Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Unpacking ...
Stays on top today - G
Matt Taibbi takes the suck-up David Brooks apart:
I've worked like a dog since I was fifteen years old. There are parts of my body that are just about at the end of their service life. My orthopedist can't wait to get a hold of me so he can send his kids to MIT (I need a new shoulder, hip, and surgery on both knees). I've worked in shops where 12-14 hour days were the norm, for not much money and fewer benefits and if you were thinking of calling in sick, you might as well take the day to look for another job. I never broke six figures; getting halfway there was the best I ever did.
It would have been a lot easier to take if I was making a salary where I knew I could afford what I needed when I needed it, if I had no worries about having to pay a hospital bill if I got sick, if I could afford to fix the piece-of-shit car I had (that I got from a customer who was junking it), so I could get to work. If I didn't have those worries then, it would have been easier to take working with broken ribs and fingers (I can reset a break like a pro now), or sicker than a dog, afraid to take a day off in fear of losing my job.
Yes, the Mrs. and I have made a good life for ourselves, thanks not so much to our employers. It took a lot of scrimping and saving and not having kids (not that having a comfortable life was a factor in the choice not to have them). We have a nice house because I've done all the work myself instead of having to worry about paying contractors. We live pretty well thanks to hard work on both our parts and foregoing a lot of things those more well-off deem necessary.
So, for David Brooks to say that some rich guy works harder than I do makes me want to throttle him. Believe me, it's easier to spend 80 hours a week at work when you know your kids will be fed well, clothed well, educated well, and want for nothing. It's easier if you know you'll have enough to pay the bills at the end of the month and, god forbid, if you get hurt somehow, you won't go bankrupt paying the bill.
I've been very poor (to the point of living in a van for a while) and I know what average people go through just to put food on the table. A lot of folks work 80 hours a week and there's still not enough money. I'm sorry, I can't shed too many tears for people who pull down six or seven figures and not break a sweat, regardless of how many hours they put in. No matter how hard the average person works, they'll never make as much, nor enjoy the rewards the rich do.
What Brooks did with his latest column was give a couple hundred million hardworking Americans a slap in the face. Thanks to Matt Taibbi for slapping him back.
Matt Taibbi takes the suck-up David Brooks apart:
...
Only a person who has never actually held a real job could say something like this. There is, of course, a huge difference between working 80 hours a week in a profession that you love and which promises you vast financial rewards, and working 80 hours a week digging ditches for a septic-tank company, or listening to impatient assholes scream at you at some airport ticket counter all day long, or even teaching disinterested, uncontrollable kids in some crappy school district with metal detectors on every door.
Most of the work in this world completely sucks balls and the only reward most people get for their work is just barely enough money to survive, if that. The 95% of people out there who spend all day long shoveling the dogshit of life for subsistence wages are basically keeping things running just well enough so that David Brooks, me and the rest of that lucky 5% of mostly college-educated yuppies can live embarrassingly rewarding and interesting lives in which society throws gobs of money at us for pushing ideas around on paper (frequently, not even good ideas) and taking mutual-admiration-society business lunches in London and Paris and Las Vegas with our overpaid peers.
...
I've worked like a dog since I was fifteen years old. There are parts of my body that are just about at the end of their service life. My orthopedist can't wait to get a hold of me so he can send his kids to MIT (I need a new shoulder, hip, and surgery on both knees). I've worked in shops where 12-14 hour days were the norm, for not much money and fewer benefits and if you were thinking of calling in sick, you might as well take the day to look for another job. I never broke six figures; getting halfway there was the best I ever did.
It would have been a lot easier to take if I was making a salary where I knew I could afford what I needed when I needed it, if I had no worries about having to pay a hospital bill if I got sick, if I could afford to fix the piece-of-shit car I had (that I got from a customer who was junking it), so I could get to work. If I didn't have those worries then, it would have been easier to take working with broken ribs and fingers (I can reset a break like a pro now), or sicker than a dog, afraid to take a day off in fear of losing my job.
Yes, the Mrs. and I have made a good life for ourselves, thanks not so much to our employers. It took a lot of scrimping and saving and not having kids (not that having a comfortable life was a factor in the choice not to have them). We have a nice house because I've done all the work myself instead of having to worry about paying contractors. We live pretty well thanks to hard work on both our parts and foregoing a lot of things those more well-off deem necessary.
