Forwarded to me by my good friend Sherman Shapiro, but originally published here in The Onion :
WASHINGTON, DC - Congress is considering sweeping legislation, which provides new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislation by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.
“Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society,” said Barbara Boxer. “We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they do a better job, or have some idea of what they are doing.”
The President pointed to the success of the US Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack job skills, making this agency the single largest US employer of Persons of Inability.
Private sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%),and home improvement “warehouse” stores (65%). The DMV also has a great record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%), and fast food restaurants (93%).
Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million “middle man” positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.
Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given, to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations which maintain a significant level of Persons of Inability in middle positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.
Finally, the AWNA ACT contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Nonabled, banning discriminatory interview questions such as “Do you have any goals for the future?” or “Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?”
“As a Nonabled person, I can’t be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,” said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, MI due to her lack of notable job skills. “This new law should really help people like me.” With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Said Senator Ted Kennedy, “It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation.”
{The Senator’s office at the same time issued this statement: “The Senator fully identifies with the people this legislation is designed to help.”}
The irony is that this legislation would probably actually reduce the number of people of no ability who are employed! At least that is what the evidence (see here and here, although for the latter you likely will only be able to see the abstract not the whole article unless you are university affiliated) suggest happened when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. Why? Simple incentives. After ADA becomes law, it is extremely difficult to fire a disabled person who isn’t working out in the company. So firms respond by not hiring them in the first place.
18 Comments
Since it isn’t sourced here, this is orignally from the satire magazine “The Onion” from 1998.
— cpaligaI’m sorry, I should read more carefully before I post. “The Onion” did have a version of this in 1998, but this one seems to be edited.
— cpaligaAh yes, the crisp oniony flavour of biting sarcasm, one would recognise that taste and mouthfeel anywhere.
— 3612The original Onion piece:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28982
Snopes article tracking some of the variants:
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/noabilities.asp
Like the best Onion pieces, it might almost be true.
— zbicyclistim only gonna say this once. that wasnt funny. you almost made me cry. now appologize.
— edwardmkingSo here’s what I want to know. Why do the celebrated and presumably pretty well off authors of Freakonomics get to lift something from the Onion–and keep it up on their blog after discovering that it is lifted from the Onion–without it crossing their mind, or anyone else’s, apparently, that it is NOT okay for them to do this? Do I sense a new source of revenue for the Onion in its future?
Oh, it’s just a blog, it’s free, nobody pays us for it, we didn’t know, it was edited from the original, the Onion put it on the Web for free, we cited the source, … all the obvious excuses still seem not to cut it as a defense against blatant copyright violation in this case. What say you?
— Dick Margulisdick margulis,
— JTHow about the defense of ‘fair use’?
As I wrote to Steve privately, we’ve been discussing this issue lately on a couple of publishing lists. I’m neither a lawyer nor an economist; so you can take these comments for what they’re worth. But fair use is a pretty shaky ground to stand on when you’ve got deep pockets (a condition that will probably never pertain to me, but I digress). There are no hard and fast guidelines or rules of thumb for fair use; it’s decided case by case in the courts. In any event, reprinting an entire article without permission would fall well outside any definition I’ve ever seen. Sure, lots of bloggers do this every day, but who would bother to sue most bloggers, right?
As I also explained to Steve, lots of people, particularly academics, tend to confuse copyright infringement with plagiarism. Plagiarism is claiming someone else’s work as your own. That’s not what’s happening here. Copyright infringement is publishing someone else’s work without permission, and the fines are both automatic and substantial if the original work is registered with the Library of Congress. (I have no idea whether the Onion registers their copyrights; I’m not affiliated with them in any way–not even a subscriber.)
A copyright holder does not have to prove economic damage to collect the penalties, by the way, nor does the infringer have to make a profit by republishing the work (although in this case it could be argued that the blog is a marketing tool intended to increase the income of the Steves, if indirectly).
Anyway, I just stopped by to offer a friendly warning. As I said, I don’t have any personal interest in the issue.
— Dick Margulisdick margulis,
It is not accurate to state that fair use is “a pretty shaky ground to stand on when you’ve got deep pockets.” To highlight why: think of all the deep pockets that claim ‘fair use’ protection for satire and parody. TV studios, movie studios, record lables, in fact I would venture to guess that the Onion itself often makes fair use claims.
