I'm leaving tomorrow for Breckinridge, Colorado for a few days of skiing. I'll be back next Wednesday. No, I'm not having any guest bloggers. I'll leave you with some new medicines that I got from Woody.
Medicines that should be on the market.....
D A M N I T O L
Take 2 and the rest of the world can go to hell for up to 8 full hours.
ST. M O M M A'S W O R T
Plant extract that treats mom's depression by rendering preschoolers unconscious for up to two days.
E M P T Y N E S T R O G E N
Suppository that eliminates melancholy and loneliness by reminding you of how awful they were as teenagers and how you couldn't wait till they moved out.
P E P T O B I M B O
Liquid silicone drink for single women. Two full cups swallowed before an evening out increases breast size, decreases intelligence, and prevents conception.
D U M B E R O L
When taken with Peptobimbo, can cause dangerously low IQ, resulting in enjoyment of country music and pickup trucks.
F L I P I T O R
Increases life expectancy of commuters by controlling road rage and the urge to flip off other drivers.
M E N I C I L L I N
Potent anti-boy-otic for older women. Increases resistance to such lethal lines as, "You make me want to be a better person ... Can we get naked now?.."
B U Y A G R A
Injectable stimulant taken prior to shopping. Increases potency, duration, and credit limit of spending spree.
J A C K A S S P I R I N
Relieves headache caused by a man who can't remember your birthday, a nniversary, or phone number.
A N T I T A L K S I D E N T
A spray carried in a purse or wallet to be used on anyone too eager to share their life stories with total strangers in elevators.
N A G A M E N T
When administered to a husband, provides the same irritation level as nagging him all weekend, saving the wife the time and trouble of doing
it herself.
And the latest on the French Mars probe, also from Woody.
FRENCH MARS PROBE SURRENDERS
Robotic Arm Extends White Flag
The French space program took a significant step backward today as the European Space Agency announced that a much-heralded French Mars probe surrendered just moments after landing on the red planet.
The probe, which had been expected to travel extensively across the surface of Mars to collect and analyze rock samples, stunned the French nation by surrendering only eight seconds into its mission.
As millions of astonished Frenchmen watched on national TV, the probe extended a robotic arm -- designed to scoop up rocks from the surface of Mars - and raised a white flag aloft, waving it back and forth.
The probe then used a robotic shovel to dig a hole in the Martian surface before disappearing into the hole, apparently hiding.
At a press conference in Paris, French President Jacques Chirac denied that the probe had surrendered, arguing, "This mission was always intended to be eight seconds long. The probe has performed courageously and superbly."
Despite earlier announced plans for the French Mars probe to exchange information about the surface of Mars with the American Mars probes, Mr. Chirac said, "The Americans will have to go it alone."
In other news, Hollywood's annual Golden Globes celebration was disrupted Sunday night when former Vermont Governor Howard Dean took the stage to denounce the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for not naming him Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.
After excoriating the Golden Globe voters, Mr. Dean began shouting a partial list of U.S. states in no particular order before being escorted offstage by security personnel.
I went to my friend Cindy's for a light dinner and to watch the results of the New Hampshire primary. Kerry got 39% of the fucking vote. Dull! Dull! Dull!
Dammit! Dean didn't do an I Had a Scream Speech. And if Kerry's wife can't keep that stupid serape on her fucking shoulder she should quit wearing it.
I almost feel sorry for Lieberman trying to put the best spin on being defeated by Edwards and Weasley Clark. Senator Snagglepuss, it's all over. Cindy said Lieberman reminds her more of Eyore. Come to think of it he does.
I still have to get a shovel out and clean up the house somewhat since the cleaning lady is coming tomorrow so I'm cutting it short tonight.
That's all folks.
How good is your vision and where is your mind.
Research has shown that young children cannot identify the intimate couple because they do not have prior memory associated with such scenario.
What they will see are the nine dolphins.
Additional note: This is a test to determine if you already have a corrupted mind. If it's hard for you to find the dolphins within 6 seconds, your mind is indeed corrupted.
If you cannot see any dolphins look at the woman's crotch. That is the tail of one of the dolphins. Do you see them now?
Since I've been called a "knee jerk conservative" and a "right wing loon" (And those are the nice things I've been called), I guess it is time for me to talk about abortion. Am I against it? Yes, I am. Do I want to make it illegal? No, I do not. So let's take it one at a time.
But before I do, I hate the terms they use. Why don't they just come right out and say it? The pro-life people are anti-abortion. The right to choose people are pro-abortion. Those are the terms I use.
Why am I anti-abortion? I guess that gets us into the old debate as to when life begins. According to Weasley Clark, life begins when the mother says so. That covers a lot of ground doesn't it?
What about life beginning when the fetus can survive outside of its mother's womb? Medical science has advanced to such a degree that we find that occurs earlier and earlier. So, is aborting a viable fetus, who can survive outside of its mother's womb infanticide?
That's the quandry isn't it? And that's my problem. To me that is murder.
On the other hand, as a libertarian, I do not think the gummint should be allowed to place a gun to a woman's head and force her to carry the baby to term. I am morally against abortion, but I do not want the gummint to prohibit it. If abortion is illegal, we'll go back to the back alley abortions with the attendant risks to the health of the mother.
I want to tackle the problem of abortion another way. At least the use of abortion as a method of birth control.
What's the easiest way to prevent abortions? Easy. Prevent pregnancies. And this is where I'm really pissed off at the Catholic Church or any other religion that is against birth control. They believe that there is a God who created us. If so, that God also gave us a brain and gave us free will. We know how to prevent pregnancy and it is not the rhythm method. Do you know what you call people who use the rhythm method? Parents.
I'm for sex education in the schools and it doesn't bother me a bit if the schools give out condoms. Not all teenagers are gonna abstain from sex. Geez! At 16 I was a mess of raging hormones.
I know of women who have talked openly about sex with their daughters and have put them on the pill in high school. Yeah, they should wait until they're older, but wishing it wouldn't happen ain't gonna make it not happen.
Some say the country is getting more conservative. I don't think so. I think the Dimocrats have turned into socialists and the Republicans have turned into Dimocrats. But, if the country is indeed getting more conservative, maybe it's because all the children that would have been born to liberals and raised by liberals were aborted by liberals. It's a thought.
Anyway, here is one time that I actually agree with Bill Clinton, I think abortion
should be safe, legal, and rare.
I almost forgot to post the Monday pun from my friend Richard. Here 'tis.
One day, a farmer noticed water oozing from the dam that protected his
fields. He ignored the leak. Many months later, he awoke to find his
house filled with rising water. The trickle had become a gusher. The
farmer improvised a raft from one of the doors and used a board as an
oar. He escaped just before the dam burst. The moral of the story: As
ye seep, so shall ye row.
Will someome just bitch slap some sense into Tom Friedman? In his latest column, he talks about "moderate Arabs". BWAHAHAHAHA! Isn't moderate Arab an oxymoron? Midway through the column I came to this gem:
So what to do? A lot of help can and should come from Europe. Although America is often the target, Europe has been the real factory of Arab-Muslim rage. Europe has done an extremely poor job of integrating and employing its growing Muslim minorities, many of which have a deep feeling of alienation. And Europe has done a very poor job of investing in North Africa and the Middle East — its natural backyard
Integrating Muslim minorities? Tom, I got some news for you. You cannot integrate people who do not want to be integrated. These buttwipes have left their own sorry excuses for countries, but have brought along the culture that caused those countries to fail. They do not want to be integrated. They want to keep their beliefs that women are inferior and need to be covered from head to toe by a fucking tent. They then take out their rage on women who don't and rape them. Their excuse is to blame the women for not wearing modest clothing.
And I blame this lack of integration on the multiculturists, those liberal assholes who preach that all cultures are equal. Yeah, western democracies are equal to hell holes where women are inferior and can be stoned for adultery.
Here in the United States, the liberal multiculturists gave us bilingual education. Now that is a real impediment to integration and assimilation. One of an immigrant's first priorities when moving to a new country should be to learn the language. But that's not what the do gooder multiculturists think. They think that educating them in their own language will help them enter our society. They are wrong! Not learning English keeps them in low paying menial jobs.
The best way to learn a new language is by total immersion. Children can pick up a language faster than adults and the sooner they start, the better. Bilingual education is counter productive. It harms the people it should be helping.
Throughout the history of the United States, the first generation of immigrants would arrive in many cases speaking little or no English. The children would pick up English in school. Our culture would absorb their culture, but would not eliminate it. That is why we celebrate Columbus Day with the Italians. We celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Irish. We celebrate Octoberfest with the Germans. We celebrate Chinese New Year with the Chinese. We celebrate our ethnic roots, but, all these people learned English and integrated themselves into American society.
The multicultural dipshits, in the name of Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) want to balkanize this country. They are trying to stop what made this country great. They are trying to eliminate the melting pot.
I hope they don't succeed.
Some dickhead named Ben posted the following in the comments section of this post:
Could you please look a little some things ;- 225 years of history ... we have been here for centuries
- You people of the US, you all came from Europe ...
- Manhatan was founded by a belgian man
- You never had any war on your territory unless civil war opposing north and south
- I think it was Einstein that said: "Americans went from barbary to decadence without even knowing what's civilization ...."Think about it, i know every us inhabitant think like you, i hope it, because US has a pittyfull doom with people like you ...
It's not i don't like US, but i hate people like you speaking without knowing, with people like there can only be war ...
Not to be undone, someone (maybe the same person) posted the follwing 23 minutes later:
Just a question ... do you have history classes when you are about 8-15 years old ? Here in Europe we learn history from all countries af the world, not only ours, and we study history of america ... could you please open histry books, try to understand how wars here in Europe came to reality, and .. if i remember ... US came to the allies only once Pearl Harbour bombing took place .. am i wrong ? you only came to europe to kick the ass of the man tha had allies who kicked YOUR ass .... you americans are only vengeance .... it's the only word tha guide you through life I think i have read on the top of this page, that french people (i am not french) is the people that have less soap per inhabitant ? I think You americans are the people with less culture per inhabitant ... You do not have enough teachers (i have some friends who came to your country to learn young us children some culture ...) Please ... try to understand that we do not hate you, we hate your BEHAVIOUR!!!!!
Ben also posted some bullshit article that I deleted since I do not like long articles using up my server space.
Here is my reply to these two bogger eatin' moh-rons.
Sigh - Why do I even try to educate you dimwits?
Ben - Actually close to 400 years of history, but we only officially became a nation in 1776. Since then we have become the most powerful country in the world. Unless you do something about your welfare state and growing Muslim population, France will be a third world country in another 20 years. History has passed you by Ben.
Actually we came from Europe, Africa and Asia. What's your point?
Who cares who founded Manhattan? St. Louis was founded by the French. Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish? Have you ever heard the term "melting pot"? What's your point?
Actually we had the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. What's your point?
You Europeans have been there for centuries and you have been fighting wars for centuries, You buttheads drug us into the last two wars. The Europeans who founded this country left Europe because you people were a bunch of fuckwits.
And believe me I know since I have read a lot of history. Why are we pissed at France? Because we had to save your sorry asses twice and you dickheads hate us for it. It wouldn't have bothered us if you had stayed neutral but you actively opposed us in the Iraq war. As far as I'm concerned that makes you the enemy.
And yes I am anti-French because you actively opposed us and obstructed us in the war. Why should we reward French companies with reconstruction contracts? Don't tell me to think when your thought processes are that defective.
As for Libya, y'all had nothing to do with that. Libya was a result of the Iraq war. Qadaffy did not want to suffer the same fate as Saddam.
I'm deleting the article. It's my bandwidth and I don't allow people to clog it up with bullshit articles. If you want to post an article, get your own blog.
To the person asking about history classes, when I went to school in the 50's and 60's we did have history classes. I still read history. And if you will read your history, you would know that we were actually shipping supplies to England before we got into WWII. Did you ever hear about the Lend Lease Program? Probably not. And who rebuilt Europe after WWII? Did you ever hear about the Marshall Plan? The American taxpayers paid for that, not the French and not the Germans. And who protected you dipshits during the Cold War? Read your own fucking history asswipe and maybe learn a little bit. We are the most generous country in the history of this planet. Europe lay in ruins after WWII. We rebuilt it and then protected it from the Soviet Union. We have always been gracious in victory and have treated our ex-enemies kindly. Europeans owe a lot to the United States, but they are so fucking jealous of our success they prefer to put us down.
And we don't have any culture? Sorry fuckwit, but the world seems to want to wear our blue jeans and eat our McDonald's and listen to our rock music. It may not be culture to you, but the rest of the world seems to like it. Just because we work hard and make a lot of money rather than not taking baths and sitting in coffee shops, smoking cigarettes, and discussing Sartre doesn't mean we don't have any culture. You French make good wine, good sailboats and passable cheese, but that's about it. Oh, and you surrender at the drop of a hat. How long do you think it's gonna take before Chirac gives in on the headscarf?
I have two words for you: Fuck off!
To: Dennis Kokonuts
From: Barbra Streisand
Dear Donnie,
Does it ever bother you that you are named after a breakfast cereal?
But that's not what this fax is about. I watched the debates from Vermont tonight. Well I didn't watch the whole thing because, quite frankly they're rather boring and I had to help Jim rehearse for his latest transmission commercial. I mean what's the point? Bush is a Nazi. What's there to debate about that? As Harold Dean said, we need to go to all those states and we need to take our country back.
Although I agree with a lot of your positions, and I know that before you became a Congressman, you were the mayor of Cinncinnati (and probably a good one) I'm asking you to drop out of the race and throw all of your support to Jimmy Looberman. As you know, he's a Jew and I'm a Jew and I think it is high time that we had a Jew as president. Who would be better at managing the finances of this country than a Jew? And, I really love his wife Madrassa.