So, for David Brooks to say that some rich guy works harder than I do makes me want to throttle him. Believe me, it's easier to spend 80 hours a week at work when you know your kids will be fed well, clothed well, educated well, and want for nothing. It's easier if you know you'll have enough to pay the bills at the end of the month and, god forbid, if you get hurt somehow, you won't go bankrupt paying the bill.
I've been very poor (to the point of living in a van for a while) and I know what average people go through just to put food on the table. A lot of folks work 80 hours a week and there's still not enough money. I'm sorry, I can't shed too many tears for people who pull down six or seven figures and not break a sweat, regardless of how many hours they put in. No matter how hard the average person works, they'll never make as much, nor enjoy the rewards the rich do.
What Brooks did with his latest column was give a couple hundred million hardworking Americans a slap in the face. Thanks to Matt Taibbi for slapping him back.
Great thanks to Cookie Jill for the link.
Commodities ...
Friends of ours bought a parking space in a building in Manhattan about 15 years ago for $29K. They can sell it today for $90K. A fucking parking space.
On Piracy
I have no love for pirates, but this is an interesting article in the Nairobi Daily Jump Up And Hallelujah. Actually, it's in Time magazine, but I thank Molly Ivins for her lovely description of the New York Times in a letter to a friend.
The Somali pirates seem to have a lot in common with American coal miners.
Also, what is it with these Somali yay-hoos firing on warships? In the third incident of late, the other day they fired on USS Ashland (LSD 48) and were captured.
Just as an aside, I got all excited when I saw Ashland. She was in the flotilla that accompanied me on my Med cruise. I thought she must be getting a little long in the tooth so I looked her up. Turns out the ship that went with me on LanForMed 2-65 (First up at Google! - G) was USS Ashland (LSD 1) which served in WWII and was broken for scrap over forty years ago. Just another in a long line of constant reminders that I'm old. Waaaah.
Anyway, the pirates can't be attacking warships for ransom. The drugs can't be that good. Can they?
Are they hoping to be taken to America where they will get a book deal and get rich? Unlikely.
I get the feeling that someone among them heard about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and, in a complete misunderstanding of the results of that more or less made-up justification for the Vietnam war, think that's the way to get the United States to invade Somalia, install a weak, corrupt government (which the Somalis are quite used to), drop untold billions of dollars trying to do the undoable, and leave in ten years with their tails between their legs.
Hey, it worked in Vietnam and it's working in Iraq and Afghanistan, so why not in Somalia?
Good information on the inner workings of the piracy trade is hard to come by, but evidence from out of Somalia indicates that criminal syndicates with financiers and investors based in Dubai and London and Mombasa, Kenya, have taken over piracy in Somalia, which got its start in the early 1990s as a way to mete out retribution on ships that fished illegally or dumped toxic waste in Somali waters. Now the warlords at the top take almost all the money and pay the men at the bottom next to nothing. The pirates caught on camera bobbing in their skiffs are the high-sea equivalent of the Cosa Nostra's lowliest associates. "The people being arrested are actually foot soldiers. They are not the real pirates," says Dickson Oruku Nyawinda, a lawyer who represents accused Somali pirates in Kenya's jails. "We are dealing with people who have no idea where the ransoms are going."
According to the report, rank-and-file militiamen receive $15,000 for their role in hijacking a ship. They get much more if they bring their own weapons or a boat. But pirates who have fled Somalia for Nairobi say that figure is much inflated. Ahmad, for example, says he might get a $10,000 share but his bosses would withhold as much as half of that to pay for his expenses. "The big fish are the guys who lead us, the ones who invest in the equipment, the boat, those things," he says. "Whether we die or not, they don't care." (my em)
The Somali pirates seem to have a lot in common with American coal miners.
Also, what is it with these Somali yay-hoos firing on warships? In the third incident of late, the other day they fired on USS Ashland (LSD 48) and were captured.
Just as an aside, I got all excited when I saw Ashland. She was in the flotilla that accompanied me on my Med cruise. I thought she must be getting a little long in the tooth so I looked her up. Turns out the ship that went with me on LanForMed 2-65 (First up at Google! - G) was USS Ashland (LSD 1) which served in WWII and was broken for scrap over forty years ago. Just another in a long line of constant reminders that I'm old. Waaaah.
Anyway, the pirates can't be attacking warships for ransom. The drugs can't be that good. Can they?
