New math

Overloaded day + lack of sleep + overstuffed sinuses + no weekends (Thanks Hebrew Calendar!) = 1 extremely spaced-out Dan.

I need several naps.

It's Just Not Fair!

Reason #24576 why I can do without Obama, his administration, and their hangers-on:

Steven Chu: Americans Are Like ‘Teenage Kids’ When It Comes to Energy

Let's leave aside the correctness of the whole "the earth is being destroyed every second by fat Americans who won't give up their high standard of living" mantra of the First Church of the Green Mother (A. Gore, Pontifex Maximus). I concede freely there are things we can do to reduce waste.

What's bugging me is the sheer unveiled contempt the Nobel winning hack has for us, the great unwashed. It's the nanny mentality these people have to the ordinary folks that escapes out of them when they speak freely. The "elites" of this nation - the policy wonks and the politicians and the think tankers and the rest - are utterly convinced that we're too dumb, too unschooled, to inept to decide for ourselves what to do.

Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of this on all sides of the aisle, and frankly it's sickening. Most of these losers and nerds have never had a real job - it's been academia and "community-based service" for their entire lives. They've never had to meet a payroll, they've never had to work overtime, they've never had to budget a damned thing. And yet we're the ones who "have to understand how important this issue is."

It's a waste of breath, but here's a news flash for Dr. Chu. I'm not a moron. I happen to disagree with you. You haven't made a case to me that says you're right. I'm not a recalcitrant 15 year old - I'm waiting for an argument from you that holds even a drop of water. You mistake my refusal to sell all I own and live in a yurt for simple-minded ignorance; it's in fact a refusal to surrender the gains made by generations before me so I could live comfortably and provide for my family in the way I see fit.

If there's hope for limited government, it's when ordinary people stand up and let these egotistical wastrels understand that we're a lot smarter than they give us credit for. The proof will be if we actually vote these knuckleheads out of office.

A headline question

Here, from the AP (via Yahoo), a note about the controversy surrounding the President's comments about Kanye West:

President's opinion of Kanye West sparks debate

So standards of journalism are at issue - reporting something that should have been off the record. A fair enough discussion, I guess.

But to my question - how come none of these people give a damn that journalistic standards are already in the toilet? Objectivity, straight reporting, and nonpartisanship have disappeared from the field for all I can tell. We're left with opinion masquerading as news and people in the tank for one side of the political divide pretending to be objective.

Out of curiosity, why is none of that as important as the President referring off mike to someone as a jackass? Particularly when that person in fact behaved like a jackass?

Just asking.

In one ear, not out the other

As I posted to facebook yesterday, I can't hear with my right ear and I'm not listening with the left one.

The trip was fun, especially the unofficial family reunion along the Wenatchee River in Washington. Unfortunately, germs were part of the reunion and the whole lot of us East Coasters got sick. In my case that was a bad head cold that suddenly turned into an ear infection last week.

I got on antibiotics the next day, but for the last week my ear has been totally clogged and it's getting irritating to say the least. It's like an itch I can't reach and I feel half cut off from the world. So a trip to my wonderful ear doc (and I mean that - he's very good and a great guy to boot) is on tap for tomorrow.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some caring person from the government to provide me with free service? It's a pity nobody's talking about health care these days.

Somewhat live

and mostly awake, I blog from the left coast. Sunny sort of downtown Bellingham, WA, home of Western Washington U. and Mrs. Skinny's parents. Part of the year. On no apparent snowbird-type schedule.

Either way, we are here, a bit unslept but mostly sound. We have a trip to Victoria, BC planned for tomorrow & thursday, and a trip out to the wilds of central WA for the weekend and a not really official family reunion with the cousins spread across this great state.

Other than the usual complications of kosher food - we stocked up in Seattle and will have to make do with it for the rest of the trip - it's nice to be here, be with family, and not going to work.

