The Daily Brief

Rejoice!

The White House says it has created saved 650,000 jobs!

Of course, that’s about the number of folks that got fired last week. And the net number of jobs that have been lost in the past two months. And it’s a bit of a theoretical number, to say the least.

What I like is that the newsreaders at NPR are able to report ‘created or saved’ jobs on the news with nary a snigger nor a smile in their voice.  Treating a made-up, theoretical, bullshit number as actual news can’t be easy.

I, myself, created or saved a few jobs last week.  True, I ate lunch at home and thus did not save or create jobs at McDonalds or Subway.  But I did create or save jobs for the guys that deliver peanut butter and jelly and bread at the grocery.  Not to mention the guys that make peanut butter and jelly and bread and all the people that depend on them.

Just doing Our Part for the Recovery.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

It’s raining – you should take an umbrella.

Marines don’t carry umbrellas, I replied.

And just like that the conversation ground to a halt in a cloud of frowny faces and incomprehension.

I’ve been brainwashed.

It is true that Marines don’t carry umbrellas. I have been told, and have no reason to doubt, that there is a Marine Corps Order forbidding this.

Naval officers may carry umbrellas, of course. And probably everyone in the Air Force [1] not only may carry an umbrella but are issued their own umbrella in boot camp and lug one around like Marines carry their rifles.

But Marines must be ready to, on a moment’s notice repel intruders and do battle with the forces of darkness and E-vil. To draw a bayonet with one hand, an M1911 [2] with the other and with the third hand [4] fire an M16 with cold-eyed precision.

Carrying an umbrella would get in the way of all that.

Now, the forces of darkness are highly unlikely to ambush me on the way to the data center [5] so there is no earthly reason why I should not carry an umbrella. Except I don’t. Because it would feel wrong.

Because I have been brainwashed by the Marines to believe it is Just Not Done.

There are a lot of things I now firmly believe with every fiber of my being. How much is a result of spending a few years in the Marines and how much I just picked up on my own is a good question.

All I know is, men don’t carry umbrellas

[1] Any Marine will tell you at the drop of a hat that the Air Force houses their men and women not in barracks but dormitories. And they hire maids to clean up after them in the dormitories.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I am learning how to dance.  Salsa.  With Marissa Garcia and Mike Bassette from Latin Stylz in Oshkosh.

Joe Bob says ‘Check ’em out’.

And it is not so bad. I have found out that dance has a lot in common with close order drill.

Well shucks: anyone can learn close order drill.

There are stylized movements.  You can execute, say, Move A but only from Position B.  Everything happens on a beat.  There is a designated leader, and a designated follower.

There are differences:  Things move a bit faster.  The company is more congenial.  And the music sure ain’t no ‘Semper Fidelis’.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Middle Daughter, [1] talking about me: He is so judgmental.

Example?

MD: Like … he said that a twenty-five year old should have a better job [2] than working at Wendy’s. And that if a guy goes to jail that he’s bad.

Monkeys, [3] in Greek Chorus Mode: He’s right!

Ah yes: I am raising them well.

She is right about the judgmental thing. It’s a flaw, and I know it.

But she is focused on judgment to the exclusion of mercy and forgiveness.

Which reminded me of the great Lou Reed’s “Beginning of a Great Adventure”

It might be fun to have a kid that I could kick around
Create in my own image like a god
I’d raise my own pallbearers to carry me to my grave
And keep me company when I’m a wizened toothless clod

Some gibbering old fool sitting all alone drooling on his shirt
Some senile old fart playing in the dirt
It might be fun to have a kid I could pass something on to
Something better than rage, pain, anger, and hurt

[1] She is 16.
[2] The fellow in question is not a manager, he’s working the counter.
[3] Boys, aged fourteen and nine.

Dear Everyone,

Thanks to your generosity the ARRA has provided funding for the following in my fair city

• A 20 hour per week library employee.
• $512,000 for the Adams Street Bridge.
• $500,000 for the reconstruction of West Wisconsin Avenue.
• $1,200,000 for a detention pond on Commerce Court.
• $31,000 to fund a regional crime analyst position.

Thanks everybody!  We sure do appreciate your tax dollars. 

Except … that money has not yet been spent.  The bridge remains in it’s per-ARRA condition, the detention pond is a wet dream, the two employees are un-hired.

So what’s going on here? [1]

I suggest that part of the reason for the red-line – reality – to be screaming skyward like an F-15 on afterburner [2] is that the bulk of the ARRA funds are unspent.