I also think it is high time that we had an African-American as vice-president and I think Al Sharpton would be just the man for the job. He's not as cute since he got his hair cut, but he still is an excellent speaker. I'm looking forward to hearing him at the Democratic National Convention. I'm hoping he does real well in the South Georgia primary, or whatever that state is that comes after the Vermont primary. Deen knew all of those states. I can't keep track of them. There are just too many. Don't you just admire the passion of that man. I just loved it when he tossed his coat to that old guy, rolled up his sleeves, and started growling. He reminded me of a white Arsenio Hall.
So anyway Danny, I think that for the good of the party you should drop out like Carol Mostly Brown and Dirk Gotfart, and throw all your support behind Jack Leeberman. He's the only Democrat who could beat Jeb Bush.
Although I think that Joe Edwards guy is kind of cute.
Luv ya,
Babs
Aren't expectations wonderful? For example, during the 2000 debates Algore was supposed to be brilliant and Bush was supposed to be a moron. There were such low expectations for Bush all he had to do was show up and he could be successful. By holding his own and doing better than expected and beating the expectations, he won the debates.
So let's look at Iowa.
Dammit! I wish my friend Michael were not in France so I could say, "I told you so!" I told him if Gephardt didn't finish in the top two in Iowa he was done. Michael thought his union support would enable him to continue even if he didn't do well. The fact that he finished fourth when all the expectations were that he would finish in the top two, killed his campaign. He dropped out and returned to St. Louis. And now we're back to 7 dwarfs.
Howard Dean was also expected to finish in the top two. By not meeting expectations his campaign has suffered a real setback. He needs to finish in the top three in New Hampshire or he'll be in real trouble. It's not sumpin' he can't overcome, 'cause he has a lot of money, but South Carolina follows New Hampshire, and he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell there. Low expectations. I mean, the line in his stump speech (since changed) that he wanted to be the "candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks", didn't help him. It offended blacks and insulted white dudes in the South. And his tirade on Monday? The man sounded like a raving loon. I saw Ric Flair do the same schtick ten years ago. The networks have been playing that sound bite over and over again. This could turn out to be the equivalent of Muskie crying.
So there were the high expectations which brought two candidates crashing to earth. We also had low expectations.
Two weeks ago everyone had written John Kerry off. He even had to lend his campaign money by mortgaging his house. Then, bam! He wins in Iowa and he's back in the race. This is a mixed blessing. Now he's expected to finish at least in the top two in New Hampshire. If not, he'll be in trouble again. I don't expect that he'll do too well in South Carolina.
The big winner in Iowa was John Edwards. By finishing number two his campaign has gained a needed boost. But, the neat thing is, just like in Iowa, he's not expected to do well in New Hampshire. No matter what happens there, it will not hurt him. But, if he doesn't do well in South Carolina, he'll be in trouble.
What about Lieberman? If he doesn't finish in the top two in New Hampshire, after all the time he's spent there, he may as well hang it up.
What about Rev. Al? He actually stands a chance to do well in South Carolina. I think that even if he doesn't, the Dimocrats, to level the playing field, ought to just give him South Carolina's delegates. It would show that the Dimocrat Party is committed to affirmative action. Can I hear an amen?
Then there's Weasley Clark. No expectations so far, but by golly, he's gotta be the best candidate in the race. Know why? Because Madonna supports him. The only woman who knows more about politics than the material slut is Barbara Streisand. Maybe Madonna will start sending faxes to members of the Dimocrat Party. Be still my beating heart!
We still have a long way to go, but if I had to guess right now, I'd guess Kerry with Edwards as his VP. Three weeks ago, both Michael and I thought Dean would get the nomination. We just wondered about the VP slot. Back then I said Edwards. We'll see if I'm right.
Maybe Dean can come back. I hope so. I want to see another tirade!
Arrrrrwwwhhhh!
Didja miss the State of the Union speech tonight? Never fear. I watched it and I'll summarize it for you.
Bush was announced. He walked in. He shook a lot of hands. He hugged a little black girl. Cute kid.
He got up to the podium. Hastert announced him again. Lots of applause.
He started speaking. He thanked the Armed Forces. Lots of applause.
He mentioned tax relief. Lots of applause from the Republican side. None from the Dimocrats.
He brought up the prescription drugs for geezers. Applause from both sides of the aisle. Congress loves to spend money.
He brought up terrorism. He told the fuckers we're gonna get 'em. Lots of applause. More from Republicans than Dimocrats. They don't really like the War on Terror. It takes money from their plans to turn the United States into a socialist utopia.
He mentioned the Patriot Act. Republicans applauded. Dimocrats sat on their hands. He said it expired next year. Dimocrats applauded. He said he wanted it renewed. Republicans applauded.
He said we're setting up democracy in Afghanistan. Everyone applauded.
He said we freed Iraq. Republicans applauded. Dims didn't.
He said we found Saddam in a hole and now he's in prison. Republicans applauded. Dims did too but grudgingly.
He said Libya caved after Kadaffy saw what we did to Iraq. What was not spoken was, "I am not a pussy like Bill Clinton. Kadaffy saw what we did to Saddam and he didn't want it to happen to him. I don't blow up aspirin factories in the Sudan and goats in Afghanistan. If they fuck with me, I take them out. Iran and Korea better watch out."
The camera shows Ted Kennedy looking down shaking his head. One wonders what his older brother Jack would think of this bloated alcoholic asshole.
The camera shows Hitlary and she is scowling and looking like shit.
Bush cites many of the countries who have participated in our "unilateral" action in Iraq, including Great Britain, Australia, Poland, Italy, Spain, and seventeen other countries.
Education bullshit. Social promotion sucks!
More on taxes. Keep the tax cuts! Republicans applaud. Dimocrats don't. At this point, Britt Hume remarks that the Dimocrats seem to be pissed.
Modernize energy plants.
Social security accounts. Dimocrats pissed.
Immigration bullshit.
Health care bullshit:
1. Prescription drugs for geezers. Bad. At least until I turn 65.
2. Health savings accounts.
(Camera shows Kennedy is pissed.)
3. Eliminate frivilous lawsuits. Dimocrats are pissed since they are supported by trial lawyers.
4. Allow people to buy their own medical insurance and take the premiums off their taxes. Dimocrats really pissed because that would be an impediment to socialized medicine.
War on Drugs bullshit:
1. Drug testing in schools.
2. Eliminate steroids in pro sports.
Promote sexual abstinence in schools. Yeah. Like that's gonna work.
Defense of marriage.
Fund faith based charities.
Set up training programs for prisoners so they can get jobs when they get out of the joint.
"God bless America!" Everyone applauds. Bush leaves room shaking hands. Talking heads on TV start analyzing speech.
And, unlike Howard Dean, Bush did not take off his coat, roll up his sleeves, and start ranting and raving like a loon.
And there you have it: The State of the Union for 2004.
Howard the Doc is sinking in the polls. So what does he do? Howza 'bout a trek down to Georgia to see if he can get Jimmah Carter to endorse him? From the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.
Howard Dean may not have earned an endorsement from former President Jimmy Carter with his pilgrimage to Carter's hometown Sunday, but he did get an important boost from the senior Democratic statesman who drew parallels to his own race to the White House.
I don't know if I would like to be compared to one of the most incompetent presidents of the 20th Cenury.
Carter --- whose 1976 Iowa caucus victory put him on the political map --- told a packed congregation at Maranatha Baptist Church that he and Dean share more than their outrage over the war in Iraq.
Dean would probably be just as incompetent as Jimmah.
"Twenty-seven years ago, I was in the same position as Howard," Carter said during his Sunday school lesson. "When I won in Iowa, it surprised people."
And little did we know then how much he would fuck up as president.
Like Dean, Carter said, he "sometimes said things that had to be retracted," because of his shoot-from-the hip style.
In other words, he was a fucking idiot.
Like Dean, Carter said, he "was immersed in condemnations" from opponents.
Turns out most of the opponents were right.
And like Dean, Carter said, honesty became the sticking point of his campaign."My main issue when I was running for president was telling the truth," he said.
And dontcha just know that Bill Clinton learned not to make that mistake. And speaking of telling the truth, I just heard Dean, on Hardball, say that Jimmah Carter endorsed him. Sorry Howie. That's a lie.
Dean's Plains pit stop --- which lasted just a few hours --- was a last chance for the candidate to align himself with the popular former president before heading into the tight Iowa caucuses today.
And you could tell just how desperate Howie was. He had his wife, Judy Steinberg, (Oh wait! Now all of a sudden it's Judy Dean) fly out to make an appearance.
I think Howie screwed up his campaign in Iowa when he told that old Republican dude to sit down and shut up.
So it looks like Kerry is winning. John Edwards is coming in second. How the fuck did that happen? Dean is third. If he doesn't do well in New Hampshire he's toast and my friend Michael owes me a bottle of Delamain cognac. He's in France on a business trip (tasting wine) and when he finds out how poorly Dean did in Iowa he's gonna be in tears. I'm not too happy either. I was looking forward to having Dean as the Dimocrat nominee. And now Rachel Lucas won't be able to blog on how much she hates Howard the Doc.
Gephardt is toast. He's from Missouri and he can't do any better that fourth in Iowa? It's a good thing Michael isn't here 'cause I'd really be having fun. I told him Gephardt would be dead after New Hampshire. He's dead now.
I would have never thought that Kerry would win in Iowa. I never thought Edwards would finish number 2. Michael and I had a discussion about the VP nomination and I thought it would be Edwards. I'm looking even better and if Edwards can do well in New Hampshire, with South Carolina coming up he might be able to get the presidential nomination. Stranger things have happened.
I think Dean is finished. Too bad. He would have been a lot of fun during the regular campaign.
Kerry won Iowa? Where did that come from?
I am starting a new feature called the Monday Pun. Every Monday my friend Richard sends me a bad pun. I have decided to share the puns with you, my faithful readers.
Making money in the stock market is easy. Just buy stock in companies
that will merge. Here are merger predictions from Gary in New York,
who knows lots about these matters:
1. Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and
W. R. Grace Co. will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.
2. Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers will join
forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.
3. 3M will merge with Goodyear and issue forth as: MMMGood.
4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining
will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa.
5. FedEx is expected to join its major competitor, UPS, and
become: FedUP.
6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become:
Fairwell Honeychild.
7. Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: Poupon Pants.
So as we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, let's ponder a few things.
President Bush came to Atlanta last Thursday to lay a wreath on Dr. King's tomb. What happened? The RWPPs (Race Warlord Poverty Pimps) denounced him for being there. What would they have said if he hadn't shown up? Just asking.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character - Martin Luther King
How can that statement be reconciled with affirmative action where people are being judged by the color of their skin rather than their abilities?
Is Jesse Jackson, the most prominent RWPP, the successor to Martin Luther King? How would he feel about Jesse becoming an incredibly rich man while doing very little for black people?
How would Martin Luther King feel about the anti-Semitism in the black community? There were many Jews who marched with Dr. King during the civil rights movement.
What would he say about the porcine reverend Al Sharpton in regards to the Tawana Brawley hoax and the Crown Heights riots?
What would he have to say about Louis Farrakhan?
What would he think about having a black man as Secretary of State while the so called successors of his legacy of civil rights call the man who appointed Colin Powell to that post a racist?
What about that same man having a black female as the National Security Advisor? And there are many in the Republican Party who would like to see her run for president in 2008.
Would he call Powell and Rice "house slaves" like Harry Belafonte or would he praise them for their achievements?
Would he believe that diversity (All Hail Diversity) not only applied to race, sex and religion but also to ideas?
Would he brand conservative blacks like Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Clarence Thomas Uncle Toms like so many of the RWPPs and their followers do?
How would he feel about this column written by Cynthia Tucker in Sunday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation?
In 1954, black inmates accounted for 30 percent of the nation's prison population, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group that advocates alternative sentencing. By the time King died, in 1968, the figure had edged up to between 35 percent and 40 percent.Currently, black offenders account for almost half of all prison admissions. An estimated 12 percent of black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are behind bars, according to Allen Beck, chief prison demographer for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Beck estimates that 30 percent of black men will be incarcerated at some point in their lives.
Yet the NAACP and many of the RWPPs are worried about the Georgia flag.
The result is that black youths are terrified by the very idea of incarceration, right? Sadly, popular culture reveals the startling influence that prison --- seen as a rite of passage in some poor black neighborhoods --- has already had on music and fashion. The baggy pants that fall down from the waist, favored first by rappers and later by many adolescent boys, are an adaptation from jail culture: When a man is arrested, jailers confiscate his belt, so his pants tend to slide down. This is the style that many youngsters have chosen to emulate.
Yet the Confederate battle flag is still at a Confederate Memorial on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds and that's the nuber one thing on the agenda of the NAACP. I wonder which would be the highest priority of Dr. King if he were still alive?
Given that this is the most pressing issue facing black America, you'd think that those who would take up King's mantle would devote all of their time to reducing the incarceration rate for black men. Yet, the Jesse Jacksons, Joseph Lowerys and Kweisi Mfumes flit from theme to theme --- from corporate race relations to Rebel flags --- preferring to dwell on incarceration only when a glaring case of injustice promises headlines and air time.
And what about the anti-achievement mentality in the schools that if a black child tries to learn that child is "acting white"?
And here is sumpin' that the bigots at the KKK just gotta love.
But the problem is not simply one of bigotry. The worst-kept secret in black America is the murder rate among black men.In 2002, black men were likely perpetrators in more than 40 percent of the homicides in which a suspect was identified. They also accounted for nearly 40 percent of the nation's homicide victims (proving that black men represent the greatest threat to each other). That's a staggering statistic for a group that represents less than 6 percent of the population.
The people most hurt by black criminals are black! Where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Howza 'bout John Lewis? Kweisi? Anyone?