Road to hell

is paved with "clunkers"

More Cash for Clunkers III

I'm overwhelmed sometimes by the unintended consequences of most liberal policies. The intended consequences are usually bad enough, but then comes the collateral damage. Let's briefly examine a f'rinstance:

• Bob is unemployed
  
• Bob has no car
  
• Bob gets a job interview for a decent but not high-paying job
  
• Bob get a ride to the interview
• Bob aces the interview
• Bob is offered the job
• Bob cannot take the job, because he can't afford any of the cars that remain available for sale
• Bob remains unemployed

See, in this universe where we remove something like 1% of the cars on the road, for little noticeable effect on either environment or gas prices, we are removing 99% of the cars that the poor can afford. Meaning they remain poor.

Look, sue me, it's a straw man. But as most people recognize, there's a lot more to an economy than meets the eye. It's not a set of rules to be imposed from on high (see Stalin-era 5-year plans, etc.), but a series of very small localized transactions. You can't just decree this stuff, you have to let it happen naturally or it won't happen at all. And when it doesn't happen, strange ripples begin to occur.

Gadgets!

So me & Mrs. Skinny decided we were due new cellphones. It being several years since the last upgrade, and us finding out they've replaced the old rotary kind with these push-button jobbies.

A word about me & technology, specifically mobile technology - I'm not so into it. In fact I resisted getting cellphone for a few years, on the theory there was no one I wanted to talk to that badly. I gave in eventually, and it has proved to be a lifesaver for that vital human function - grocery shopping. List or no list, I can now call Mrs. Skinny twelve times in 6 minutes to ask what I forgot.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a wannabe geek with a great interest in technology & putting it to good use. I just don't see the value to watching Lord of the Rings extended version on a 2 inch screen, with or without director's commentary. Even if it means I can have my hobbits anytime, anywhere. Texting is another mystery to me - why the heck would I want to communicate in eight word, poorly spelled bursts?

So the plan for new phones was simple. Mrs. wanted something she could text on as she dips her toe into the sore thumb universe, and I wanted a nothing phone. Let me make a phone call and I'm pretty happy. We check out the offerings at what passes for Ma Bell these days, and I find a nothing phone. For free, as they often do. OK, I'm good, what about Mrs?

She goes to the store, checks it out, and identifies something a little higher rent with a slide out keyboard. We finally get to the website, plunk mine in the cart, and we're poking around a bit more before pulling the trigger. So it turns out the one Mrs. wanted was no longer available. By the time we sort it all out, the higher-end version of the one she wanted is now free. And the cheapo I was looking at - is now $30? How does that happen in less than five minutes?

Needless to say, cheap wins out over simple every time. So we are both the proud owners of the Pantech Matrix Pro with its accompanying doodads. I can't find half the stuff on it, much less use it. But I must admit - I just synced it up with my work calendar, and it was a breeze. Which I think is very cool, and I will now know my schedule wherever else I am.

I'm still not texting - you can't make me.

There's an old line

about not knowing what art is. I'm fairly certain this is not it:

iBum chair automatically photocopies your butt

I'm with the author - it's not much fun if they schedule it, and the artist needs a life.

So I think

though I couldn't swear to it, that things have taken a dramatic turn for the positive around here. I may have been moved to another department (something we've been working on for a bit) and free from the stupidity of where I've been (see Tuesday, July 2nd for more.)

Yet it's sort of hard to tell. No one's said anything directly to me about answering elsewhere (though the big boss announced it while I was in Ohio), I had a ridiculously complicated project dumped in my lap from the old department with 4 days to do it, and there's been no discussion of transition.

So, I can't entirely tell if life has changed since it doesn't really feel like it, but at least on someone's paper things are different. You'd think after nearly 9 years I'd have this place figured out, but there's always a curveball you've never seen before.

A Shocker

French tourists seen as world's worst: survey

But, but, how? Are not the French the preeminent example of all that is right with the world? Are they not more cultured than the rest of us plebes? What happened to the Ugly American being the big problem?