Contrary to what ‘everyone’ was saying, that there were not a whole lot of ‘shovel-ready’ projects.  The funds are hanging around in limbo not doing anyone a bit of good.[3]

Something jerks mightily on his back: the static line, still attached to the airplane God forbid that American fighting men should be entrusted to pull their own ripcords. He can just imagine the staff meeting where they dreamed up the concept of the static line: “For God’s sake, General, they’re just enlisted men! As soon as they jump out of the airplane they’ll probably start daydreaming about their girlfriends, take a few hits from their pocket flasks, catch forty winks, and before you know it they’ll all pile into the ground at a couple of hundred miles an hour!”

I am so, so, glad we have actual professionals handing this stuff so we don’t mess it up.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Altered image gleefully nicked from TJIC.
[2] Warning!  Cheesy 1970s action and adventure music.
[3] They probably are in an account earning interest at some minuscule rate, but one imagine bales of cash stacked up on loading docks and warehoused in offices around metro D.C. while some serious bureaucratic wrangling goes on.  Good thing money doesn’t loose value just sitting around!

Yippy. Skippy.

In Cincinnati tomorrow, President Obama will announce that he’s appointing Ron Bloom his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, White House sources tell ABC News.

Qualifications?  An MBA [1].  Worked as an investment banker.  Then he became the special assistant to the president of the USW.

A banker who worked for a union is going to advise the President on manufacturing policy.

Via TJIC.
Graphic via SB7.
Title Reference.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] I ain’t even going to go into ‘involvement‘ with Labor Zionist.  What the hell is that about?

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

A MAD MAD MAD MAD world.

Recently, Hillary Clinton stated that–should Iran obtain nuclear weapons–we will protect countries in the region by including them under a “defense umbrella.” What does she mean by a defense umbrella?…given this administration’s hostility to antimissile technology, it should be pretty clear that she does not mean a comprehensive missile defense system. Rather, she means that the U.S. will retaliate against Iran with nuclear weapons should it launch a nuclear weapon at any of the protected countries. (During her Presidential campaign, Ms Clinton spoke of “massive retaliation” by the U.S. against Iran should that country attack Israel with nuclear weapons.)

The finest minds of our generation – to contain a second-rate [1] power – are unable to come up with a strategy other than “incinerate each other’s civilians“.

And to go on to beat this sucker into the ground – can anyone see the Current Occupant [2] trading Chicago for Az Zarqa?

Tip o’ the hat for the title.

[1] Second-rate in technical terms, not pejorative.
[2] Whoever it is.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Oh well played, Vanity Fair: a man’s job.

If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. Just how poorly constructed was the governor’s holiday-weekend address? We asked V.F.’s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape.

VF got their mitts on a speech designed to be listened to, edited that sucker to be read.  Had the girls from research green-ink a few phrases.  Copy-edited a transcript written by a third party.

You sure showed them who is the ignorant yahoo.

By ‘them’ I mean the suckers who subscribe to Vanity Fair and by ‘yahoo’ I mean the editor who green-lighted that feature. 

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

From The Huffington Post: Is Sarah Palin the First Post-Modern Politician?

It was very postmodern of Palin to characterize her resignation – an outrageous act by any reasonable standard – as a principled refusal to “go with the flow.” Her vision of politics is so profoundly radical that even performing the duties of office becomes unimportant. The job you sought is no longer the point. It’s all about the performance. It’s politics as Conceptual Art.

Well, maybe.  It sure is unusual.  Perhaps extreme times call for extreme measures?

The comments there and elsewhere grabbed my attention.  The loathing and the mockery is .. a little off-putting.  Like this one.

Terrye — I agree (and disagree as I close this note) it’s been a nightmare for her — but it’s not her fault it’s the people that put faith in her and give her a false confidence. Her ilk is not fit to govern — stew potatos and pluck chickens ya, have a position of governance in the USA na.

‘Her ilk is not fit to govern’.  That just sums up the whole enchilada right there. 

You, woman, you went to the wrong school: shut up.  You, boy, you eschewed college for a few years in the Marines and live in a drive-past town: let your betters do the Big Thinking.  You .. poor person on the wrong side of the tracks: here are some zesty government handouts.  Just .. stay on your side of town, hmn?

Imagine what people like ‘nyomythus’ think about guys like me?  Or you?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Kids these days get cool toys. Case in point?

The army is replacing the M203 with the M320. The new grenade launcher can be detached and used standalone. 

And it comes with a laser range finder.