Are they hoping to be taken to America where they will get a book deal and get rich? Unlikely.
I get the feeling that someone among them heard about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and, in a complete misunderstanding of the results of that more or less made-up justification for the Vietnam war, think that's the way to get the United States to invade Somalia, install a weak, corrupt government (which the Somalis are quite used to), drop untold billions of dollars trying to do the undoable, and leave in ten years with their tails between their legs.
Hey, it worked in Vietnam and it's working in Iraq and Afghanistan, so why not in Somalia?
Quote of the Day
Time:
Malou Innocent
Decrying the ongoing war in Iraq, in the Christian Science Monitor:
"There's a growing narrative that Iraq's solidifying democracy makes the seven years of U.S. war and occupation a worthy enterprise. Some observers have even spun Iraq's March 7 elections as proof that democracy promotion via military occupation can succeed. Don't believe the hype. The Iraq war remains a mistake of mammoth proportions. And Iraq's election represents a pyrrhic victory, as the ... costs of the occupation far outweigh any benefits."
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
Obama Authorizes Assassination of Radical American-Born Cleric
And entire cast of “Fox and Friends.”
Texas Removes Bust of George Washington From School Grounds
He was a godless atheist, according to latest American History textbook.
GM Sales Up 68%, Ford Sales Up 84%
In China.
1 in 5 Believe Aliens in Our Midst
4 in 5 think 1 in 5 is nuts.
Baseball: Umpire Publicly Criticizes Teams for Slow Play
Then he's reminded of the millions fans spend on beer, hot dogs, peanuts, Cracker Jack, soda, cotton candy, pizza, ice cream, nachos, popcorn and souvenirs while the game drags on forever.
Simple ...
It's all them black people:
I'm surprised some Republican hasn't come up with the idea of sending them all back to Africa.
...
Seriously, if the shiftless welfare queens would just stop stealing all this money from hardworking white people, we wouldn't have all these problems. I don't see why all everyone always jumps to the conclusion that it has anything to do with race.
I'm surprised some Republican hasn't come up with the idea of sending them all back to Africa.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Quote of the Day
Karoli:
Indeed. I remember a day, my mom was a nurse for 60 years, when doctors practiced medicine for the good of their fellow man first. Now, all but one (my ENT) of the doctors I know are more concerned about their share of a 'hospital corporation' and their vacation home in the Bahamas. But then again, most of the doctors I know are my customers, and most of them live here.
...My personal message to whining doctors
Get over yourselves. It's law, it's staying law, and you're going to make a boatload of money one way or the other so you can fund your racist conservative teabagging buddies in the Southern states. If it's so repugnant to you to practice medicine for the welfare of patients instead of the welfare of your checkbook, get out of the medical profession, get out of the way, and let someone who gives a damn step in your place.
...
Indeed. I remember a day, my mom was a nurse for 60 years, when doctors practiced medicine for the good of their fellow man first. Now, all but one (my ENT) of the doctors I know are more concerned about their share of a 'hospital corporation' and their vacation home in the Bahamas. But then again, most of the doctors I know are my customers, and most of them live here.
I bet they mentioned 9/11 and health care
Republicans convene in New Orleans, with no mention of Katrina
That they have the nerve to even show up there shows not only an amazing cluelessness but absolutely unmitigated gall. So what's new? All the usual suspects took the podium and told lies. So what's new?
They won't mention Katrina, but I will.
Thanks to rosenpenis, Norway.
Thanks to NettwerkMusic.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
We're idiots ...
In an unusual last-minute edit that has drawn flak from the White House and science educators, a federal advisory committee omitted data on Americans' knowledge of evolution and the big bang from a key report. The data shows that Americans are far less likely than the rest of the world to accept that humans evolved from earlier species and that the universe began with a big bang.
...
We were once the most educated nation on the planet. We are now an assemblage of morons and mystics.
Can't wait until my EU citizenship comes through.
Great thanks to Chris for the link.
"We Kicked The Crackers' Asses Day"
Since we're being forced to remember the Confederacy this month, let's remember where the Civil War ended. The final ass kicking was handed to the secesh in Virginia. Be sure to tell all the tourists about that, McDonnell.
I propose that April 9 be designated an annual National Holiday called "We Kicked The Crackers' Asses Day" or "They Started It And We Ended It Day" or maybe "Those Fucking Traitors Should Thank Their Lucky Stars We Didn't Kill 'Em All Like We Should Have Day".