I like the Expedia guy's explanation:

"The French don't go abroad very much. We're lucky enough to have a country which is magnificent in terms of its landscape and culture," he said, adding that 90 per cent of French people did their traveling at home.

Anotherwords, why would we want to visit you silly English Kannnigits when we have such a beautiful country here to sneer at?

A message

to my asinine "supervisor":

Read your goddam emails. Pay attention when I talk to you. Get off my back. I know more than you do, I do more than you do, and you're being a colossal pain in the ass.

Rant over, and apologies for the language.

Eventful week

Back & forth to Cleveland, OH for a wedding, which was nice. Drive home not so much, though we stopped both at an outlet location (five new pairs of work pants for about $100) and a new kosher Indian place in NJ. Neither of which made up for 12 hours in the car. And may I say I hope the leadership of the Pennsylvania DOT suffers eternal damnation of a particularly heinous, traffic-related type.

Weird doings here at work, of which I can say little. Works much in my favor, admittedly, but these doings make assumptions that may be unfulfilled by the HR powers that be.

Oh, and the work email servers done blowed up real good - it's about 10 days and they're still trying to resolve the problems. Guess the Squirrel running the generator finally got PO'd enough and walked off the job.

A Word

to the sneaking, lying, lazy sack of crap who tried to throw me under the bus this morning.

This will not land heavily on me, I assure you. You may throw it, but I assure it will bounce back high, hard, and fast very much in your own direction.

Brother Possum

brings the following to my attention:

Carter to Obama: Remove Hamas From Terror List

In related news, Jimmah has asked to be added to the Terror List as a replacement.

I'm beginning to think we elected the wrong Carter brother as president.

Wow

The depths of some people's insanity are not to be believed. Show it to me if you must, but sharing it with other people? Yet I will be a good boy and dot the i's and cross the t's, and merely hope for the final implosion.

Mind you I intend to watch from a safe distance if at all possible.

Why I love National Review

The Toga Makes a Comeback!

What other major news outlet today includes someone referring to Cato the Younger as a pretentious git?

For all you Southern types

I present, without comment:

http://www.redneckbank.com/

Things are looking up

not done, but up

More conferencing

Day 2 of the official show. Some decent presentations today, even the one I walked out of to call in to a conference call that never happened. So I went back in & heard the rest of what they had to say (for the record, it was about using online video for distance learning.)

I have to admit I'm both excited and depressed by what I learned. Excited because there are some really smart people out there doing really cool things with online media. Depressed because not only am I not doing it, but we're in many ways just barely keeping up.

Plus all of these people have jobs and titles that I would like to have. Whatever. It was a good conference, I actually talked to a lot of people (kind of unusual for me with people I don't know), and tomorrow it's back to reality.

Which includes a major overhaul to a system that happened today and does not seem to be working properly. But that's likely to be another blogpost.

Conferencing

Spent the last two days at Streaming Media East, a gathering of all the geeks media professionals smart enough to get their bosses to let them goof around in Manhattan for a few days.

Had a really good day yesterday with one of our vendors who had a half-day session with a bunch of customers. They previewed some new software that looks extremely promising and will likely cure some headaches for us. Now if they can only get it released on a convenient schedule...

Today was typical conference stuff - keynote speakers and product shills masquerading as educational sessions. I have to say Microsoft really has a tin ear sometimes. They're offering a new approach to multimedia delivery and it's awfully complicated and probably unnecessary. The poor guy sent to tout this thing took kind of a beating from some people looking at a very time consuming and costly effort to convert a ton of pre-existing content into this new method. I have to say Microsoft seems to be stumbling into a lot of new ideas without thinking them through terribly carefully. I got my own question answered - we can keep doing what we're doing now and they can go fiddle around with whatever stupidity they want.

More of the same tomorrow - it's a day out of the office and that's almost always a good thing.