What could be more important to continuing King's legacy than turning black men away from fratricide and steering black youths away from prison?
The flag Cynthia! The flag! Haven't you been paying attention?
What would Martin Luther King think?
Alas, we'll never know.
To follow up on my post about engineering yesterday, here a bunch of engineering conversions sent to me by my friend Richard.
1. Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter? = Eskimo Pi
2. 2000 pounds of Chinese soup? = Won ton
3. 1 millionth of a mouthwash? = 1 microscope
4. Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the
pavement? = 1 bananosecond
5. Weight an evangelist carries with God? = 1 billigram
6. Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour? = Knot furlong
7. 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone? = 1 Rod Serling
8. Half of a large intestine? = 1 semicolon
9. 1,000,000 aches? = 1 megahurtz
10. Basic unit of laryngitis? = 1 hoarsepower
11. Shortest distance between two jokes? = A straight line
12. 453.6 graham crackers? = 1 pound cake
13. 1 million-million microphones? = 1 megaphone
14. 1 million bicycles? = 2 megacycles.
15. 365.25 days? = 1 unicycle
16. 2000 mockingbirds? = 2 kilomockingbirds
17. 10 cards? = 1 decacards
18. 1 kilogram of falling figs? = 1 Fig Newton
19. 1000 milliliters of wet socks? = 1 literhosen.
20. 1 millionth of a fish? = 1 microfiche
21. 1 trillion pins? = 1 terrapin
22. 10 rations? = 1 decoration
23. 100 rations? = 1 C-ration.
24. 2 monograms? = 1 diagram
25. 8 nickels? = 2 paradigms
26. 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University
Hospital? = 1 I.V. League
27. 100 Senators? = Not 1 decision
Omigawd! Joanie has been having fun over at Pumpman's site. I am a guest blogger, but opted out of participating this time. He doesn't give me authority to upload photos to his site and we can see why after what Joanie has been doing. This is the one that's gonna get her shot.
Whoo hoo! I finished a major part of my floor reconfiguration project this week. I freed up another fiber optics switch today and now I can move it to the other end of the floor. Of course moving it will take another two weeks because I have to put in an electrical power request.
Here's the procedure:
1. Submit a request to Facilities using the internet.
2. The electrician will come out and I will explain to him what needs to be done. i.e. Remove a power drop from one PDU (Power Distribution Unit) and reconnect it to a PDU at the other end of the floor.
3. The electrician will then contact me with the price.
4. I will forward the price on to the FBC (Financial Bean Counter) along with the reason for the request.
5. The FBC will then (hopefully) approve it and forward on to my CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) who will then (hopefully) approve it.
6. The FBC will then send an account code with a major code, a minor code, and a sub minor code (I am not making this up.) to Facilities.
7. The electrician will do the work.
8. I will move the switch to the other end of the floor and plug it in.
Over the past two weeks I was able to move over 20 fiber optic cables which connected to 6 processors and three DASD subsystems. I was able to do this without impacting any users. The reason I was able to do it was that I designed the hardware configuration to not have what engineers call a single point of failure.
Holy Crap! I'm channeling Den Beste here!
When I designed the hardware configurations for these processors, I ensured that there were multiple paths to every device. That way, if sumpin' happened, like a programmer disconnecting a channel, the system would still run OK.
MVS (the operating system - actually z/OS now) wasn't completely happy, but over the years IBM has built a lot of recovery stuff into MVS. What happens if I just pull out the cable without varying the channel offline is MIH (Missing Interrupt Handler) gets involved.
The IOS (I/O Scheduler) sends an I/O request to the CSS (Channel Subsystem). If the path is bad (because a programmer unplugged the channel) the CSS will not get an I/O complete interrupt back from the device. The CSS tells the IOS who kicks off MIH and redrives the request. If it fails again, the CSS marks that path as bad in the UCW (subchannel) and IOS marks the path as bad in the UCB (Unit Control Block). That path will not be used again until it is successfully varied back on. How do I know this? I used to teach this shit.
Of course, the right way to do this is to vary the channel offline before unplugging it, but the workload was light this week so I let MIH do its job. The users didn't even notice. And, since I didn't have a single point of failure, MIH, IOS, and CSS took care of things for me.
My friend Brian has been in town the past two weeks and he laid all the cables for me. Even though I did the original hardware configuration, I was not involved in the cabling so a lot of it wasn't labled. I took a chance on unplugging some of the cables in the I/O control units and I guessed right. All the stuff we ran is now labled correctly at both ends. After plugging everything in, I had to change the hardware configurations on all six processors. This affected over 30 systems with multiple users. No complaints. Mission accomplished. I am good at what I do. I'm modest too.
I still have to do two more switches. I hope to finish by the end of the quarter.
But talking about a single point of failure is one of the reasons that I am an atheist. Ya see, if there is a God, he's a good artist but a lousy engineer. Case in point, the human body.
The human body was not designed to last past 50 years. Think about it. An athlete is in his prime in his early 30's. After that, it's all downhill. Our ancestors on the savannah in Africa probably did not make it past 50. Their teeth were all gone by then and so was their eyesight in many cases. Plus, they couldn't run fast anymore.
Picture Oog and Moog running across the savannah being chased by a lion.
Oog: Grunt. Grunt. Grunt. Translation - Dude! We can't outrun that lion!
Moog: Grunt. Grunt. Grunt. Translation - Dude! I only have to outrun you!
Remember when we used to think Aunt Emily was wierd so we locked her in the cellar and let her drool all over herself? That was before we knew about Alzheimers. We just thought she was senile.
Diseases that we didn't know about three hundred years ago we know about now because people are living longer. So the human body was designed with planned obsolescence. Not a very good engineering job.
How about single point of failure? Two kidneys. Check. Two lungs. Check. One heart. No. One liver. No. And that brings me to a topic near and dear to my heart: the central nervous system.
The brain is a remarkable engineering design. There are multiple pathways for neurons and some redundancy built in. The spinal cord is not. The spinal cord is a prime example of a single point of failure. You mess up the cord and you're fucked. And there are some other problems.
If you damage a nerve outside the spinal cord, there is a good chance that nerve will regrow. Those nerves are lower motor neurons and they can regenerate. The nerves in the spinal cord are upper motor neurons and they cannot regenerate.
Didja know that you can sever a reptile's spinal cord and it will grow back? But a reptile's cord is not as sophisticated as a mammal's cord. We substituted complexity for the ability to regenerate. We have great manual dexterity. Just look at your fingers.
And you don't even have to sever the spinal cord in mammals. One of my contemporaries at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where I went through rehab, was shot in the back. The bullet completely missed his spinal cord. Nevertheless, the shock of the bullets passage, caused the cord to swell and hemorrhage internally. He was completely paralyzed below the swelling.
I was semi-lucky. I fractured my spine at T12/L1 (twelfth thoracic, first lumbar). My injury is incomplete which means I have some functionality below my injury. That is why I am able to walk with braces and crutches.
Some smart engineers working with some smart doctors are gonna someday figger out a way to either make the neurons in the spinal cord regenerate or they'll figger out a way to rewire the central nervous system. A doctor performed microsurgery on my hand this summer and reconnected some severed nerves. In twenty or thirty years they'll probably be able to do sumpin' similar with the spinal cord.
I just wish the spinal cord was not a single point of failure. Sloppy engineering.
Golda Meir: We will have peace in the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews.
We just saw a fine example of that. Can these people get any more depraved?
My friend and frequent commentor Grognard says that he knows many Arabs who do not hate Jews, but unfortunately, they are not running things in that cesspool known as Palestine. These people continue to disgust me. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
After expressing a final wish to turn her body into ''deadly shrapnel,'' a Palestinian mother blew herself up Wednesday at the heavily fortified border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, killing four Israelis and wounding seven Israelis and Palestinians.
What does she get? 72 stud muffins?
The suicide bomber, identified as 22-year-old Reem al-Raiyshi, was the first female bomber to have been married with children. She left behind a 3-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter. The militant group Hamas said it was a new tactic in its war against Israel.
So you thought they had sunk as low as they could? You ain't seen nothing yet as to the depths of depravity that they can sink. Next thing you know, they'll be strapping bomb belts onto infants. These people totally disgust me! And we want to give these barbarians a state?
Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the two largest Palestinian militant groups, claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was in retaliation for Israeli army violence against Palestinians despite a lull in Palestinian militant activities in recent months.
I hope you fucking bastards are fucking proud of yourselves! And we want to give these barbarians a state?
Hamas had never used women in its numerous attacks against Israeli targets, although smaller militant groups have.
Can't be outdone by them smaller terrorist organizations. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
In the overwhelmingly male world of Palestinian-Israeli fighting, Israeli security concerns and crackdowns are often focused on Palestinian men. Al-Raiyshi, a high school graduate who had been active in Hamas' youth wing, took advantage of that when she approached the Israeli security checkpoint at the Gaza border crossing at around 10 a.m.
Ironic isn't it? Israelis treat Arab women better than Arabs do. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
Witnesses said al-Raiyshi faked a limp as she entered Erez, a sprawling complex where thousands of poor Palestinian workers maneuver through security in hopes of getting into Israel for work each day.
Isn't that sweet? Using the Israelis' compassion against them. Kinda like smuggling explosives in ambulances. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
When she set off a metal detector, she told the guard it was because of a metal surgical implant in her leg, according to Israeli Brig. Gen. Gad Shamni, commander of the army's Gaza division. The male guard manning the detector, who is prohibited by custom from searching a Muslim woman, summoned a female soldier to conduct a hand search of al-Raiyshi.
Once again. The Israelis have more respect for a female that Arabs do. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
''For the first time [Hamas] used a female fighter and not a male fighter and that was a new development in resistance against the enemy,'' Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told the British Broadcasting Corp.
And will someone tell me why that waste of oxygen is still alive? When are the Jews gonna off this asshole? And he calls himself a man of God. These people make me want to puke. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
Speaking in what Palestinians call a ''martyr's videotape,'' something akin to a suicide note that is left by most bombers, al-Raiyshi's recorded message said that she loved her children but felt it was a higher calling to take part in the struggle against Israel.
She loves her children but she hates Jews even more. How sick is that? On the upside, she won't be breeding any more mindless myrmidons who strap on bomb belts and kill themselves out of hatred. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
''I always wanted to be the first woman to carry out a martyr attack. It was always my wish to turn my body into deadly shrapnel against the Zionists and to knock on the doors of heaven with the skulls of Zionists,'' said a smiling al-Raiyshi, who was wearing combat fatigues with a Hamas sash across her chest.
There is a picture of this idiot over at Little Green Footballs. Golda Meir was right. Here is a person who left her two children motherless because she hates Jews more than she loves her children. How sick is that? And Hamas has made an heroine out of her. How depraved is that? This is something that should disgust any civilized person. And we want to give these barbarians a state?
Israel responded to the bombing by closing the Erez crossing, meaning that Palestinian workers will not be able to reach their jobs for an undetermined number of days.
That old cause and effect thing. Since the uprising that started because Yassir Arafat turned down the best offer he would ever get, because he wanted to kill Jews more than he wanted a state, the unemployment rate among Palestinians has increased to over 80%. Why is that? Because the only jobs are in Israel. The Palestinians' main industry is terrorism.
There are many times since the 1967 war (that was started by the Arabs) that the Palestinians could have had their own state. Their best chance was three years ago when Ehud Barak was strongarmed by Clinton into giving Arafat the best deal he would ever get. Nope. Killing Jews was more important. And how much longer is that waste of oxygen gonna live? Why doesn't Sharon just blow that fucker to bits?
Arafat has taken the Palestinians to the brink. The Palestinian Authority is broke, while Arafat's wife is living in luxury in Paris with the billions that Arafat has stolen from the Palestinians. And now the Palestinians are griping about the security fence. Listen up assholes! You had plenty of chances to get a decent deal but killing Jews was always more important. Fuck off. The way I feel about you barbarians is I would herd you all down to Gaza and pen you up like the animals you are. Yeah, that's ethnic cleansing. So fucking what? The Jews were victims of ethnic cleansing in Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
You want a state? Fine. It's called Gaza. And if you don't like it and don't want to join the civilized world it would not bother me a bit if the Jews nuked you.
You people make me sick to my stomach.
For all of you who want to know what a flaggot looks like, here's one.
From Woody and others.
I've been meaning to get around to this for quite some time. The lovely Jessica took me to task for the little St. Andrews Cross symbol for the Georgia Blogring that I have on the left hand column of this blog. Now please don't go and flame her like a lot of folks did when she originally wrote the piece. She brings up some very valid points and that has sumpin' to do with why I have it there.
Reason number one is that it is the symbol that Dizzy Girl chose when she formed the ring.
Reason number two is stated in the description of my blog: Pushing the boundaries of bad taste and political incorrectness.
Reason number three is my total antipathy for the entire Confederate flag bullshit that is currently going on throughout the South. I have stated before, and I will state again, that I thought the Georgia flag was a non-issue from the start. I am fully aware that it was adopted in 1956 by the Dimocrat Party (not the "racist" Republicans) to thumb their noses at integration. As an aside, the person in South Carolina who started flying the Confederate flag over the State House was Governor Ernest Hollings, another Dimocrat.
I think that there are some people who actually think the 1956 flag was a nod to southern heritage (whatever that may be) and they are sincere in their beliefs. They are not necessarily racists and do not want to bring back slavery. A friend of mine's mother was in the Daughters of the Confederacy. This was a group of harmless old women. They did not want to bring back " old times there were not forgotten, whoppin' slaves and picking cotton" (Tom Lehrer) but were a social club. However, the most vehement flag supporters strike me as ignorant goobers. The flag issue should have never been the priority that it was. That takes care of the pro-flag folks whom Neal Boortz calls flaggots.
