- From the “Twits” Department – Three members of a congressman’s staff were fired yesterday after several news sites reprinted their tweets about drinking on the job and other forms of goofing off. Apparently being a leech on the ass of the American taxpayer isn’t enough to get fired, but take a couple of snorts off of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and you’re out of here. Since the congressman in question is a Democrat, I’m pretty sure his staffers could have kept their jobs if they’d thought to claim they were just emulating Teddy Kennedy.
- From the “Another One” Department – Another academic has verbally attacked efforts to gather supplies for CARE packages to soldiers. The Iowa State University lecturer opines in his screed that American soldiers receive enough from the American taxpayer already, and that their work to fight overseas only creates more terrorists. Like I said about the professor in Massachusetts who expressed similar sentiments, it’s a free country and he’s welcome to his opinions. Of course, I’m free to hope he gets run down by a septic system cleaner’s tanker truck, but that’s just me. And I have to say thanks to him for teaching me a new five dollar word: eleemosynary. If you’re playing “Spot the Liberal Arts Major” at home, that was a hint.
- From the “Good Step” Department – NASA has approved a plan by SpaceX to attempt to send a space capsule to the ISS next year. Hopefully they’re successful. Having more than one method for getting supplies and astronauts to the space station will take some of the wind out of the Russian license-to-print-money we have these days.
- From the “Headcount” Department – China is taking a census of their wild pandas. Apparently all naturalists in the area are being pressed into the hunt for pandas, which seems to boil down to a hunt for panda droppings. The government will take the samples of panda waste and analyze them in order to discover how many pandas are in the area. No word yet on how many pandas will be given the long form containing intrusive questions about their lifestyle, or whether or not law enforcement will be called in on any pandas who refuse to participate.
- From the “Or Get Off The Pot” Department – Several Democrat members of Congress have asked their leadership to stop the Postal Service from shutting down sorting facilities and laying off thousands of workers in order to cut the agencies losses. Apparently these legislators have forgotten that there are only so many way to improve the business position of an organization: cut expenses or sell more product. Since the amount of product the USPS is selling is falling at a steady rate, then it needs to cut expenses. Now, how can they cut expenses? Well, they could cut the workforce and shut down unneeded facilities, they can cut service to the bare minimum that they are mandated to provide, or they could invent a magic fuel that costs nothing and keeps their trucks, lights, and other equipment running without having to do any maintenance. Apparently these members of Congress are trying to force the government to invest in that fuel. Next up: Unicorn ranching and rainbow mines to raise money to cut the federal deficit.
News Roundup
Posted by daddybear71 on December 9, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/09/news-roundup-55/
Quote of the Day
What do we want?
A cure for tourettes!
When do we want it?
@%**!!?##%&!
— Lumberjack
Posted by daddybear71 on December 9, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/09/quote-of-the-day-36/
30 Days of Heinlein – Day 6
-
- Life is short.
But the years are long.
Not while the evil days come not.
- Life is short.
— Methuselah’s Children
Posted by daddybear71 on December 9, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/09/30-days-of-heinlein-day-6/
Adding Insult to Injury
Louisville police have arrested an individual on charges of attempted murder, assault, and robbery. Nothing strange about that. People get arrested in Louisville every day.
The attempted murder charge seems to come from an incident where the suspect and an accomplice robbed and shot a man on the street. Again, while tragic, nothing out of the ordinary for Louisville there.
However, the story gets weird after that. A couple of days later, knowing that their victim was still in the hospital and that his home would be unguarded, they burglarized his house.
Talk about big brass ones. These guys are either masters of planning or complete morons.
First, you mug a guy then shoot him six times. Then, taking advantage of his condition, you rob his home. No thoughts that maybe doing so many things to one guy might make it easy for the police to tie it all up in a nice little package for the prosecutor.
Where do people come up with these ideas? It would never occur to me to tell someone “Carry your gun when you walk down the street so that someone doesn’t rob you and then burglarize your home while you’re laid up.”
Posted by daddybear71 on December 9, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/09/adding-insult-to-injury/
Is there something in the water?
Is someone spiking the water at mosques across the world?
A few days ago, I commented on a recent opinion from a Muslim cleric that allowing Saudi women to drive would lead to prostitution, homosexuality, and a lack of virgins in the kingdom.
Now, a cleric in Europe has advised Muslim women to avoid phallic produce such as cucumbers, zucchini, and carrots because they might lead the women into having unclean thoughts. If women do want to eat them, then a male relative is supposed to prepare the food.
