Personal Musings category archive

I’m taking the day off.

When I haven’t been eating and sleeping, I’ve been napping.

The regularly scheduled invective returns tomorrow.

Mithras reports that President Obama went to Dover to salute the fallen and points out that Bush never went to Dover.

Bushes, in fact, tried to hide Dover.

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Parts of a house get awfully dirty in 24 years.

Investment banks making huge profits from fees on trades that they promote are like croupiers skimming bets they recommend.

The Catholic Church has no monopoly on malefactors. For every hinky Catholic priest, there is a Ted Haggard.

But the cover-up, well, that’s something else. Management is culpable for protecting and enabling the conduct. And managment continues to spin and evade its culpability.

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Michael Tomasky at the Guardian discussing some focus groups:

They found that conservatives “stand a world apart from the rest of America” in terms of how they view Barack Obama and how they see politics. There is a continuum, in other words, in US politics, running from those on the left who’ve already concluded that Obama is a sellout, to mainstream liberals who are basically happy with him, to moderates who are approving but with reservations, to centre-right folks who are unconvinced but pulling for him to succeed, for the country’s sake if nothing else.

Then there are committed conservatives. They’re off the continuum, in three basic ways. First, they fundamentally question his legitimacy as president. Second, they believe that a successful Obama presidency would destroy the country and are “committed to seeing the president fail”. And third, they think he is “ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt the US and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism”.

At the root of this is that some persons who characterize themselves as “Americans” don’t accept that the rest of us–80% of the population, in fact–are Americans also.

In their world, those who disagree with them are somehow auslanders–outlanders. And they will not concede that an auslander will ever have anything valid to say.

They are the direct descendants of the Know-Nothings, and they live up to their lineage and to that name.

Addendum, a Few Minutes Later:

The Booman nails it:

Traditional Americans are white.

(Follow the link. Read the rest.)

Extending the reasoning, therefore, if you are not white (and bigoted) you are not American.

Pah!

From Thomas Browne via the QuoteMaster:

Be charitable before wealth makes you covetous.

Interesting.

The poor want enough.

It is the rich who want more.

And it is therefore the poor whom the rich vilify for wanting.

A variable speed reversible electric drill with a screwdriver set is a wonderful thing.

Stupid, but typical of American management:

James Krapf, 31, an 11-year veteran of the department, disobeyed an order to clear decorations from the outside of his locker, a policy established in August in response to a cartoon that some found offensive. Krapf took down two other stickers from his locker Thursday but refused to remove a small American flag in the upper left corner. He was sent home.

I saw this type of stuff a lot when I worked for large organizations. Someone does something improper, as in the backstory to this, displaying a cartoon that someone else felt had racist implications.

Rather than dealing with the issue–the cartoon–management makes a blanket rule, no locker decorations. It is classic “punish everyone rather to avoid dealing with the problem.”

At one of the large organizations I worked at, long business trips–often a week or more–were frequent. Employees on trips over five days were allowed to get their laundry done at the hotel.

Now, anyone who has ever used a hotel laundry service knows it is expensive. You are paying, not just for the laundry, but for the hotel to hold the laundry for pick-up, for someone to pick up and deliver the laundry from the plant, and for the hotel to hold the laundry for you to pick up when your work day is over (in some cases, even deliver it to your room), all on the same day.

Then management discovered that one person (who happened to be part of my little department) was bringing his laundry from home to be done on expense–he commonly was putting in for laundry bills in excess of $100.00 ($25.00 to $30.00 was typical for four days worth of laundry back then).

His manager should have been raked over the coals for approving the darn expense reports in the first place. Instead, management responded by disallowing laundry service on all expense reports without advance permission from God.

That’s when we started washing out our skivvies in the hotel sinks (hotel shampoos double effectively as laundry soap).