By the way, the Civil War was not fought entirely over slavery. Lincoln said that if he could keep slavery and save the Union he would. The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until September of 1862 and did not take effect until January 1, 1863. Slavery was just one issue. Another was economic. The North was burdening the South with high cotton tariffs.
The black "leaders" who are so offended by the flag, should be more offended by the state of inner city schools. They should be worried about drugs and the high rate of illegitimacy. They should be worried about the lost youth growing up without fathers because they are dead, in prison, or simply don't want to take responsibility for the children they have fathered. When all that shit is fixed, then they should worry about the flag. The St. Andrews Cross symbol represents my disgust at the NAACP and other organizations spending resources on a symbol rather than doing the tough job of actually working towards, as their name states, "the Advancement of Colored People" . Maybe they oughta change their name to the NACBRDNTACBA (National Association for Calling Bush a Racist and Doing Nothing to Advance the Cause of Blacks in America). So yeah. I keep that symbol on my site to piss people off.
Did Sonny Perdue want to change back to the 1956 flag? Some people think so. Actually, he wanted to give Georgians a say rather than the back room deal that Roy Barnes made. Did that help him get elected? Yep! It did. He saw an issue and he took it. It is no more craven than some of the invective the Dimocrats use to get elected. e.g. Bush is Hitler.
Anyway, I have my own flag design that one of my readers sent me.
Fuck the flag! Fix the schools!
I got the flag from Easycure.
I had a Sommelier Guild of Atlanta wine tasting tonight at Vinocity, a wine bar/restaurant in midtown Atlanta. We drank lots of Zinfandel and the food was incredible. Unfortunately, I do not have the menu or the wines we drank, but, as a fallback I have the Dead Horse Policy that is used by TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name), and many other American companies.
Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead
horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in managing any
business we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the
following:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this
horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat." (This is my personal favorite.)
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do a Cost Analysis Study to see if contractors can ride it
cheaper.
16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Aha! That's how my manager got to where he is.
It's about time to start a cute cat for Pumpman series, but the sorry sumbutch is in Jamaica, so I've got some leftovers. Here's one.
I promised to apologize to Marcel and I am doing it tonight. He posted the following in my comments the other day:
I'm a Ga Tech EE running a medium-high volume third party electronic repair depot. We rely almost exclusively on reverse engineering to document the circuits and systems of the various OEMs whose products we target. We then develop automated test systems to repair an average of 100,000 units annually. The circuits we repair range from simple power supplies to complex multi-layer, multi-processor boards with heavy use of surface mounted components. I personally developed many of the test systems and strategies used in my business back in the 1980s when "test engineering" wasn't even an acknowledged sub-discipline of EE
Hardly an urinal cleaning business. I was wrong. I'll have my crow baked in a nice red sauce. I think I'll open a nice Chianti to drink with it. And what kind of manager is Marcel?
I don't know what "managment type" I am, because as I implied in my prior comment, I don't run my business based on the touchy-feely managment trend of the month. I have 35 hightly skilled engineers and other technical people in my employ, many of whom have been with our company for most of the 25 years we've been in business. I understand the creative/technical mindset, as I'm also a semi-professional musician in the Atlanta area, gigging almost every Friday or Saturday night with my 8 piece show band. Don't assume you know me by a brief comment left in response to what appeared to be a cyber-tantrum. You said yourself that what started the problem between you and your manager was the fact that you showed him up in a sarcastically written memo.
Actually it started long before that. This was just the last in a series of me dealing with his incompetence.
Are you proud of that?
Not necessarily, but it did fix the problem. As I said, I took the bullet for my team. Since my career was all but over I decided I should be the one to clarify the policy.
Is that the approach you would have preferred had the roles been reversed?
Nope. Had the roles been reversed, I would have thanked the IDHU (Incompetent Dickhead User) for bringing the matter to my attention and would have pointed out that our policy was that the users did the testing. I would have also told him that I would have a talk with the Grouchy Old Cripple about the problem. Then, I would have called the Grouchy Old Cripple into my office, after waiting for him to return from the conference he was attending, and asked to hear his side of the story. CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) did not do that. He told the IDHU what it took to get him out of his office, called me up to chew me out and announce a policy change that he later denied. My sarcastic note was not directed at him, but at the IDHU, whom, as I have pointed out, was fired two months later.
I've learned many things in my 25 years of working with people, and the most important thing I've learned is that a person with a bad attitude is a liablility to an organization, regardless of how much they know. My management style is to clearly communicate goals and expectations, make sure that people have the training and tools to do their job, and then get out of their way. I'm a "walk around" manager, in the old Hewlett-Packard style, and detest meetings and conference calls. I expect and reward excellence, and I also protect the positive synergy of the workplace by immediately dealing with substandard performance and bad attitudes. My approach has worked well for me over the years, and I have earned the respect of my employees and industry peers.
Marcel is a Type Y manager. He realizes that he who manages least manages best. Hire good people and get out of their way. He fixes problems and doesn't create them. I would have no problem working for him, and he would have no problems with me. In my over thirty years in corporate America, I have noticed that people respond to the way they are treated. If they are treated like children, they will act like children. When good techies develop bad attitudes, the bad attitudes are usually a result of mismangement.
The best manager I ever worked for managed just like Marcel. He would tell us what needed to get done and get out of our way. The self starters thrived under him. Those that needed direction didn't. If I ran into a brick wall, I could go to him and the problem would get fixed. As I said, that was when I got the most awards and best promotions. I was sorry to see him go.
It's obvious that you are a very accomplished, highly competent individual with a unique and desirable skill set, but I think you're wrong to assume a prima-donna mindset and basically lay down on the job based on the fact that you work for an idiot with whom you don't get along. Hence, my comment. I realize my comment was an over-generalization, and again, I'm sorry to have offended you. Now excuse me, my wife wants me to go clean the toilet in the guest bathroom. ;-)
And Marcel has a sense of humor. I like that in a manager. There was some additional back and forth in the comments where I said that I didn't so much as lay down on the job as I didn't put forth any additional effort, like working long hours or coming in on weekends since there was no incentive to do so. I'm pretty much financially independent and I'm working because I not only want to be financially independent but I want to be comfortably financially independent. SCUBA diving trips and ski trips cost money. I'd like to take up flying again. That ain't cheap.
Didja notice he said he detests meetings and conference calls? The better I get to know this guy the more I like him. The good manager I worked for had about four meetings a year (if even that many), and one of them was the mandatory Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity Meeting. That was before they named that bullshit Diversity (All Hail Diversity!).
I joined my current group after 26 years with TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). In my first year in this group I attended more meetings than I had in my previous 26 years with TCIDNN. That is entirely too many meetings. I attend two mandatory meetings a week (of which only one is necessary) and one every other week, which is a waste of time. We have a project manager that I have christened the PMICOUM (The Project Manager In Charge Of Useless Meetings). His solution to every probem is the following statement: "We will have to hold a meeting on this." In his mind, no problem is ever solved without a meeting. In an aside, my friend Cindy said I ought to ask my sister to create that statement in needlepoint and give it to the PMICOUM on my last day.
It's not only the quantity of meetings that is excessive, the quality suffers also.
Here are the rules for successful meetings:
1. If a problem can be fixed without a meeting, don't hold one. Duh! You would be surprised at how many people do not realize that fact.
2. If the meeting is scheduled for 2:00 it should start at 2:00. Our Wednesday Inquisition meeting usually starts at 2:10 because the CDSM® or the PMICOUM is late. So we have 16 people sitting around in a conference room doing nothing. 16 x 10 = 160. That is almost three manhours of wasted time. And that's not even counting the wasted time after the meeting starts.
3. Every meeting should have an agenda (preferably in writing) and it should be adhered to. No exceptions! Side issues extend the length of a meeting.
4. The meeting should be as short as possible. That's the reason for the agenda. Very little productive work is done in a meeting.
5. The meeting should be kept as small as possible. I have to attend meetings where half the people (including me) do not belong there.
So it turns out that Marcel and I have a lot in common after all. It is no surprise to see why he runs a successful business.
Chomp. Chomp. This crow is actually quite tasty.
Here is a story about a Blogger meeting a troll in the flesh and how he handled it with a lot more class than I would. Enjoy. You might notice he is now on my Blogroll.
Oh, one more thing. He is Kim du Toit's kind of guy. He believes in defending his family and his property. And, Kim, if you are reading this, my sister just got her South Carolina concealed carry permit and can now carry her .38 in her purse or in her car.
She has a brain and she's packin'!
I have written two posts about Georgia being number 50 in SAT scores. I wrote this one in August of 2002 when we took over the number 50 slot from South Carolina. The links in this post are no longer valid so don't tell me about that in the comments. AJC links are only good for 7 days.
Tomorrow I will apologize to Marcel.
Arghhh! My back itches. Sunburn from last weekend. Have you ever noticed that the worst itch is a spot just barely out of reach? So you find yourself looking for corners to rub your back across. Ahhhh! Relief. Some of you have significant others. I have cats. Doofus! Ashley! Come here and scratch Dad's back. Yawn. Dammit Doofus, you scratch the furniture. Why not my back? Yawn. Are you speaking to me?
Warning! The following commentary will have lots of adult language. If you are offended by that type of language please leave. I am very pissed off. It's either profanity or my keyboard.
I opened the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation and this article was on the front page. I love living in the South, but at times like these, I kinda wish I were back in Missouri.
Georgia educators can no longer exclaim, "Thank
God for South Carolina."
Which Georgia just passed for worst SAT scores among the states. Jesus H. Christ! Georgia is lower than Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Does anyone wonder now why Jimmy Carter was such a lousy president?
The Palmetto State, long the doormat of SAT
rankings, passed Georgia this year, bringing
finger-pointing and promises of change from
embarrassed state officials in Atlanta. Only the
schools in the District of Columbia scored lower
this year on the college entrance exam.
A shining city on a hill, Washington DC, has the lowest SAT scores in the country, and we expect the Department of Education to fix our schools. Hey buttheads! Why don't you start with the schools in your own fucking city?
Georgia's 50th-place ranking left parents with
another sign that, for all the talk of reform, many
students are struggling.
No shit!
"We have not been preparing our students
adequately because they haven't had access to a
rigorous curriculum and certified instruction,
particularly in math and science," said Cathy
Henson, state school board chairwoman and the
mother of a Walton High School student who will
take the SAT in October. "We have inflated grades
and mediocre work."
Walton High School has the highest SAT scores in the state. It's one of the few schools that is performing well. We'll find out why later.
Georgia's average combined math and verbal score
is 980 this year, the same as last year. The
national average also remained unchanged, at
1,020 out of a possible 1,600.
But I bet the students all have high self esteem. They're real big on teaching that self esteem bullshit in the Georgia schools. I feel real fucking good about myself Miss Jones. That's nice Johnny.
However, South Carolina saw its average jump seven points, to 981. Washington,
D.C., came in 51st, with a score of 953.
953! 953! Dontcha get 600 points just for signing your name?
Georgia scores have risen 32 points in the past decade, and South Carolina's have
gone up 43 points as both states have jockeyed to stay out of the SAT basement.
We're Number 50! I'm so fucking proud!
Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko showed her disappointment
Tuesday when she announced this year's results.
Bet the Republicans were glad she lost in the primary race for governor. The Democrats would have had a lot of fun with that.
"Where the scores started is abysmal. Where we ended is abysmal," said
Schrenko, who leaves office in January. "I'm now fearful we're on the wrong track."
No shit Linda. Congratulations on the excellent job you did while in office. Granted, in Georgia, the state School Superintendent does not have much power and she was outnumbered by Democrats on the state School Board. There's plenty of blame to go around.
The College Board, which administers the test, warns against comparing states
because different numbers of students take the SAT in each state. Georgia, South
Carolina and North Carolina, in which a high percentage of students take the test,
generally have lower scores. States where only the top high school students take
the SAT, like North Dakota, Mississippi and Iowa, are typically among the
highest-scoring.
Mississippi? Mississippi? We were beat out by fucking Mississippi?
Nonetheless, politicians, real estate agents and corporate and community
boosters use SAT scores to sell their wares.
Come to Georgia where the schools really suck.
"When you're at the bottom, it kind of hits you in the face," noted George
Engelhard, an Emory University education studies professor.
Emory University, home of Michael Bellesiles, he of the shoddy research.
The poor showing on the SAT is such a
hot political issue that former state Sen.
Sonny Perdue, the Republican nominee
for governor,
And aren't they glad it isn't Linda Schrenko?
held a Statehouse press
conference less than two hours after the
scores were announced. He blamed the
dismal performance on Gov. Roy
Barnes' recent education reform laws
That obviously haven't done too fucking much.
and Democratic political dominance in
general. Perdue said, "135 years of
one-party rule has failed the children of
this state."
And the NEA (teachers union) hasn't been a big help either. Oh, they're all Democrats? Ya don't say.
Barnes said the low SAT scores could
be blamed on past inaction.
Roy's been governor for four years now. Before him was Zell Miller. Yep. That Zell Miller. And before him was Joe Frank Harris. They were all Democrats.
"You're paying now for what they failed to do
years ago," said the governor,
Democrat governors, Democrat legislatures, and teachers unions working together for mediocrity. Yesterday, number 49. Today number 50. They're your fucking people Roy.
who claims his long-range improvement plan
will bring higher scores.
Long range probably means after he leaves office.
The SAT is seen by some experts as a good indicator of how students will do
during their first year in college.
Georgia students ain't gonna do worth shit! And here comes the bullshit that's gonna send my blood pressure through the roof.
Critics say it is culturally biased and a poor measure of
what students have learned in high school.