I am all jealous and stuff.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Spy Chips Guiding CIA Drone Strikes, Locals Say

It sounds like a tinfoil hat nightmare, come to life: tiny electronic homing beacons, guiding CIA killer drones to their targets. But local residents and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal wildlands say that’s exactly what’s happening. Tribesman in Waziristan are being paid to “plant the electronic devices” near militant safehouses, they tell the Guardian. “Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles.”

Targeting by underpaid locals.  Blowing up houses – and we dunno who is in them!  That’s pretty damned bad. And a whole bunch of people [1] used this as a springboard to get all angry at the United States and the military in particular.

Run this part past your MK I eyeballs and feed the data to your brain-housing group.

local residents and Taliban militants .. say that’s exactly what’s happening.

Are you people so damned uncritical in your thinking that you just accept foolishness at face value?  Do you not recognize bullshit when you step in it? 

A group of zealots have declared war on our culture.  They do not like us.  They have killed many thousands of people in the West.  Do you expect their news releases to be full of Truth and Sunshine?

Guys like the Taliban – this may come as a shock, brace yourself – will lie to you.  They want to win and lying to the gullible is a cheap way to make that happen.

And many many tens of thousands of y’all just accept their shit as if it were sunshine.

Y’all need to cut that out and engage your brains.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Christopher is not the only one I read who is guilty of this.  But he is the only person whose link I bothered to save.

I do not think Cromwell would go over well today. 

He’d be all ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ‘ and we’d be all ‘dude, don’t harsh the mellow.’

Yet – when Our Betters in Congress seem intent on pillaging the treasury and feel no compunction to follow the laws they enact – this kind of thing starts sounding real good.

Oliver Cromwell’s Speech on the Dissolution of the Long Parliament
Given to the House of Commons

20 April 1653

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you?

Is there one vice you do not possess?

Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes?

Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone!

So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The White House barnstormed NYC in order to take publicity photos.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

And won’t release the pictures.

“We have no plans to release them,” an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

Well isn’t that special.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

‘Should be’ is political speak for ‘only when convenient’.  George Orwell is not surprised.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Picture via.
Caption via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Michelle wore a pair of $540 shoes to a food bank?

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Symbolic budget cuts.

“So one of the things — messages that I delivered today to all members of the Cabinet was, ‘As well as you’ve already done, you’re going to have to do more.’ I’m asking for all of them to identify at least $100 million in additional cuts to their administrative budgets,” he said.

Bit by bit, line by line, $100 million by $100 million he’s going to earn our trust.

How dumb does he think we are?

SB7 did up a table to put it in perspective.


spending:       $ 3,500,000,000,000
deficit:        $ 1,200,000,000,000
requested cuts:       $ 100,000,000


$100 million represents .003 percent of the 2010 budget.

Think of it in terms of a middle-class family budget: it’s cutting out a single Happy Meal during the next fiscal year.

Isn’t that a drop in the bucket, the concerned reporter spouse asks?

“It is and that’s what I just said,” the president said. “None of these things alone are going to make the difference but cumulatively, they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. So what we’re going to do is line by line, page by page, $100 million a Happy Meal there, $100 million a Starbucks Latte here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.”

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

2/7 Marine awarded Navy Cross. And meritorious promotion to Corporal. Go. Read.

Dude was manning the turret machine gun in an MRAP. Vehicle took an RPG.  Which partially amputated the gunner’s leg.  And stunned the driver.  Which left the vehicle stuck in the killing zone.

Gustafson stayed at his position returning effective fire and blowing up bad guys.

And reloaded the gun, which requires presence of mind and dexterity.

Twice.

Jesus wept – where do we get men like that?

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

You can make the Dog play dead.

Bang! Dead Dog.

You can make the Dog stay dead.

All the way dead.

With bacon on her muzzle.

I said all the way dead.

But good luck keeping her from rolling her eyes and drooling when she’s playing dead with bacon draped across her muzzle.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

In Last Week’s Episode ..

Congress wrote into a bill that allowed AIG to pay bonus money. President Obama signed the bill into law.

Congress and the President got on their moral high-horse and said how awful it was that AIG followed the letter of the law.

Congress is passing a bill that taxes those bonus monies at 90%.

Which is prohibited by the Constitution.

Regardless of how you feel about the specific matter – does anyone think that de-facto changing our tax policy from progressive to confiscatory is a good idea?

Links ..

They told me that when Bush was President ..

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

– clonk – clonk – clonk –

Older Monkey, why are you hitting the driveway with a shovel?