Note to Secesh Who Won't Let It Die: That was 145 years ago. You were wrong to begin with, you never stood a chance, you started the war anyway, and you lost. Get the fuck over it. Our biggest mistake is letting you peckerwoods fly that goddam slave flag. If it was up to me, the US Army, the same one that kicked your cracker ass, perhaps in nice blue "Fuck You Johnny Reb, We're Here To Do It Again You Bastards" uniforms, would be sent to tear that despicable rag to shreds wherever they found it, including motorcycle and pickup truck paint jobs and tattoos.
It was inevitable that The South would rise again. Shit floats. Perhaps we need to flush it again.
I propose that April 9 be designated an annual National Holiday called "We Kicked The Crackers' Asses Day" or "They Started It And We Ended It Day" or maybe "Those Fucking Traitors Should Thank Their Lucky Stars We Didn't Kill 'Em All Like We Should Have Day".
Surrender at Appomattox, 1865
With his army surrounded, his men weak and exhausted, Robert E. Lee realized there was little choice but to consider the surrender of his Army to General Grant. After a series of notes between the two leaders, they agreed to meet on April 9, 1865, at the house of Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Courthouse. The meeting lasted approximately two and one-half hours and at its conclusion the bloodliest conflict in the nation's history neared its end.
Prelude to Surrender
On April 3, Richmond fell to Union troops as Robert E. Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia in retreat to the West pursued by Grant and the Army of the Potomac. A running battle ensued as each Army moved farther to the West in an effort to out flank, or prevent being out flanked by the enemy. Finally, on April 7, General Grant initiated a series of dispatches leading to a meeting between the two commanders.
Note to Secesh Who Won't Let It Die: That was 145 years ago. You were wrong to begin with, you never stood a chance, you started the war anyway, and you lost. Get the fuck over it. Our biggest mistake is letting you peckerwoods fly that goddam slave flag. If it was up to me, the US Army, the same one that kicked your cracker ass, perhaps in nice blue "Fuck You Johnny Reb, We're Here To Do It Again You Bastards" uniforms, would be sent to tear that despicable rag to shreds wherever they found it, including motorcycle and pickup truck paint jobs and tattoos.
It was inevitable that The South would rise again. Shit floats. Perhaps we need to flush it again.
A tip o' the Brain to Mrs. G who gave me the 'National Holiday' idea.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Doubleplus Ungood Palinspeak
TrueSlant
From McWhorter. Worth a read.
Yep. Sure is. Next case...
A flashlight with a dim bulb and low batteries panning over not much thought. It works for her given her audience. A strong light on her thoughts would reveal a vast wasteland into which she happily leads others for money. The difference between her and the Pied Piper is that she wants the rats to take over Hamelin. And if they don't pay her, she'll leave the children there and just make them as stupid as their parents.
In an academically rich yet entertaining post, linguist John McWhorter explains what exactly it is about Sarah Palin’s speaking abilities that gives some people pause:
Social scientists and historians could probably spend lifetimes studying how a woman barely capable of stringing together a noun and a verb — let alone possessing meaningful understanding of the complex issues facing us — is also such a remarkably skilled politician as to stake out as her own territory the entire landscape of troubled and dreary right-wing America.
From McWhorter. Worth a read.
It’s not quite Bushspeak, which, with the likes of “I know what it’s like to put food on my family,” was replete with flagrantly misplaced words with a frequency that made for guesses, not completely in jest, that he might suffer from a mild form of Wernicke’s aphasia, interfering with matching word shapes to meanings. (Bush the father wasn’t much better in this regard—there just wasn’t an internet to make collecting the slips and spreading them around so easy.)
Rather, Palin is given to meandering phraseology of a kind suggesting someone more commenting on impressions as they enter and leave her head rather than constructing insights about them. Or at least, insights that go beyond the bare-bones essentials of human cognition — an entity (i.e. something) and a predicate (i.e. something about it).
The easy score is to flag this speech style as a sign of moronism. [..]
Yep. Sure is. Next case...
Palinspeak is a flashlight panning over thoughts, rather than thoughts given light via considered expression. [...]
A flashlight with a dim bulb and low batteries panning over not much thought. It works for her given her audience. A strong light on her thoughts would reveal a vast wasteland into which she happily leads others for money. The difference between her and the Pied Piper is that she wants the rats to take over Hamelin. And if they don't pay her, she'll leave the children there and just make them as stupid as their parents.