Culturally biased! I swear to Christ, everytime I read that I just want to find one of these asshole critics and have them explain to me just what the fuck they mean by culturally biased. What fucking culture are they talking about? American culture? That's the culture we have here. That is the culture we have always had here. The first generation of immigrants brings their language and culture with them from the old country. We then take parts of their culture and their language and integrate it into our culture and language. The second generation becomes Americans. We are all richer for it. It wasn't until this liberal bullshit of multiculturism was introduced that we started seeing enormous breakdowns in American culture. Now it's OK to not learn English. We'll teach you in your own language. Of course, when you get out of school you won't be able to get a job because you can't speak a fucking word of English. Thanks you fucking liberal dickheads for fucking up another person and making me pay to support him because he has no fucking skills.
How about black inner city culture? Here goes that racist bastard bitching about black folks again. No. What I'm bitching about is an anti-achievement mentality in the inner city that says learning to read and write English and succeeding in school is acting white. So do we want the SAT to be written for this culture?
Question 1: Jamal is planning a driveby shooting and has a ten round magazine. He only has 6 bullets in the magazine. How many more bullets does he need to have a full magazine?
Culturally biased? To succeed in this country you have to learn to live in the predominant culture. I'm sorry, but that's how it works. I'm not going off on black folks. I am going off on their leaders, like John 'spitting' Lewis and the NAA fucking CP who think getting the Confederate flag off the grounds of the statehouse in South Carolina is more important than changing the anti-achievement mentality in the inner city. Getting the state flag of Georgia changed was more important than preventing fourteen year old black girls from having babies. Calling George Bush and John Ashcroft racist Nazis was more important than doing something about the crack epidemic in the inner city.
The most important asset of any country is its people. I rail at people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Cynthia McKinney because they preach the tired old gospel of hate whitey and the only reason poor black people are not getting ahead is racism, racism, and racism. The only people they are enriching is themselves. I do not like seeing people in poverty. The solution is not throwing money at the problem. We have thrown $5 trillion at poverty since the Great fucking Society and we still have just as much. The solution to poverty is education, a work ethic, and not having children one cannot afford. In America it is as simple as that. That is American culture. If the SAT's are culturally biased they are biased on an un-American culture.
Several factors play into Georgia's low SAT scores.
And these factors are ... bet they have sumpin to do with Diversity (All Hail Diversity!)
The state has a more diverse group of test takers than many other states.
What did I tell ya? But ... but ... I thought Diversity (All Hail Diversity!) was supposed to be a good thing.
North Carolina has a similar population, a similar number of test takers, and
higher overall scores. But Georgia has a higher percentage of African-American
students taking the test, and they tend to score lower.
And why is that? They're either dumber (I didn't say they were) or there's another reason. Could it perhaps be the anti-achievement mentality of the inner city. Where the fuck is the outrage about this? I'm fucking outraged because we are wasting a whole shitload of people. There are lots of black men in jail because our education system is failing. I'm waiting for the hue and cry from the black community. Oh, right, I forgot. It's racism. It's always fucking racism.
Students generally do better if they come from families in which parents have a
college education. Georgia has one of the lowest college attendance rates in the
country, according to the Board of Regents.
Yeah, because those parents start reading to their children at an early age. Shameeka can't be reading to her babies when she's on crack. Also, these parents make their children study. They go to parent teacher meetings. Kinda hard to do when stoned on crack or tending to the other five rugrats Shameeka had 'cause she couldn't say no. C'mon NAACP, where the fuck is the leadership?
Georgia's curriculum is also a problem. An independent report earlier this year
suggested the state's curriculum is wide but shallow, with teachers expected to
cover many subjects but few in depth.
But the students have real high self esteem.
That shows up in Georgia's college-bound seniors. Those who took four years of
high school math scored 966 on the SAT, according to the College Board.
Nationally, such students scored 1,020.
Probably has sumpin' to do with the student not necessarily having to have the right answer but to feel good about the answer he has.
Henson has a committee working on curriculum revisions, and part of the aim is
to eliminate "equivalent" classes. An example is a class considered the
equivalent of algebra when the state counts a student's credits, but that
isn't algebra.
Equivalent to algebra? What the fuck is that? Who thinks up this shit?
Schrenko says not enough Georgia students take advanced placement tests
and course work, which features college-level courses during high school.
Barnes wants the 2003 Legislature to increase funding for the program.
It's kinda hard for them to take advanced courses when they can't even pass high school courses. And maybe they oughta think about ending social promotion.
But SAT gains don't come quickly.
Especially when the schools and the teachers suck.
South Carolina School Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum said her state began
moving on the SAT four years ago because state leaders, educators and parents
wanted to dig the state out of the basement. The state pays for students to take
practice SATs and kids get after-school primers on reading and math concepts
likely to be on the test.
So they're teaching the test. At least they're teaching sumpin'.
Students also were given an incentive to do well because the state's
lottery-based scholarship is based partly on SAT scores. And South
Carolina developed an annual tournament in which schools compete
in test-taking skills instead of sports.
Stressing academics? What a novel concept.
In addition, Tenenbaum said South Carolina rewrote its curriculum to stress
higher academic standards.
Stressing higher academic standards? Another novel concept.
"You have to count on incremental improvement," Tenenbaum said. "There is not
going to be a big jump at once. There are no gimmicks."
No gimmicks? Ya mean this is gonna involve work and shit like that? Ya mean teachers are gonna have to start doing their jobs and maybe, just maybe, be held accountable? Nawww. Too much fucking work.
There is another article that contrasts two schools: Walton, the school with the highest SAT scores and Carver the school with the lowest scores. Here is the link. Walton is in an upscale suburb of Atlanta. Carver is in the inner city in an area that is being redeveloped. One excerpt about Walton.
Parents expect excellence, said Judy McNeill,
associate principal.
"They're expecting their children will do well,"
McNeill said. "And if they're not, and we call, we
have the parents' support."
And Carver.
Carver has the lowest average SAT score of all public schools in the metro
area: 677 out of a possible 1,600. That's a 10-point gain over last year, when
the school had the lowest average in Georgia.
A former principal said Carver has deteriorated over the years. It has became a
dumping ground for unwanted students, and a school that many students
have fled in recent years. Just 42 seniors earned diplomas last year.
Remember, Carver is in the city of Atlanta that spends over $10,000.00 per pupil. That is not a typo. That is ten fucking thousand dollars per pupil and Atlanta has the worst schools in the entire state.
More on Walton.
At Walton High, administrators, teachers and students talk about the
importance of getting better still.
Walton added two advanced placement courses this year, bringing its total to 23.
Debbie McWilliams, who teaches multivariable calculus, has to prepare herself for
the 15-student class. "They'll ask the 'why,' " she said. "They won't take it at face
value. It's a lot of fun. These kids are eager."
Isn't is amazing that when excellence is expected excellence usually occurs?
Ron Dietel of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and
Student Testing, based in California, said it's unfair to compare schools that serve
students from different backgrounds and make judgments about school quality.
"Two-thirds of student achievement is accounted for by the parents'
socioeconomic status," Dietel said. "That's true in every research study
you conduct. Wealthy, affluent schools almost always have higher
performance."
Yeah, Ron, but it has been proven that poor black kids can learn just as well, especially when challenged and removed from the peer pressure that 'acting white' is bad.
The district plans to pour $40 million into remaking Carver into a state-of-the-art
school with a strong vocational program. The transformation should coincide
with the redevelopment of the Carver Homes public housing project into a
mixed-income neighborhood.
Good luck. But unless attitudes change, the students are challenged and the parents get involved we'll be throwing forty million bucks down the drain.
I'm not a racist bigot. I want to see black children succeed. I want to see the black middle class continue to grow. I don't like paying for prisons. I don't like paying for children in poverty because their mothers are irresponsible and continue to have children they cannot afford. One of the cures is education and another cure is attitude change. Come on John Lewis. Come on NAACP. Lead on this issue. White folks are not the problem. Racism is not the problem. The anti-achievement mentality of the inner city is the problem. Fix it.
Let's see if we can make it back to number 49.
Argghhh! My back itches!
Marcel wrote the following in my comments on yesterday's post about my evaluation:
Reading this post reminds me of why I'm glad I started my own business 25 years ago. I don't have to deal with idiots like your CDSM, and I don't have to tolerate smart assed malcontents like GOC, either. I'd fire your ass in a minute in my work place with that attitude. I don't have "sensitivity" shit to get in my way. :-)
Let's see if I remember anything from the management courses I took in college. Wait. I don't have to do that. I can do a Google search on Type X managers, which I think Marcel may be. Damn! I just love the internet! I'm so glad that Algore invented it!
Type X managers are authoritarians. They can be described as having these thoughts:* The average person dislikes work and will avoid it if they can.
* Most people must be threatened with punishment to work toward organizational objectives.
* The average person prefers to be directed, to avoid responsibility, is relatively unambitious, and wants security above anything else.
Marcel sounds like a Type X manager. To deal with a malcontent like me he would fire my ass in a minute. Marcel obviously must run a business where not much training and initiative is involved. He probably does sumpin' like urinal cleaning. He can just drive by the local Home Depot and crook his finger at the illegal aliens hanging around and hire 'em on the spot. If they don't do a good job, he can fire their asses in a minute.
Let's discuss why Marcel is full of shit and why he would be totally incapable of running a successful high tech company. Ya see, smart people do not respond well to Type X managers. They prefer Type Y managers.
Conversely, Type Y managers are participative managers. They generally feel:* Effort in work is as natural as work and play.
* People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organizational objectives, without external control or threats.
* Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement.
* People usually accept and often seek responsibility.
* The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in solving organizational problems is widely - not narrowly - distributed in the population.
* In industry, the intellectual potential of the average person is under-utilized.
In my almost 31 years at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) all but three of my managers have tended to be Type Y types. And the most amazing thing is (Not really, but it will probably amaze Marcel), my best performance was for the manager who most fit the Type Y definition. For this manager I worked 60 hour weeks. I came in weekends on my own time. He would give me projects and get the fuck out of my way. He did not hold a lot of useless meetings. He let me achieve my full potential and he also gave me my best raises. I got at least one award every year I worked for him. He gave me the best promotion I ever received in my entire career. He took care of me and I took care of him.
My current manager, on the other hand, is not necessarily a Type X, but he is a consummate ass kisser. Let me further expand on how I got in trouble with him. It was an ongoing saga that built upon itself.
It started with my first project with the Germans. We were supposed to come up with a common development platform. We had a conference call every Friday to discuss this. After the third call, it was obvious that we were going nowhere. For us to adopt their standards, we would have to completely rewrite our software infrastructure. I pointed out that it would take an additional two programmers on our staff to do this. This at a time when we were laying people off. We didn't have the manpower to change, and the Germans refused to change. Stalemate. A smart manager would have listened to his techies and suspended the project, but CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) insisted on going ahead.
So every Friday I had to sit through the same time wasting conference call. One Friday, I came in (hungover) and exploded on the conference call and went on a five minute raging tirade about how the Germans were socialists and had to keep their staff employed doing things the hard way and how we managed to do the same work with half the staff. (My team members in Dallas put the phone on mute and roared with laughter) It got me kicked off the project. A year later, the project was officially terminated.
I had some problems with the Y2K project also.
The last straw was with the incompetent user. As I said, he went to my manager and complained that I had called him incompetent. Actually, I had apologized to him about his incompetence. I had given him systems that were his responsibility to test. That is our procedure. There were some problems. I'm not perfect. If I was, TCIDNN couldn't afford me. I fixed all the problems. But then, he had problems with his applications. These were his responsibility. Nevertheless, when he called me, I would fix them for him and tell him the problem and suggest he document the fix. I had to fix one particular problem on three separate occasions. I asked him why he wanted to appear stupid and have me fix the same problem which was his responsibility multiple times.
Anyway, he went to my CDSM®, who called me in New York, where I was attending a conference, and chewed me out and said all testing was now our responsibility. I pointed out that that had never been the procedure. He said it had changed and one of our team members would negotiate. Now a good manager, before chewing me out, would have asked for my side of the story. CDSM®, didn't.
When I returned from the conference, I sent out a clarifying note on the new policy (dripping with sarcasm directed at the user. In fact, I named the new testing policy after him) and informed the user and his management that I would need a detailed testing document. I copied my CDSM® on the note. After reading my clarification of his new policy, he realized that he had fucked up. He called me into his office and denied that he had changed the policy. Testing had always been the responsibility of the users. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Two months after this the user was fired. Imagine that.
I'm a smartassed malcontent. Why hasn't CDSM® fired me? Because I'm smart, a dynamite technician, and I have skills that are hard to replace. I am an MVS (OS/390,z/OS) systems programmer. I also do VM. I know enough to back up our VM guy. My strongest skills are ServerPac installs, hardware configuration planning and implementation, and parallel sysplex. I also have skills in RACF, SMS, VTAM/NCP/TCPIP, JCL (of course), and DB2. My REXX has atrophied but I could get it back. REXX is easy. I know a little bit of UNIX and a smattering of assembler. Most of what I know, I taught myself. It would be hard to find someone with my blend of skills. Even if they did, it would take a few months for my replacement to figger out our environment. It took my team lead at least two months to get up to speed when we hired him. So Marcel, if you were my manager, you could fire my ass, but you would be shooting yourself in the foot. Even my CDSM® realizes that. That doesn't mean I won't be forced to resign. No one is indispensable or irreplaceable. Things would just run a little rough for a while.
It has been said that managing programmers is like herding cats. Really creative people do not respond well to Type X managers and I'm no different. What is sad about this whole thing is that it would not have taken very much effort on CDSM®'s part to have kept me happy. Had he rated me fairly and given me some incentives, I would have taken over the network so he wouldn't have had to worry about the IWDH (Incompetent Worthless Dickhead). I have the requisite network skills. I would have just had to have spent some extra time with the network guy and eased myself into the job and used him as a backup, but there was no incentive for me to put forth that effort. As I pointed out to my team lead, I could walk on water and CDSM® would still rate me the same.