It is also not accurate to state that “there are no hard and fast guidelines or rules of thumb for fair use.” While fair use is a judicially created defense, it has been codified since 1976 as part of the U.S. Copyright Act. (17 U.S.C. 107 — Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use — if you’re interested). And while it is accurate to say that judges have a certain amount of discretion in interpreting the statute, there are four factors that a court must look at in determing the whether the use is fair.
-The purpose and character of the use
-The nature of the copyrighted work
-The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
-The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
I encourage you to go look up the statute; you might find your case is not as strong as you suggest.
— JTdick margulis,
this is not really accurate either:
“A copyright holder does not have to prove economic damage to collect the penalties, by the way, nor does the infringer have to make a profit by republishing the work.”
A copyright owner would not have to prove actual damages, or profits by the infringer, if he or she elects to recovery “statutory damages”, but a copyright owner may only elect to recover such damages if (1) he or she has followed certain copyright registration prerequisites; and (2) the award may be lowered to a nominal amount if the copyright owner cannot establish that the infringement was committed “willfully.”
Remedies are dealt with in Ch 5 of the Copyright Act (17 USC 501-513), and registration prerequisites can be found in Ch 4 (17 USC 407-412).
Again, I would encourage you to read the statutes. Reading statutes can be fun!
— JTjt,
I just adore being quoted out of context. The stage is yours. Knock ‘em dead.
Bye.
— Dick Margulis…And JT quoted you out of context how??
— bobvalI answered JT privately on that point. MYOB, bobval. There’s no reason for any of us to behave rudely when we’re guests in someone else’s parlor, d’ya think?
Look, I didn’t come here as an adversary, and I chose not to engage in an adversarial discussion when JT tried to provoke one. That’s all. If you still don’t understand what I’m saying, feel free to contact me privately, as well.
— Dick MargulisAlso see DEMOCRATS PUSH “AMERICANS WITH INABILITIES ACT” at The Undis Report:
http://undisreport.blogspot.com/2003_03_01_undisreport_archive.html#90924567
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Flushed with the success of the Americans With Disabilities Act, congressional Democrats have introduced legislation they call the Americans With Inabilities Act.
The law would prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education, and access to government benefits based on inability. In announcing the legislation, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California), said “Americans with inabilities face countless obstacles every day in every facet of life. Those with the inability to stop overeating, for example, are not only ostracized because of their physical appearance, but face job discrimination and suffer an unfair number of health problems.”
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York), a co-sponsor of the bill, declared, “Americans with inabilities need the full protection of the law. It’s not fair, for example, that high-paying engineering jobs are denied to people who have an inability to understand sophisticated scientific concepts. The Americans With Inabilities Act will guarantee the mathematically inabled among us fair access to career paths that have been beyond their reach.”
“People with an inability to balance their checkbooks pay an unfair share of bank overcharge fees in America,” charged Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri). “Those who are unlucky enough to have an inability to read and write are denied access to elite colleges and universities. It’s time to stop punishing inabled Americans.”
Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) said, “I’m disappointed with the Bush administration’s response to the Americans With Inabilities Act. Their insistence that people with an inability to stay sober be disqualified from jobs as truck drivers and airline pilots is mean-spirited petty partisan politics. That’s not what the American people want.”
— Dave UndisMr. Margulis,
Your analysis of the copyright issues is plausible, but aren’t you overlooking something important here — do the folks at The Onion have any objection? I doubt that they do.
— dhueyjdSo…back to the topic of the post ;)
This reminds me of the situation in France, where young people have a tough time getting hired because it’s so hard for employers to get rid of them.
— Elsadhueyjd,
I’m sure that JT, if he reads this, will argue to the contrary, not to mention engaging in name-calling and other forms of verbal abuse, either here or in private; however, to answer your question, it doesn’t matter whether or not the folks at The Onion have any objection. It only matters whether or not they see copyright infringement as a potential revenue stream.
Let’s put it this way: If the contents of this blog were to find their way into a book, no sane publisher would print the Onion article quoted here without written permission to do so. The fact that this is a blog rather than a book doesn’t change the fact that it is a publication. But in the Wild West of the blogosphere, copyright law is routinely flouted. As I said earlier, it’s no big whoop most of the time, because the average blogger doesn’t have assets worth pursuing. Here there’s a difference, though.
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