January, 2011 archive
In the Navy 0
This has been Big News in these parts, the home of the largest complex of military bases in the world and the home port of the U. S. S. Enterprise:
Last night, a friend of mine who is retired Navy came over to help me watch football (we picked the most exciting bowl game so far), so I asked him what he thought about the “XO videos” (follow the link above and look on the left side of the page for links to selected edited videos).
He dismissed Captain Honors’s apologists and defenders with a snort: “That’s not leadership.”
It reminds me of those parents who think they should be “pals” with their kids. However pure their motives, they usually end up as ineffective parents and not-very-good pals, however much fun they and their kids might have had along the way.
Facebook Frolics 0
Thomas Jones, writing at the Guardian, discusses how Facebook creates and builds on “the illusion that you are among friends.”
It is worth a read, especially the bit on how immersing oneself in Facebook narrows horizons:
Zuckerberg’s answer to the second question would be that the more Facebook knows about you, the more it can tailor your “experience” of the web to suit you. On the Facebook blog last April, he wrote:
“If you’re logged into Facebook and go to Pandora [an internet radio station] for the first time, now it can immediately start playing songs from bands you’ve liked across the web. And as you’re playing music, it can show you friends who also like the same songs as you, and then you can click to see other music they like.”
It’s a nice enough idea, in its limited way, though it misses one of the great points of radio, which is to expose you to music that you and your friends don’t know already: there wouldn’t be a place for someone like John Peel in Zuckerberg’s universe.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun 0
Republicans compete to see who’s happiest. Dick Polman:
The five aspirants own a total of 25 guns.
This is apparently quite important, if only as a measure of the requisite Republican machismo. Or perhaps as visceral proof that the candidates love Freedom. Or perhaps it’s meant to suggest that we should all sleep better at night knowing that the Republican chairman is locked and loaded. Or maybe it’s just Republicans behaving as parodies of themselves.
Afterthought:
Read the entire Polman article. It’s a story of a bunch of juvies arguing over who has the bigg–oh, never mind.
Alarming iPhone Fix 0
Andy Borowitz prescribes a fix for persons who iGadgets no longer get them up:
Follow the link for the full report.
Can You Have One without the Other? 0
Comically Vintage wants to know.
Robber Barons Redux? 0
This should be interesting:
Hattiesburg-based South Mississippi Electric Power Association said Norfolk Southern is the only railroad company that delivers coal from the Appalachias to Plant Morrow, the utility’s main electricity generating station located in Purvis, Miss.
Contract negotiations for the utility’s new delivery contract are under way.
The first Federal regulatory body of any consequence was the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was created because of railroads’ abuse of their customers in the late 19th century.
On the railroad, there is a truism that every safety rule–and there are hundreds–resulted from an injury.
The caterwaulings of the right wing to the contrary, US history shows us that every Federal regulatory agency was created in reaction to abusive practices by business.
It will be interesting to see how this case plays out. Given that freight railroads run on diesel, I suspect that fuel prices have played a lot in the price increases over the years. Nevertheless, even when I worked for the railroad (and I loved working there–all railroaders love the railroad, even though they may hate their employer), I never saw a railroader with angel wings.
I’m betting that this is as much as negotiating tactic as anything else and that the case never goes to trial.
Against the Dark Side 0
I’m behind the times, as usual . . . .
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Barack Obama Is Luke Skywalker | ||||
|
||||
Cavalcade of Horribles 0
MarketWatch rounds up the 15 most hated companies in the US.
A couple of the ones on the list are companies that I loathe because of having personally experienced consistent lousiness from them (Best Buy and United Air are in that category–I have told my Best Buy story elsewhere in these pages).
BP, Bank of America, and some others made the list for general overall evilness.
A few, such as GM and Dell, are there for past sins. Dell, with which I have had uniformly positive dealings with (I have three Dells right now and have owned at least seven over the years) made the list because of covering up a defective laptop part in the early 2000s.
And, though I grew up Ford (young whippersnappers will have no idea what that means) and it pains me to say thia, my little yellow GMC truck is one damned fine vehicle.
QOTD 2
Isaac Asimov, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
The Keys Were for the Lox 0
Passengers report seeing a suspicious package on a plane. An arrest follows:
Home, Home on Derange 0
Bob Cesca reports.
It’s That Time of Year 0
Dave Barry looks back on 2010. A nugget:
This is not to say that 2010 was all bad. There were bright spots. Three, to be exact:
1. The Yankees did not even get into the World Series.
2. There were several days during which Lindsay Lohan was neither going into, nor getting out of, rehab.
3. Apple released the hugely anticipated iPad, giving iPhone people, at long last, something to fondle with their other hand.
Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Meeting 0
When: Tonight, January 3, 7:00 p. m.
Where:
- Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library (Libris Room)
4100 Virginia Beach Blvd.
Virginia Beach, VA 23452
Afterthought:
There will probably be lots of seating, since Virginia Tech is playing in the Orange Bowl tonight.
Spill Here, Spill Now, Don’t Look Back 0
Facing South reports on the current status of Buccaneer Petroleum’s wild well. Just because it ain’t news doesn’t mean it ain’t still doing damage.
A nugget:
Study of the oil’s fate and its impact on the marine environment will likely continue for months and years to come, but many independent scientists have produced preliminary research seemingly at odds with a rosy government report and official statements in August that said that at least half of the oil released was “completely gone from the system” and the rest was being quickly degraded.
Eight months after the spill, the safety of Gulf seafood is still being debated among toxicologists, some of whom allege that the Food and Drug Administration’s seafood testing process is flawed, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The FDA’s process does not certify that the products tested are free from contamination, but screens for contamination that reaches “levels of concern.” Cancer-causing chemicals found in crude oil have been detected in Gulf seafood, but according to the FDA have been found at levels that the agency considers to be safe.
Remembrance of Things Past (Updated) 0
Haley Barbour may not remember Jim Crow, but Mike Littwin of the Denver Post does.
If you weren’t there or have that new ailment, “amnesia Barbour barbarica, read his reminiscence. A memory from 1962:
When she asked which side I was taking, I said, innocently, “I’m pro-integration.”
“How would your mother like it,” she said, and I find it stunning even today, “if you brought home a little colored girl?”
Afterthought:
Oppression is seldom oppressive to the oppressor.
Addendum:
Shaun Mullen considers those who still don the gray and take to the barricades, though they do it today with pen, not with bayonet. A nugget:
Read the whole thing.
Oh, My, Cell Phone Vapors! 0
David Polk finds cell phones scary:
Second, this obsession is having negative consequences in the workplace. A member of our advisory board for the Center for Professional Excellence tells of interviewing a candidate for a job in his company. During the interview, the candidate’s cell phone rang, and the candidate answered the phone. Upon the completion of the call, the candidate signaled that the interview can continue. Guess who didn’t get the job? Worse, guess who didn’t understand why they didn’t get the job?
I know that persons use cell phones and other gadgets inappropriately and often stupidly. The local rag had an item in their politeness column about some lady who sent texts throughour the evening Christmas service at her church, giving new meaning to “Let your light so shine” (link not available).
But, ya know, it’s not the phones that are being stupid. Let’s not blame the phones.
What the phones (and other iJunk) do is give humans new and creative opportunities to demonstrate human stupid. And human stupid is always with us.
Afterthought:
If I were a hiring manager (or a prospective suitor or otherwise in the market), I would much rather find out that the applicant was a dolt before making the job offer.