Where is my incentive?
And Marcel? Good luck with your urinal cleaning business.
So much to write about tonight.
Did y'all realize that 40 years ago today (Thursday if you are reading this on Friday) Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty? Yep! 40 years ago today was the opening salvo in the War on Poverty. Ya wanna talk about a quagmire? We got one here. We've thrown trillions at it and all we have to show for it is more poverty. Let's just give up and bring the troops home.
Long time readers know my three simple steps to avoid poverty. These work for 90% of the people.
1. Start working at an early age. Cutting grass. Raking leaves. Flipping burgers. It's called entry level and the work ethic.
2. Stay in school. Finish high school. If you can't afford college go to junior college. If you can't afford that, go to a technical school. If you can't afford that, join the military. That's what I did. I learned electronics and then went to college on the GI Bill.
3. Don't have children you cannot afford.
How hard is that?
But I don't want to talk about poverty tonight. There are more important problems. Like howza 'bout the long lines at women's restrooms? Guys just go in where all the dicks hang out, do their business and leave. For women it's a lot harder. It turns out that there's a solution that Schultzie posted. See. Now women can use urinals.
Enough of that. Let's talk about my yearly evaluation at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). I was tempted to get really shitfaced Wednesday night so I would look and feel my best, but instead I stayed sober and wrote a post about gays in the military.
I plopped myself in a chair in my CDSM®'s(Clueless Dipshit Manager) office and prepared to listen to a bunch of bullshit. He tried the old buddy-buddy stuff and asked me if I had any exotic vacations coming up.
Me: Yeah, I'm going skiing the end of this month.
Him: Uh, you did that last year right?
Me: Yep!
Him: How do you do that? Do you like sit down?
Me: <under my breath> No you stupid sumbitch! I stand up. I'm a fucking cripple. How do you think I do it?</under my breath> Yeah. It's a special rig.
Small talk out of the way we now get down to the meat of the matter.
Him: You have performed in a steady manner just like you did last year (and the year before when you dropped my rating you sorry asswipe! But I'm not bitter.) You are a valuable member of the team. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Then we really get down to the meat of the matter.
Him: You do have this problem dealing with people who are not technical.
Me: No actually I have trouble dealing with idiots and people who are incompetent.
Him: (Taken aback by my honesty) Well, uh, most of those people are no longer with us.
Me: Yeah! They got fired. They got fired because they were incompetent, which is why I had problems dealing with them.
Now that brought us up to the new network guy whom I shall call IWDH (Incompetent Worthless Dickhead).
Him: Now you know that you probably know more about SNA than IWDH, but SNA is not really that important anymore.
Me: Yeah. And I know more about TCPIP than he does also. What's your point?
Him: Well he's not as technical as you are and I don't want you to lose your temper with him.
Me: You don't have to worry about that. I usually laugh when I have to deal with him.
Let me explain the IWDH. Over a year ago, our network guy said he would be leaving at the end of 2003. CDSM®'s solution was to have IWDH take over. Unfortunately, IWDH didn't want to do that so he drug his feet. My team lead repeatedly told CDSM® that IWDH was not the solution to the problem, but, as always CDSM® kept his head buried in the sand and ignored the problem. Now, we're stuck with IWDH, which means that my team lead and I have to fix most of the network problems, like we did Monday, and try to explain to IWDH what we did.
Him: (Speechless at my honesty) Uh... Uh... OK. Now when is it you plan to retire (probably hoping it will be at the end of this month)?
Me: May 2005.
Him: Why then?
Me: Because that's when I hit my pension figures.
Him: Well, if we announce another package (probably hoping that we will) and you want to take that (Please! Please! Take it!), be sure to let me know. Now, when you do leave, would you like to come back as a contractor?
This is what he really wants. If I were a contractor, he wouldn't have to deal with me. He would not have to go through evaluations, career counseling, diversity meetings, and other corporate bullshit with me. Plus, I would not report to him. I would report to my team lead.
Me: Sure. I would probably come back just for the comic relief.
What? You said that?
Sure. What's he gonna do? Make me retire? What's kinda neat is I manage all the hardware configurations and the only place that that is documented is in my head. I just can't seem to find the time to document all that stuff. So, I would probably have to come back as a contractor to train my replacement and document the hardware confgurations.
Here is the problem the CDSM® has. A few years back I made him look like an idiot. He told one of the incompetent users who complained about me whatever it took to get him out of his office. He then called me on the carpet and told me a procedure had changed. I wrote a sarcastic note to all the people involved clarifying what my manager had told me and agreeing with the new policy. Of course this made my manager look like a butthead (he did all the work, I merely pointed it out), and he had to say that the procedure hadn't changed after all. It wasn't personal. Unfortunately, he took it personally. As a result, he dropped my rating and since it was personal, I could walk on water and I will never be rated higher.
So explain to me why I should put forth any more effort than that required to keep my job. My manager missed the part of management school that covered motivation.
Let me tell you sumpin' about myself. I am very good at what I do. I once described myself as Dilbert on crack. I can work rings around most MVS systems programmers. I could be one of this guy's most solid performers. I have a track record. My competent users have nothing but good things to say about me. Yes, I am a prima donna. I admit it. But not anymore. Now I am Wally. Because I pissed this manager off, he has taken a highly motivated person and turned him into someone who doesn't really give a flying fuck.
On the upside, I come into work, do what I want, laugh at all the bullshit (and there is lots of bullshit to laugh at) and go home. I don't bust my butt anymore. What is ironic about all this is that I could make this manager look a lot better than he does, but he allowed personal feelings to interfere with his management decisions. Of course, he could fix it by offering me lots of money (Yeah, I'm a whore. I admit it.) but that ain't gonna happen.
Him: Is there anything else you want to discuss?
Me: Nope. Send me the evaluation (electonically) and I'll sign it.
As I have said before, work is fun when you don't give a shit.
Aaron pointed out in the comments from yesterday's post on gays in the military that I had completely overlooked the cheap shot about one of the gays being a rear admiral. What was I thinking? All I can blame it on was the fact that I had nothing to drink that night. My best rants usually occur after a Stoly on the rocks and a half bottle of wine. Just damn! That's my condition tonight.
So, in the spirit of bad taste that I am known for, let's imagine Saddam being captured by an elite gay unit of the United States Army.
I've been called a raving right wing nut job and a kneejerk conservative. In fact, I'm neither. I do lean to the right, but many of the positions of the extreme right completely turn me off.
As an example, let's talk about gays in the military. I'm for it. I see nothing wrong with gays in the military.
But GOC, what about the "unit cohesivness" argument? You know the fact that the heterosexuals will be uncomfortable around gay people.
That's funny. That's the same argument that was used about integrating the armed forces. Sure, there was some racism, but it passed or was snuffed out. I'm not saying it was completely wiped out, but if someone is shooting at you I don't think you really give a shit if the guy next to you is black or prefers to get it on with other guys.
Anyway, this also gives me a chance to do one of my favorite things: Clinton bashing.
It turns out, that in the race to smear as many presidents as possible in a vain attempt to create some sort of legacy for Blowjob Clinton, we now see that Harry Truman may have been quite the racist. Nevertheless, that didn't stop him from doing the right thing and integrating the armed forces. I'm no big Truman fan, but that took a lot of courage. It was the right thing to do and he did it. Remember it was Truman who had a sign on his desk that said, "The buck stops here".
Clinton, on the other hand, is a coward. He ran all over the world apologizing for every thing that this country did, but never apologized for anything he did. He had a chance to make a difference in the military, but cowardly took the path of "Don't ask, don't tell". Yeah, it would have taken guts to do that, just like it took guts for Truman to do what he did. Truman had courage. Clinton didn't.
You can see his cowardice throughout his presidency. Clinton didn't want to be president to make a difference, he wanted to be president just to be president. He could be the most powerful man in the world. He could ride in the helicopter. He could ride in Air Force 1. He could bang the babes, or get blowjobs from a chubby airheaded intern.
He stabbed his fellow Dimocrats in the back on NAFTA (A good thing) and on welfare reform (Another good thing) to get reelected. He didn't really care if these were good policies or not. He took some polls, convened some focus groups, and told the people what they wanted to hear and pissed off a whole shitload of Dimocrats (Another good thing). In some ways, Clinton was a pretty good Republican president. On the downside, he did emasculate the CIA and fuck up morale in the armed forces. And for all you liberals who like to scream "Quagmire!" , how come we're still in Kosovo? We were only supposed to be there for a year.
Back to gays in the military.
But GOC, what about the gays coming on to the straights? Or what about the gays boinking the other gays.
I was in the Navy for four years and I'm sure I must have served with some closet homosexuals and none of them ever came on to me. As for the boinking problem, where it's against the rules for dudes to be boinking babes make it against the rules for dudes to be boinking dudes or babes to be getting it on with other babes.
In Wednesday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation they published this op-ed by Leonard Pitts. I don't agree with Leonard too often, but I do this time. An excerpt:
As Exhibit A, I refer you to a little-noticed news item from last month. It was about three retired members of the U.S. military who disclosed that they were gay. What made it noteworthy is that these were not just any three grunts, but two generals and an admiral.Specifically, they were U.S. Army Brig. Gens. Keith Kerr and Virgil Richard and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Alan Steinman, who collectively represent nearly nine decades of service to the nation.
That service includes intelligence work, duty in Vietnam and important research into maritime medicine, none of which would have been possible had their sexual orientation been known.
Exactly. Talent is talent regardless of sexual orientation.
Last month, they acknowledged what has long been obvious: ''Don't ask'' is bad policy. Bad as a practical matter because it costs us valuable men and women like the nine gay linguists, specialists in Arabic and Korean (think there's any call for their services these days?), who were given the boot in 2002.
What about "in your face" homosexuality?
It would be against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I mean you're not gonna see some guy wear a button on his uniform that says "I'm queer and I'm proud". A person can be openly gay without rubbing it in your face. Like I said, I work with gay people. Their sexual orientation is none of my business and they don't make it my business. They don't run around with signs saying "I'm gay". It's not an issue and it shouldn't be.
Don't ask, don't tell is a stupid policy. It should end. Unfortunately Bush will not be the president to do it.
Too bad.
Don't the fucking liberals ever get tired of recycling the same old arguments? If I hear quagmire one more time I think I'm gonna puke. And what is it with this Bush=Hitler crap? Haven't these booger eatin' moh-rons ever heard of Godwin's Law? And let's use a little bit of common sense here. If Bush was really Hitler and Ashcroft was really Himmler (and Karl Rove was really Goebbels), the buttheads at Moveon.org would all be in prison and all the Dimocrats would be in concentration camps. Probably not a bad idea if you stop and think about it.
And what about that dickhead who wrote the column in the Seattle paper that Republicans were stupid. Hey assmunch! If we're so fucking stupid, why do we have all the money? And it's only Dimocrats who believe all this Bush is Hitler crap. And it's only Dimocrats and stupid women who believe that Hillary Clinton is a role model. Yeah that's the ticket. A woman who lets her husband humiliate her and her daughter in front of the whole fucking nation and doesn't castrate the sumbitch. And this is a feminist role model? Listen up! I know some strong women who would have done a Bobbit on that sumbitch. And it's Republicans who are stupid? GMAFB!
What got me all worked up was this op-ed that appeared in Tuesday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipataion by some dipshit named Lewis W. Diuguid who writes for the Kanses City Star.
The new year serves as a good time to assess the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Went pretty well if you ask me.
Who could forget Saddam Hussein? But the Bogeyman of Baghdad looked more like a down-and-out derelict than a fearsome despot when U.S. soldiers captured him last month.
Well shit he has to say sumpin'. I mean, Lewis was probably one of those liberals shouting out, "Where's Saddam?" Now that we have him he has to try to put the worst possible spin on it. It is really getting hard to be a Dimocrat.
Behind it was a chilling year-end truth: Saddam is in custody, but the U.S.-led war in Iraq shows no sign of ending. With the U.S. military death toll nearing 500, more U.S. troops have died since the Iraq war began on March 20 than the 392 U.S. servicemen killed in the Vietnam War from 1961 through 1964.
Ah yes. The tried and true Viet Nam. What would the liberals do without Viet Nam, the war that they caused us to lose the traitorous bastards? Fortunately, since the gummint schools probably don't teach American history anymore they can get away with this bullshit about Viet Nam between 1961 and 1964. During those years, we only had a token force of advisors in country. The war didn't start in earnest until 1965. But remember, liberals have no use for facts. And where is the q-word?
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a recent meeting with the Kansas City Star editorial board called the current quagmire ''the perfect storm.'' She said President Bush sold the country on ''a war of choice.''
There it is! And it came from one of the most incompetent Secretaries of State this country has ever seen, Madeleine Halfbright. One of the most successful wars this country has ever fought and the liberals call it a quagmire. Hey Madeleine, how's that Kosovo thing going? Y'know the one that your boss Blowjob Clinton said we would only have troops in for one year? Have those troops come home yet?
The Bush administration before the war in Iraq linked Saddam with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and then months later said it wasn't so. Officials got Americans behind the war with tales of weapons of mass destruction and possible terrorist attacks at home.
Dude! Saddam's singing like a canary. What are you asswipe's gonna say when we find out there is a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda? And what happens if we find out that Saddam shipped his weapons to Syria? These fuckers are gonna be cranking up more Bush=Hitler bullshit because that's all they have.
Now Bush must sell people on winning the peace.''That becomes the hardest job for the president,'' Albright said. ''You can't keep changing your story. That's part of the problem.''
And someone who worked for Clinton is an expert on changing stories.
"I didn't have sexual relations with that woman ... "
"Oral sex isn't sex."