Now, I’m not a big fan wearing American flag lapel pins or other American flag stuff; ostentatious displays of the symbols of patriotism often fall into the “Methinks thou dost protest too much” category. I have found that those who ostentatiously display the flag on their clothing or belongings often do so in support of distinctly unAmerican ideas.

Besides, most of wearable flag stuff violates flag etiquette (which mandates, among other things, that the flag or representations thereof should not be used as wearing apparel).

But this is a loser for the management of the Chester City Fire Department.

Related to the previous post:

The persons claiming that the government somehow intends to “ration restrict access to” health care clearly do not understand what the phrase “in network” means in the health insurance biz.

However much I like President Obama–and I do think he is a good and decent man who is trying (and sometimes failing) to make correct decisions and who I worked my heart out to help win the election (but I would have voted for a dead cat if it had run Democratic), I think this is a little premature.

In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee announced Friday that it had awarded its annual peace prize to President Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

I believe that it is more a rebuke to the previous federal administration, whose answer to everything seemed to be to kill and torture people all over the world, than it is a recognition of President Obama’s accomplishments because, frankly, he hasn’t had much time to accomplish stuff.

Then, again, as persons say in the restaurant biz, presentation matters and he presents the United States of America as being sane. Perhaps this is a recognition of that.

Boy, wingnut radio will have its knickers in a twist today! The Norwegians will be the new French.

Creationists don’t need the flu vaccine.

Back when Joe Scarborough was on in the evenings, I used to enjoy his show. He was conservative, but he was sane.

I really did not care what city got the Olympics. The United States has had them several times.

It’s probably time that South America got a chance. Concomitantly, I see nothing wrong with the President’s supporting his country’s and his adopted city’s bid. It falls into the category, “So what?”

When Obama shaves in the morning, some wingnuts will find a way to say he’s doing it wrong and thereby threatening God knows what simply because he’s Not White Like Them.

He’s a scary black man who makes them foam at their mouths and act stupid, except it’s not an act.

Jesus.

Afterthought: I got my country back. It’s called an election and I worked my heart out. Sheesh.

Why am I getting copies of Popular Mechanics in the mail? I certainly didn’t subscribe to it.

Crossword puzzles that rely on intentionally missplet words are evil and presage the breakdown of civilized society.

Painting walls can be really boring.

Spackle is your friend.

GIven that Jesus says in the Bible that no one can know when he will return, those who claim to predict his return are ipso facto heretics.

My two or three regular readers know that I have for years said that we should have finished with Afghanistan, rather than pursuing the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.

But I am more and more coming to conclude that the Bushies wasted too much time on their delusional imperial adventures and that Afghanistan no longer matters.

Shaun Mullen advances powerful arguments at Kiko’s House.

Addendum:

I listened to yesterday’s Radio TImes today; Dick Polman and Trudy Rubin discussed U. S. foreign policy. In it, Trudy Rubin, who has reported on the Middle East and Afghanistan for years, articulates an argument for staying in Afghanistan. It sums up to

America’s leaving Afghanistan too soon ———>
Pakistani support for the return of the Taliban (which is distinct from Al Quaeda) because Pakistan fears Indian influence in Afghanistan ———>
further destabilization of Pakistan from Pakistani religious fundamentalists ———>
increased chance that Pakistan’s nukes fall into the wrong hands.

In her view, Afghanistan is not the issue. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is.

Trying to balance Mr. Mullen’s and Ms. Rubin’s arguments makes my brain hurt.

Rubin also kept saying that President Obama had “turned on a dime” about Aghanistan. When the interviewer pressed her, she had to admit that he has not, that he appears to be rethinking his strategy and she fears he might withdraw.

Frankly, I want elected leaders who are willing to think about stuff. We’ve seen what the other kind can do.

Follow this link and search the archives for September 24, 2009, Hour One, or listen here (mp3).

End Addendum

Warning: Language Below

Whoever invented wallpaper should be forced to walk the Earth in eternal unrest until all wallpaper has been removed from all walls.