I’m not hitting the driveway.

Um …

I’m moving the ice.

Okay …

Into the sun.

Because ..

So it will melt faster.

We are so ready for spring.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Would you be willing to:

Attend a church service with your entire family knowing that the fellow parishioner sitting next to you has a handgun tucked in his belt?

I’d rather shoot an armed thug from 10 yards away than run over there and tackle his ass.

Perhaps I’m just lazy.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Fred Winters, his family and the congregation of First Baptist.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

We saw Taken last night.  My wife’s review?

The movie was very good and kept us on the edge of our seat. It was great to see a parent be able to beat up a slew of bad guys and save his daughter, although it was a bit disconcerting to see he wasn’t the least bit concerned with other people’s daughters and their safe return. You’d think someone that had lost his little girl would have had a bit more compassion, but hey, he saved his girl and it was great.

It is a kick-ass movie, oh yes.

Thought the First.  It wasn’t, I think, that he was unconcerned about the girls, but that Liam Neeson’s character is a guy.  A guy on a mission.  A guy who is focused.  He’s got a job to do and not a whole lot of time to do it in.  This is, I think, a very guy kind of a trait and very much who the character was.

Thought the Second.  There is a scene where he is talking with some Bad Men – and from their actions he is not a guy speaking English but a guy speaking French so well that they think he is a Parisian cop.

Which probably meant that he and they were speaking French. Fine, the part of me that is good at ignoring dumb stuff can handle it.

But oh, Hollywood, how you vex me! I and about 100% of the public would have been fine with Neeson breaking out the Francais and cluing us in with sub-titles. We can handle it.

Final Thought.  This is very much a fantasy movie for realistic down-to-earth guys in the way that Anita Blake is smut for gals from the Midwest who would not dream of looking at the naughty stuff.

The bad guys are messing with his baby.  There is no time for police or the authorities and the only thing that will save her is a whole lot of ass-kicking and gunfire and clued-in friends with secret-scary access to government databases.

And then he does that thing.  And he wins despite long odds against him.  Because he is such a bad-ass he doesn’t have to look like Harrison Ford or Stallone – he’s just Liam Neeson.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The payback for obligatory attendance at middle school concerts is being privileged to attend your spawn’s high school concerts: good music played well by youth is a fine thing.

Hearing Ashokan Farewell played with skill and joy?  Took me right out of winter and clean into a warm summer evening: that was bliss.

Ashokan Farewell – Jay Ungar

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Me: Hey, wait a second. The README claims we need sqlite3 on your webserver. I’m not sure it’s installed …

Her: Give it a shot.

Me: (aghast) But … if sqlite3 is not on the server it won’t work.

And we run smack-bang into a divide more fundamental than the male-female thing: the ones who check things out before launching and the ones who give it a shot and see if it flies or splats into a wall.

God love her, my beautiful and attractively intelligent wife falls firmly into the latter camp.

I fall firmly into the camp whose theme song contains this verse ..

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not preach that His Pity allows them to drop their job when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s ways may be long in the land.

Oh, and her revamped web site is up and running. Joe Bob says check it out.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Everything moves faster these days. Music has a faster tempo – I find some pop songs that I remember from the 80s as fast and peppy drag along. Television from the 70s – when it’s aired uncut – seems to take forever to get to the point and horribly static.

Heck, even politics moves faster than it used to: it took less than a month for President Obama to break seven campaign promises …

1. Make government open and transparent.

2. Make it “impossible” for Congressmen to slip in pork barrel projects.

3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. (Even Congressional Republicans shut out.)

4. No more secrecy.

5. Public will have 5 days to look at a bill.

6. You’ll know what’s in it.

7. We will put every pork barrel project online.

Via.

Breaking promises is par for the course with politicians.  But a) this guy was supposed to be different [1] and b) has anyone so explicitly promised a set of talking points and then gone back in less than a month?

A comment from Chicago Boys ..

The Ghost Shirt Democrats are doing their dance, but the vast herds of union-member Democrat-voting buffalo will never return to the plains, and [the] magic ghost shirts will not turn the ballots of angry voters into water [in] 2010 and 2012. Of course, the Republicans could still blow it, but even if they do, the Democrats have shown in a few short weeks that they have no idea how to govern the country, just to loot it. They will be replaced, if not by Republicans, then by somebody else.

Maybe.  We’ll see.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] Yes, even I believed he would be.  And there I was, trusting a politician, like a sucker.