"We weren't alone."
"It all depends on what your meaning of is, is."
But the U.S. blunder of the year, Robert Jay Lifton wrote in the Dec. 22 issue of The Nation, was in seeking to ''control history'' through ''militarizing the problem of terrorism.'' The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks exposed the superpower's vulnerability.
Thanks to political correctness emasculating the CIA.
''A superpower's victimization brings on both a sense of humiliation and angry determination to restore, or even extend, the boundaries of a superpower-dominated world,'' Lifton wrote in the ''American Apocalypse'' article.
Look, the dude writes for the Nation. He's a fucking communist. He's one of those assholes who ask, "Why do they hate us?"
''The humiliation together with American world ambitions, however, precluded dealing with the attacks as what they were --- terrorism by a small group of determined zealots, not war,'' he wrote. ''A more focused, restrained, internationalized response to al-Qaida could have been far more effective without being a stimulus to expanded terrorism.''
Yeah, but those fuckers were supported by the Taliban so we took those dickheads out. Saddam, in spite of what the brain dead liberals aver, had a WMD program and we knew he would give them to terrorists and we took him out. And guess what? Daffy Kadaffy saw what we did to Saddam and he surrendered.
After 8 years of Clinton, bin Laden thought we were a nation of pussies. After all, Clinton is a pussy. Even Hillary has bigger balls than he does. Can you imagine Clinton having the balls to fly into Baghdad? OBL was quoted as saying that after we turned tail and ran from Somalia, he knew we could be defeated. He was wrong. Clinton wasn't president anymore. OBL is either worm food or he's hiding out in a cave somewhere. And Madeleine Halfbright even thinks we may have captured him and we are waiting for the right political moment to publicize the event. The dumb bitch must be green with envy that this administration has a foreign policy that actually works.
Meanwhile, people's needs at home go begging. Homelessness and people without health insurance have increased. Poverty is up, and joblessness remains a problem.
I thought we were talking about foreign policy. OK. The Clinton recession is over. The stock market has come roaring back. Unemployment is dropping. Stupid Republicans are making lots of money. Things are really looking bad for Dimocrats. No wonder all they have to run on is Bush=Hitler.
Bush hasn't done any better in the countries he claims to have ''liberated.'' The Center for Health & Gender Equity, Feminist Majority, the Women's Environment & Development Organization along with the Communications Consortium Media Center recently released a Global Women's Issues Scorecard on the Bush administration.The report gave the administration an A on rhetoric on the U.S. resolution on ''Women and Political Participation'' adopted in November at the United Nations. But it got a D on walking the walk.
WTF? Are you trying to tell me that women are worse off in Afghanistan and Iraq after the wars than before the wars???? What the fuck are you smoking? I think the federal prosecutors might want to come to Kansas City and see if you've been doctor shopping for some of the drugs that you must be taking. Jesus H. Christ! You have one really bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome!
Albright shared similar concerns, saying, ''Iraq did divert attention and resources'' from Afghanistan. Now each country is more dangerous.''It's become impossible for the United States of America to feel secure anywhere,'' she said.
I feel a hell of a lot more secure than I would if that moron Bush hadn't stolen the election. Hey, if Republicans are so fucking stupid how did they steal the election? They even outsmarted a Daley and Daleys have been stealing elections in Chicago for years. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
That's not a good way to start the new year. Like Bush, Albright advocates keeping U.S. troops in Iraq. ''I think it would be a real mistake if we pulled our forces out,'' she said. ''There would be a huge vacuum.''
Like the one between your ears and the ears of most of the people who vote for Dimocrats.
I disagree. U.S. troops need to come home now and a true coalition of U.N. peacekeepers needs to help the Iraqis rebuild that country.
Yeah Lewis, the United Nations has been a resounding success in peacekeeping roles. First you have to get them to go back into Iraq. The cowardly bastards left, remember? Tell me Lewis, does the Kansas City Star pay you to write nonsensical bullshit like this? Can I get a job there? You're dumber than Molly Ivins and that's saying a lot.
'Stepping off the superpower treadmill would also enable us to cease being a nation ruled by fear,'' he wrote. ''Renouncing omnipotence would make our leaders themselves less fearful of weakness, and diminish their inclination to instill fear in their people as a means of enlisting them for illusory military efforts at world hegemony.''
Kumbaya. Why do they hate us?
Overcoming fear will be our biggest challenge this new year.
No. Our biggest challenge will be keeping people who think like you out of the gummint this year.
You are a fucking idiot!
Aaarrrggghhhh! I can't take it anymore! I wanna break sumpin'! I just want to be semi-retired. I want to go into work and do as little as possible for the next 17 months. If they expect me to do work and stuff, I want more money. Geez! The old network guy, who is no longer with us, warned me about the clueless assmunch who was taking over, but he is even worse than I thought. He wanted me to explain to him stuff that it took me years to learn in about 1 hour. No freaking way. I'm ready to go back on vacation.
I'm in a real foul mood tonight.
I have an evaluation with my manager on Thursday. I guess I should get good and drunk Wednesday night so I can look and feel my best for the occasion. At least I didn't have to talk to him today. He said "Hi" as he passed my office. I was chanting, "Please don't stop. Please don't stop." It must have worked. He kept on going.
I was driving home and listening to All Things Distorted on National Proletariat Radio and I heard some guy from Brazil bitching about having to have his picture taken and being fingerprinted to enter the country and how "invasive" this was. No dipshit, having a baseball bat shoved up your ass is invasive. Being fingerprinted and having your picture taken is a minor inconvenience and is one of the conditions for you to enter the country. You don't like it? There's a simple solution: Stay the fuck home! STFU!
Pete Rose confesses. "I gambled on baseball." Hey Pete! Fuck off! You're banned from baseball. You were a great player but as a human being you're an asshole. You can go in the Hall of Fame after you die. Until then, live with the consequences of your actions.
I got home and opened today's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.
Part of the 17th Street bridge in Atlanta opens today. It's yellow. It looks like someone pissed on it. They're gonna keep it that color.
Oh goody! Here's an op-ed by William Safire.
As he heads into what H.L. Mencken called the ''Bible Belt,'' the candidate moved to plug an apparent hole in his resume about an interest in religion. After hearing Dean's observation beginning ''If you know much about the Bible --- which I do,'' a reporter asked about his favorite New Testament book. Dean named Job, adding, ''But I don't like the way it ends . . . in some of the books of the New Testament, the ending of the Book of Job is different . . . there's one book where there's a more optimistic ending, which we believe was tacked on later.''
Oh yeah. This fucktard has found religion and he really knows the Bible. I'm an atheist and even I know that Job is part of the Old Testament. And Job has different endings? That must be in the Readers' Digest condensed version. But, remember, Dean thinks the Soviet Union still exists. For those of you dickheads who think there is no liberal media bias, if Bush had said that Job was part of the New Testament, it would have been trumpeted on page one of the New York Times and Dan, Peter, and Tom would be sneering about how dumb Bush was. I don't want to start bashing Dean until he gets the nomination, but does anyone really want this prick running foreign policy? He'd probably appoint Jimmy Carter Secretary of State. Whatever happened to gravitas and does Dean have it? Cokie? Tim? Comments?
Molly Ivins is on vacation so I don't have to wade through her incoherent ravings. She and Ann Richards, her fellow dried up old hag, are probably off somewhere sucking lemons so they can be even more bitter than they already are.
They published letters from some real brain dead idiots. Here's an excerpt from one written by Paul L. Whitely Sr. of Louisville, Kentucky.
Our country has a lot of fences to mend with the international community, barriers that are an outgrowth of our practically unilateral invasion of Iraq.
Fuck the international community. If they had had their way, Saddam would still be murdering his people. "practically unilateral" - We didn't get permission from the Frogs or the Krauts.
I hope we get back in the good graces of the United Nations and win back the favor we are losing from much of the global community. It is folly to think we can go it alone in solving world problems; military might does not make right.
I hope we continue to tell the United Nations to go fuck themselves. Paul, here's a clue: The lead pipe. Ask Colonel Mustard if he will use it to bash some sense into your multinational skull you clueless sumbitch. And guess what? Sometimes military might does make right. Y'know, like the Civil War and WWII.
Another bleeding heart booger eatin' moh-ron named Eligio Aballera from Fairburn Georgia wrote
The statistics --- that 90 percent of war casualties are innocent women and children --- are gruesomely appalling.Particularly disturbing were the "attendant horrors of war such as rape and mutilation, prostitution, forced recruitment of children into the military, psychological trauma, family separation and physical abuse in refugee camps."
What this putzhead is describing was the situation in Iraq before the war. Can he really be this fucking stupid?
Yep, he can be that fucking stupid. They knew. They knew. That was one of the reasons they made the "unilateral decision" (Earth to Eligio - Unilateral means one. The UK and the United States are two countries. And of course Spain and Poland were involved. There were others, like Australia. In fact, there were 17. That's hardly unilateral you dolt.) to go to war. Iraq is a better place now but you're too stupid to realize that.
And where would we be without the wit and wisdom of The Vent where many Atlantans show off their incredible stupidity for all the AJC readers. Here's one.
Every time an alleged terrorist is killed, we probably create three more. So we're going to lose this whole thing.
Oh great! we're doomed! So let's just give up. What a fucking idiot!
I'm surrounded by idiots!
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't post anything last night. So sue me. It's not like I'm getting paid to do this (other than the ego trip of watching my hits go up). I watched football all day. College is over and soon the Super Bowl will be here and gone. Gotta get my final fixes in while I can.
I'm back at work after a nice long vacation and my team lead is still having problems with his PC. Even tho' he put all the fixes on, he still got one of the viruses. He's been having problems for the last few months and, as I have discussed before, the support structure passes all the problems back down to the user. Call the (No) Help (Whatsoever) Desk. Try this. Try that. Reboot. Try this again. We have some $5 (or less) per hour dude in India telling someone who makes ten times that amount what to do. My team lead knows more about PC's than the Indian dude.
Dear Corporate America CDSM®'s (Clueless Dipshit Managers): If you insist on hiring incompetent dipshits in I/T support, train us users better so we don't have to put up with this crap. The buttwipes who make these decisions don't have to deal with these morons. When they have a PC problem, someone else fixes it for them. I wonder if they have a clue as to how much lost productivity is involved? My team lead has not done one thing associated with his job today.
Now, after fighting various problems for the last three months, he is getting a new PC and having all the crap reloaded on it. This is a problem that should have been fixed by a human, in Atlanta, three months ago.
Also we were having network problems this morning. We had a problem with a network box over the weekend and my team lead came in Sunday and reloaded the NCP (Network Control Program) and recycled VTAM and RSCS. That's mainframe network stuff. Unfortunately, all the RSCS links didn't come back up.
Our network guy left in November and the guy who took his place is clueless. He was supposed to start picking this stuff up a year ago, but kept dragging his feet hoping it wouldn't happen. My team lead kept pointing this our to our CDSM® who blissfully ignored the problem.
I looked at the problem when I came in, but said let the network guy do it. Unfortunately, I know more network stuff than the network guy so he wound up calling me and asking for help. After remembering how I set up NJE/RSCS in my network, I checked out the definitions in his network and found the right JES APPL's to start up. (Are you impressed yet?) Then, I had to spend another hour on the phone with this booger eatin' moh-ron trying to explain to him how all this stuff was put together and how it worked. That's why I make the big bucks: not for what I do, but for what I know. And now I'm expected to try and pass this knowledge on to a complete moron. All of a sudden I don't feel overpaid anymore.
Woody sent me the following:
TOP 10 REASONS WHY A HANDGUN IS BETTER THAN A WIFE
#10 - YOU CAN TRADE AN OLD 44 FOR A NEW 22.
#9 - YOU CAN KEEP ONE HANDGUN AT HOME, AND HAVE ANOTHER FOR WHEN YOU'RE ON THE ROAD.
#8 - IF YOU ADMIRE A FRIEND'S HANDGUN, AND TELL HIM SO, HE WILL PROBABLY LET YOU TRY IT OUT A FEW TIMES.
#7 - YOUR PRIMARY HANDGUN DOESN'T MIND IF YOU KEEP ANOTHER HANDGUN FOR A BACK UP.
#6 - YOUR HANDGUN WILL STAY WITH YOU EVEN IF YOU RUN OUT OF AMMO.
#5 - A HANDGUN DOESN'T TAKE UP A LOT OF CLOSET SPACE.
#4 - HANDGUNS FUNCTION NORMALLY EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH.
#3 - A HANDGUN DOESN'T ASK, "DO THESE NEW GRIPS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?"
#2 - A HANDGUN DOESN'T MIND IF YOU GO TO SLEEP AFTER YOU USE IT.
and, the number one way a handgun is better than a woman
#1 - YOU CAN BUY A SILENCER FOR A HANDGUN!
Here is a rerun from August of 2003 where I just can't seem to separate hate speech from "black hyperbole". I also have the same problem with liberal hate speech.
Dammit! What the heck do I have to do to get hate mail? Rachel gets hate mail and she's a lot nicer that I am. Cuter too. It's not like I haven't tried. I know I've offended a bunch of people. I know some people hate what I write, 'cause I've checked my ratings. There are some Hate its. Golly, now I've even got someone who wants to shoot me. He calls it a modest proposal
To take everybody who mistakes common politeness for "political correctness", everybody who actually uses "political correctness" without any trace of irony and especially anybody who is proud to call themselves "politically incorrect" and thinks this is a brave thing to do outside to the nearest wall and shoot them.
Now this guy, on his site, right under his picture, has the phrase Screw you Eric, this is a gun free zone. Talk about irony. How's he gonna take me outside and shoot me? Where's he gonna get the gun? And we have another problem. I don't know how long I can stand up against the wall, being crippled and all. Maybe he can hold me up while the shootin's bein' done.