I’m not going to tar an entire religion with the brush these two men provide. There are kooks and extremists in every group, especially groups that try to advise people on how to live a ‘holy’ life. I’ve heard preachers rail against dancing and instrumental music. I’ve listened to environmentalists harangue people for the crime of eating meat or eating vegetables that weren’t produced using 17th century levels of technology. I’ve heard politicians of every stripe from multiple countries say things that just make me shake my head. And yes, I’ve heard pro-gun people say things that set my teeth on edge.
But lately, it just seems there are more of these stories. Maybe I’m just noticing them because I’m paying a bit more attention to the news than usual. Maybe the media is reporting them more. Or maybe there are just more kooks.
But seriously, am I the only one that wonders if some of the conspiracy theories about stuff in the water might be true based on some of the news of late?
Posted by daddybear71 on December 9, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/09/is-there-something-in-the-water/
News Roundup
- From the “Bless His Heart” Department – President Obama has pledged to stay in Washington DC over the Christmas holidays if Congress is still in session to work on a tax bill. Apparently, in this time of economic and social strife, the President is willing to make the great personal sacrifice of not jetting off to a tropical paradise on the taxpayers’ dime in order to do the job for which we pay him. Let me be the first to support the canonization of Saint Barack the Martyr, he who gave up a couple of weeks on the beach in order to be available to sign his name on a bill.
- From the “Sausage Factory” Department – A representative of Egypt’s military has asserted that the Egyptian parliament will not be the final decider on any changes to that countries constitution. The military seems to believe that Islamists, who seem to be gaining a majority of votes in recent voting, don’t truly represent the people of Egypt. I predict celebratory fire from the election to start impacting on Egypt’s military headquarters in five, four, three…..
- From the “No Kidding” Department – A new study finds that a large number of young women binge drink early in their college career, and 59% of those report that they are sexually assaulted in some way after getting drunk. This is the kind of research that I have to look at sideways. If you don’t know that college students drink to excess, and that college boys have been known to take advantage of a drunk college girl, you have been living under a rock. I want to see a study that shows that if young girls are taught how to effectively de-testicle an attacker, even when drunk, would the number of sexual assaults on campus go down? Maybe we should have studies to see if parents teaching their daughters to not drink to excess or to always have a trusted friend stay sober to protect inebriated friends has an impact on the number of girls who are violated.
- From the “Like a Steel Trap” Department – Former Senator and New Jersey Jon Corzine is expected to say that he doesn’t know where the money his former company, MF Global, took in from investors ended up. Let’s see, you’re given billions of dollars by investors, you do yearly independent audits of your books, you’re smart enough to have been elected to the United States Senate and the office of governor of New Jersey, and you want us to believe you have no idea where all that money went. This is kind of like a man telling his wife he has no idea how all the glitter got into his hair when he went out drinking with his friends.
Posted by daddybear71 on December 8, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/08/news-roundup-56/
30 Days of Heinlein – Day 5
The future is better than the past. Despite the crepehangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands…with tools…with horse sense and science and engineering. — The Door Into Summer
Posted by daddybear71 on December 8, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/08/30-days-of-heinlein-day-5/
Something in my eye
Snarfle allergies snurgle read this sniff.
Posted by daddybear71 on December 8, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/08/something-in-my-eye/
Feeling Homesick
North Dakota – We’re almost Canadian!
Posted by daddybear71 on December 8, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/08/feeling-homesick/
My List
Most of you have probably read Skippy’s List. If you haven’t, you should, especially if you’ve ever been in or around the military. Warning: Some of his language is a bit salty, and some of the things he talks about may cause psychic damage to the fragile, but it’s funny.
I’m going to steal a page from his playbook and discuss things I’m not allowed to do at work. Of course, I’m not as good at this as he is, so I’ll stay with 10 things instead of 213.
DaddyBear:
- May not name his servers Hal9000, Norman, Lizzie, Hannibal, BuffaloBill, Smeagol, or any other names taken from mentally disturbed people.
- May not describe a difficult co-worker as “unable to lead wild dogs to raw meat”.
- May not use the term “football bat” or “self-licking ice cream cone” to describe someone else’s project plan.
- May not offer to take a problematic server out to the range for a little fun.
- May not
askoffer his boss a loan of the “Clue Wrench” prior to a meeting with customers. - May not suggest that competing vendors be locked in a cage in order to figure out who wants it more.
- May not use the term “poked the pooch” or “sh** the bed” when discussing mistakes, either his own or those committed by co-workers.
- May not set the password for a user who repeatedly forgets his password to ‘ImaDoofus”.
- May not tell the IBM rep that the last thing his company made that was worth a darn had “Selectric” printed on it.
- May not tell an application vendor that he could replace their product with a 25 line PERL script.
Posted by daddybear71 on December 8, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/12/08/my-list/
DaddyBear