FauxNews poll finds Americans favor ‘IRS’ over ‘Tea Party’
Don't worry. F**Noise will no doubt protect their viewers from this startling news by suppressing the results of their own poll. Heh.
Raw Story, lotsa links.
Note to the teabaggers (there must be some of you who can read well enough to slowly read this): If the IRS is more popular than you are, you should shoot yourself.
There are some other poll results from this and other polls that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but buried way down the piece is this jewel:
Trailer Trash Barbie hasn't got a fuckin' clue about anything other than gullible people will pay to hear her shit, nor does she have much in the way of 'principles', but she sure has a big screechy mouth and at a hunnert large a time she'll do whatever you want, sailor.
Raw Story, lotsa links.
After months upon months of enthusiastic, cheer-leading coverage of any rally that involved tea, tea bagging or tea partying, the Fox News network has miraculously disproved itself by producing a new poll that finds Americans think more highly of the Internal Revenue Service than they do the vocal conservative minority.
Note to the teabaggers (there must be some of you who can read well enough to slowly read this): If the IRS is more popular than you are, you should shoot yourself.
There are some other poll results from this and other polls that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy, but buried way down the piece is this jewel:
Because of her recent speech to the 67th annual Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America expo (which received rather bitter reviews), Palin was offered $25,000 by Nevadans for Sensible Marijuana Laws to give a short pep talk to their group. "There's no reason why former Governor Palin should reject our offer," a spokesman jokingly said, citing how much safer cannabis is than alcohol.
One possible reason why she'd decline: according to The New York Times, Palin charges up to $100,000 per appearance -- something that even tea partiers have chided her for and a fee the alcohol purveyors presumably paid.
Though she did not address any issues specific to the wine and spirits industries, Palin did emphasize one term in particular during her speech to the conference. According to Tom Wark's wine blog, she was all about "deregulation" in a fuzzy, non-specific sense: likely the wrong theme to employ while speaking to a room of professionals who serve an industry that strongly supports special regulations springing from the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which Palin would now appear to be against, just on general principle.
Trailer Trash Barbie hasn't got a fuckin' clue about anything other than gullible people will pay to hear her shit, nor does she have much in the way of 'principles', but she sure has a big screechy mouth and at a hunnert large a time she'll do whatever you want, sailor.
The Double Down Death Bomb
Mark Morford is on today about the most disgusting fast food yet.
I like fried chicken, bacon, and cheese, but not like that. Yuck.
I love a good fast food burger once in a while, but I haven't eaten any KFC for years, ever since I found out they use Tyson chicken. Tyson is a big Repug donor and treats his employees poorly. I don't even wanta think about what he does to the chickens.
Behold, the KFC Double Down sandwich. It is, if you really want to know, two slabs of fried chicken intersliced with two pieces of bacon, two slabs of cheese, and the Colonel's "special sauce." It comes in the form of a sandwich, with the fried chicken where the bread used to be. It's sort of hilarious. It's sort of perfect. And then it'll probably make you vomit.
I like fried chicken, bacon, and cheese, but not like that. Yuck.
Of course, it's sort of a foregone conclusion, a rigged game. This vile meatwich is crammed like a grenade with sodium, sugar, fat and chemicals. Ergo, the testers, presumably people with taste buds devastated by years of cramming similar compost into their guts, thought it was pure nirvana. And then their colons exploded.
I love a good fast food burger once in a while, but I haven't eaten any KFC for years, ever since I found out they use Tyson chicken. Tyson is a big Repug donor and treats his employees poorly. I don't even wanta think about what he does to the chickens.
It's war I tell ya ...
Whaddya mean we can only drink beer at lunch?
...
Warehouse workers at Danish brewing giant Carlsberg are striking because management has decided that the employees may no longer have their customary three free bottled beers a day at the workplace, reports Business.dk.
Carlsberg has implemented a new workplace alcohol policy that now limits employees to one bottle of beer a day at lunchtime.
That move resulted in employees at the brewer’s Fredericia facility to strike yesterday. This morning, workers at Carlsberg’s Terminal East morning shift in suburban Høje Taastrup also left the worksite prior to their shifts in protest of the new policy.
...
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Quote of the Day
El Rude-o:
... The whole of the interview was like watching three wildebeests fuck each other - awkward, stupid-looking, and mostly goddamned funny ...
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