I thought liberals were against capital punishment. I thought liberals only wanted to kill babies. Don't worry. I'm not talking about abortion. You're not gonna get me into that discussion. I'm talking about infanticide. That's where they see how many angels can dance on the head of a pin by delivering just enough of a live healthy baby so they can collapse his head and suck out the brains and call it 'partial birth' abortion. Sorry bucko, that's infanticide.
It's funny how conservatives are supposed to be so mean spirited but so much hate speech comes spewing from the left. I mean here's a guy who thinks that someone like me, exercising his First Amendment rights and refusing to buckle under the tyranny of stupid political fucking correctness (sorry, have to save my keyboard) should be taken outside to the nearest wall and shot. Tell me who's the fascist here. I guess I should be flattered that an anti-gun nut wants give up his hatred of guns long enough to have me shot. If I've pissed off at least one bedwetting, anti-gun nut liberal, I've done my job for the day.
How about another example. That noted (sarcasm) compassionate (/sarcasm) liberal, Julianne Malveaux, a truly odious person, said of Clarence Thomas "I hope [Thomas’s] wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease. . ." Aren't liberals supposed to be against hate speech? Oh, that's all right as long as they get to judge what constitutes hate speech. Hoping someone dies of heart disease or is taken outside and propped up against a wall and shot is OK if a liberal says it.
And how about that towering intellect of the left, Alec Baldwin? On the Late Night with Conan O'Brien show, during the Clinton Impeachment, Alec Baldwin said We should go to Washington and stone Henry Hyde to death. And then we should go to his house and kill his family. He said it was meant to be humorous. Remember that the next time a liberal bitches about some conservative hate speech. It was meant to be humorous. HaHaHa! Cut it out Alec! You're killin' me. No, Alec, it's a figure of speech. At least Alec didn't want to use a gun. Unlike whassisface who wants to take me out and have me shot for exercising my First Amendment rights.
And how about Charles Barron? Here's another example of leftist humor. And who says liberals don't have a sense of humor?
New York City Councilman Charles Barron said Sunday that he was using "black hyperbole" when he told a Washington, D.C., crowd gathered yesterday to demonstrate for slavery reparations that he wanted to slap white people who didn't sympathize with the cause.
I guess I'd rather be slapped than shot.
"I want to go up to the closest white person and say 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health," Barron announced as 2,000 to 3,000 reparations supporters looked on.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
As the New York official uttered his incendiary remarks, vendors from the New Black Panther Party, which provided security for the event, hawked T-Shirts that read "Kill Whitey"
You don't understand, they were just joking. Another example of 'black hyperbole'.
and "How did we get to America? Heartless Christian Buyer, Ruthless Jewish seller," the Washington Times reported.
Yeah, but who sold the slaves to the Christian buyers? How 'bout their black brothers on the African coast. Sorry guys, Roots was good TV but bad history. Whites never went inland. They didn't have to. And I don't think the Jews were in the slave trade. Your friends the Arabs were and they still are today.
Asked about his explosive slap-the-nearest-white-person comment, Barron told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg he was only joking, before the interview turned contentious.
Love a black guy with a sense of humor. Like Billy McKinney. 'It's the Jews. J-E-W-S'
The exchange went like this:
MALZBERG: How long have you wanted to slap white people?
Have you had this condition long? Is it contagious? Do you still beat your wife?
BARRON: Well, let me say this to you. It's interesting that they would take that out of my speech.
Since you were talkin' about slappin' white folks we wanted to know more about it.
I think everybody knew there that was what we call improvision - oratorial improvision and black hyperbole.
Some of us call that hate speech. But let's see if Charlie can dig himself deeper.
And y'all wouldn't understand that 'cause you're uptight and you're gonna take it where it was not intended.
But it's not all right for me to say 'Boy it's hot today!" and not even be talking to you and hear 'Don't call me boy!' and I'm a racist honkie motherfucker? Or someone voices a complaint about a niggardly budget and y'all run off and scream racism when niggardly has nothing to do with the 'n' word. (Look, I was politically correct and didn't say the actual word. Does that mean I won't be shot?) Which one of us is uptight?
Everybody at the rally laughed. White stage hands and camera people laughed.
Maybe they were laughing at you and not with you. Or maybe they were afraid that they'd get slapped if they didn't laugh.
When I came off the stage, I shook hands with whites who were there and they congratulated me on a great speech.
On a great hate speech. And, please don't slap me.
No one has taken that serious but you.
Wait a minute! I took it serious. That's two. My sister took it serious. That's three. My friends Michael and Cindy took it serious. That's four and five. I'll bet many of my readers took it serious. Should I forward the e-mail to you Charlie? What's your address? Now it gets good.
MALZBERG: Well, I'm taking it serious because it's presented as serious in the wire story. What in the world is black ...
BARRON: It's not serious. That's not serious. It's black hyperbole. Let's talk about reparations.
MALZBERG: Wait, wait, wait. If you'll be quiet for a second, I'm gonna ask you the question, what in the world is black hyperbole?
Let me interrupt here. Black hyperbole is an euphemism for hate speech.
BARRON: You don't know what a hyperbole is?
hyperbole, n. (fr. Greek, prop., an overshooting, excess, deriv. of hyper over + ballein to throw) Rhet. Extravagant exaggeration of statement; a statement exaggerated fancifully; as for effect
black hyperbole,n. hate speech
MALZBERG: Yeah, I do ...
BARRON: Let me break it down for you ...
MALZBERG: N-n-n-n-n-no, I do but you just ...
BARRON: Let me break down the parts of speech for you.
MALZBERG: You yourself - no, no, no, hold on. Now you're on hold because now you're insulting. Put him on hold because I want to - you said, "You won't understand this because you're white and uptight and blah, blah, blah but black hyperbole." So, yes, I know what hyperbole is. My question to you was: What is - what you said I wouldn't understand because I'm white - black hyperbole?
BARRON: It's a sense of humor. And we take things - we identify humor, they're gross exaggerations. That's a hyperbole. And it's a sense of humor that we have politically that our folk will understand and some other folk will get uptight and take it very seriously.
Like 'kill whitey' and 'death to the bloodsucking Jews'. It's not hate speech. It's black hyperbole. Hey, maybe what Julianne Malveaux said about Clarence Thomas was just black hyperbole. Now I understand. How come they never explained this shit to us white folks before? They jes' be funnin' wit' us.
MALZBERG: So if I made a joke before a white audience that I wanted to - just for my mental health - slap a black person, then I could always claim that that was white hyperbole.
Sounds like a good question to me.
BARRON: No. Because that's not how white people joke around.
How do you know? Have you been to the secret white folks meetings where we discuss this shit?
You're just trying to make a hypothetical to turn this into something it's not.
No, we're just trying to get you to admit that this was hate speech and quit throwing this bogus black hyperbole bullshit at us. If a white person were to say, I'm so sick of this stupid reparations bullshit that I just want to slap the next black person I see, the howls from the black community would be deafening. I wouldn't want to be between Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and a TV camera. You wouldn't have to shoot me. I'd be trampled to death. And that reminds me. I'm due for another Bitch Slap column and you, Charlie, are gonna be in it. Back to the interview.
MALZBERG: Oh, so black people ...
BARRON: Let's talk about reparations.
MALZBERG: I will. Black people joke around by talking about ...
BARRON: Let's talk about reparations ...
MALZBERG: Wait a minute. Don't tell ...
BARRON: You could put me on hold again if you'd like.
MALZBERG: So you're just going to ...
BARRON: 'Cause I'm not entertaining no more of you wasting my time on black hyperbole you just don't get.
Yeah we white folks sure are dumb. No wonder we don't understand this reparations bullshit.
MALZBERG: Alright. Goodbye, city councilman. Thank you very much. I'm not going to be treated rudely and badgered on my show. (End of Excerpt)
So I think I got all this figgered out now. If a liberal like Alec Baldwin says we should stone an elected official for trying to uphold the Constitution, that must be liberal hyperbole. And the dude who wants to take me outside and have me shot must be using liberal hyperbole also.
I sure as hell hope so.
Hey dude! Have you met my friend Flip? He's a bird.
That's an example of Grouchy Old Cripple hyperbole.
So I'm sitting here and wondering what I was gonna write about tonight and I looked in my mailbox and, like a miracle, there it was: this link sent to me by Sandy P. Thank you Sandy P! Here we have more of the wisom of Cynthia McKinney.
THE only solution to the predicament that all black people face world-wide is unity and a conscious and enlightened pursuit of our own self-interest.That is according to a former United States of America congresswoman, Cynthia Ann McKinney who delivered a lecture Tuesday Night at the Frank Collymore Hall as part of the Kwanzaa 2003 activities.
Dammit! My invitation must have been lost in the mail!
McKinney has the distinction of being the first African American woman from the state of Georgia to be elected to the American House of Representative, and served in the congress for five consecutive terms
Until her own constituents got fed up with her antics and voted her out in the Dimocrat primary. Even though her daddy said it was "the Jews. J-E-W-S" it turned out that it was black folks in her district who opted for the more sane Denise Majette.
and was one of the most popular black women in the United States.
Huh? WTF? Who came up with that bullshit? One of the most popular black women in the United States? Petal Barclay-Smith (Who the fuck names their daughter Petal?) you need to cut back on the dosage of whatever drug you are on.
McKinney also spoke on the conditions of black people and was candid in exposing the history of aggression by certain agencies of the US government against the black community in general, and against the leaders of the black liberation struggle in particular.
She must be talking about the Dimocrat Party and the social welfare state. Since the Great fucking Society, poverty has gone from 3% of the population to 12% of the population and the inner city has been particularly hard hit. The illegitimacy rate in the black community (One of the main causes of poverty) has risen to over 60%. So, I guess the gummint agencies Cynthia is talking about are Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Education. If the KKK had planned to destroy the black family and keep millions of blacks poor and dependent upon the gummint, they could not have done a better job than the Dimocrats and congresscritters like Cynthia McKinney.
The former congresswoman also explained how the US government’s counter-intelligence programme was used to target and decimate such progressive black organisations as the Black Panther Party and the United Slaves Organisation.
Petal, I realize that they might not teach you very much in Barbados, but the Black Panthers were not what I would call a "progressive organisation." And I have never heard of the United Slaves Organisation. Just as well.
While she warned the audience to be careful about the hidden hands of agent’s provocateurs among us, Mckinney said, “Its intent may be on causing division among leaders of the black movement and ultimately to derail our movement.”
Gotta watch out for those agent provocateurs like Condi Rice and Colin Powell.
In addition, she charged that we need to deal with the traitors in our midst if we are to build a movement that will be stable and respected.
The above mentioned Colin Powell and Condi Rice. Also Clarence Thomas, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder. Ya know, the people who think you should be judged by the content of your character and not the color of your skin. Geez. That sounds familiar. Who said that?
Sharing the night with the former congresswoman were two Barbadian exemplars – Robert Bobby Clarke, veteran Pan Africanist, socialist and trade unionist, and Viola Davis, veteran Afrocentric educator and Pan Africanist.
Never heard of them, but they probably preach the same old tired bullshit that the liberal black establishment preaches in the United States. All the successful black people that I work with thinks it's bullshit. They got to where they are by hard work.
However, Tuesday’s lecture was the fifth event of the week long Kwanzaa festival that began on December 26 with a celebration of the principle of Unity and the honouring of such exemplars as Minister Hamilton Lashley and Ms Sally Comissiong Attorney-at-Law.
I await the rest of the events with bated breath.
By the way, Cynthia took leave from her current job to attend the conference in Barbados.
Since it's New Year's Day, I guess I should make some resolutions.
1. I'm gonna keep posting cute cat pictures for Pumpman.
2. I'm gonna buy a handgun to piss off liberals and so I can buy ammunition next National Ammo Day.
3. I'm gonna be less tolerant of Trolls. I've been entirely too nice lately. That will have to change.
4. I'm gonna continue writing Faxes From Babs. Maybe some day Hawkins might post one of them on his site. Yeah. Like that's gonna happen.
5. I'm gonna continue drinking good wine.
6. I'm gonna drive to Dallas so I can meet Kim and Connie du Toit and Rachel Lucas.
7. I will try to explain to conservative purists why staying home and not voting for Bush is a vote for a Dimocrat. I too am pissed about compassionate conservatism which seems to mean steel tariffs, an abomination of a farm bill, and an unneeded prescription drug program. ( Dammit Dubya! You're a Republican. Start governing like one! Quit spending so much money! Veto a spending bill! ) The important thing to ask yourself is this: Do you want to put the defense of this country in the hands of any of the Dimocrats who are running? The only one I can visualize actually putting the defense of this country paramount is Joe Lieberman, and I'm not sure about him. It looks like Dean will win the nomination. Do you want him as the commander-in-chief? If you do, stay home on election day and punish Dubya just like you did his father.
8. I'm gonna continue making fun of the Dimocrats. They do all the work. I just point it out.
9. I'm gonna continue being mean and nasty to the poor. Most of them are parasites.
10. I'm gonna continue doing the things that have made me rich, thus making me richer. Net worth up 15%. Investment portfolio up 13.5% All I can say is that Joanie in Doonesbury ain't too smart if she lost money in 2003. BTW, these numbers are different from a previous post since that was only through November. These numbers are through December and are still slightly lower since I haven't received end of year dividends and capital gains. The rich get richer because they continue to do the things that make them rich. The poor get poorer because they continue to do the things that make them poor.
11. I'm gonna continue writing about TCIDNN until they catch me and try to make me stop. Then I'll probably retire and see if I can find some contract work.
12. And most of all, I'm gonna continue being a Grouchy Old Cripple!
How's your hangover? Check out this picture. It's sure to help.
