, Dr. Soren Singel, said Ortiz was lucky he arrived at the hospital when he did.

The worm was forming in a cyst that was blocking the flow of water to chambers in his brain, "like a cork in a bottle," Singel told the Napa Valley Register (http://bit.ly/1RQzfHc ).

Another 30 minutes of that blockage, and "he would have been dead," Singel said. "It was a close call."

Ortiz said his headaches began in late August and he didn't think much of it at first.

"I just ignored it," said Ortiz, who was attending California State University, Sacramento.

During the first days of September, Ortiz had been skateboarding on a warm day when the pain increased. When he arrived at his mother's house, he appeared disoriented and began to vomit. She rushed him to the hospital.

Singel said such parasitic worms in a body aren't too uncommon. The problem occasionally occurs if people eat pork infected with worms, he said.

But that could cause an intestinal parasite, not the brain cyst that Ortiz had.

Tapeworm eggs likely made it into Ortiz's intestine from something else he ate and eventually the single larva made it into his brain, Singel said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said infection from pork tapeworms is a problem worldwide and is spread most easily in developing communities where pigs have access to human waste and where hygiene and sanitation are poor.

Tapeworm larvae can cause cysts in the body and are common enough that the World Health Organization calls the problem the most frequent preventable cause of epilepsy worldwide.

People can help prevent contamination by proper washing of hands, washing and peeling raw fruits and vegetables before eating, and being careful about drinking only safe water while traveling.

I used to have tape worms until I swallowed a bunch of Brazilian death spiders to get rid of 'em. As an aside, anyone know what eats Brazilian death spiders? Asking for a friend.