Posts from — April 2012

At the End of Her Rope

Do something, human!

[Editor: This is Bootsie, my neighbor’s elderly alpha female who rarely ventures outside. She has managed to snag the lead in four different places and can’t really go anywhere. I did free her up, but she doesn’t like anyone or anything but my neighbor.]

Friday Ark

CBS has a report on H-1B and B-1 visa abuse in the tech industry: Whistleblower calls out IT giant over U.S. jobs.

Listening to the testimony at the hearings over the H-1B visa programs to allow into the US foreign workers to fill tech jobs in US companies just made me angry. Hearing Gates and Jobs say that there was a shortage of American workers when I personally know people who were laid off after years in the tech industry, and couldn’t buy a job really got to me.

These guys presented the foreign workers as up-to-date with the current skills required when most of the big software packages you must be familiar with are subject to an export ban, and therefore weren’t legally available to the people they were bringing in. One lie after another to hide the reality that they wanted ‘slave labor’ to increase profits, and couldn’t care less how they did it.

Two 8+ earthquakes off of Sumatra, and minor ones all around the ‘Ring of Fire’. Fortunately they weren’t in the ‘tsunami zone’, but people went to higher ground as soon as they felt the first one hit.

It is probably just the fact that they are getting reported now, but it seems like there have been a lot of big earthquakes in the last decade.

Central Florida is shaking from the arrest of George Zimmerman on a charge of Second Degree Murder. I have to assume that the prosecutor has found something in the autopsy that led to the charge, because by all accounts the initial investigation really lacked ‘professionalism’.

State Attorney Angela Corey is reputed to be a very tough and experienced prosecutor. She wouldn’t bring the charges if she didn’t think she had a case, even if the case was going to be difficult to prove. I was actually expecting Manslaughter if there was a charge, but she is maxing out. Murder Two is a life sentence, while Manslaughter is 30 years.

The important thing for all concerned is that the case is going to be tried in court, not the media, and will be decided by a jury. I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened, but when you have someone shot to death, there really should be a public trial to determine the facts.

Lots of things going on while I was out playing lumberjack all day.

Santorum finally had his revelation that he was a loser, and if he had stayed in, he would have been rejected by Pennsylvania again. He hasn’t been out of office long enough for people to forget was a loser he was as a Senator. He may have finally understood that none of the people running for the Republicans have much of a chance to win this year, and if the candidates for President are a motley crew, potential running mates are even more pathetic.

Then you have the George Zimmerman meltdown. His defense attorneys quit, and he’s talking to Sean Hannity. He apparently also tried to talk to the special prosecutor, who refused to talk to him without his attorneys present, as is the normal procedure.

Zimmerman better hope he isn’t charged, because if he is, his chance of making bail having dropped to zero. When his attorneys said they have been out of contact with him, they awarded him the ‘flight risk’ card, and may have nudged him towards the ‘danger to community’ card by speculating on reasons for his actions.

All the guy had to do was to lay low and stay out of trouble and let his attorneys deal with everything. He is acting like he thinks he can exert control on the situation, and he can’t. He apparently doesn’t understand the standard warning ‘that anything you say may be used against you in court’ which is why attorneys tell you to shut up and don’t talk to anyone but them.

The BBC has a report that would seem to indicate that Israel really doesn’t like pacifists:

Israel has declared the German author Guenter Grass “persona non grata” and barred him from entering the country.

Grass, a Nobel laureate, recently criticised Israel in a poem.

In it, Grass condemned German arms sales to Israel, and said the Jewish state must not be allowed to launch military strikes against Iran.

Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai says Grass is not welcome because he has tried “to inflame hatred against the State and people of Israel.”

Yishai, the leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party in Israel’s coalition government, suggested that Grass should go to Iran, “where he would find a sympathetic audience should he want to continue disseminating his warped and mendacious work.”

Glass condemns his own government for selling arms, and suggests that bombing other countries doesn’t solve problems, so “he must be anti-Semitic”.

I guess we can all ignore the fact that there is no credible intelligence showing that Iran is engaged in a nuclear arms program, and ignore Israel’s belief that they, and they alone, must be permitted to attack other countries without any penalty. It is perfectly alright with Israel that the world economy will go into a freefall if they attack and Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. They are Israel and must not be criticized for any reason.

There have been numerous complaints received regarding the services provided under the current regime and we would like to take the time to respond to these complaints and to help those of you in the outlying areas understand the true situation.

It has been noted that several individuals purporting to be the “Easter Bunny” do not seem to be authentic. Of course they’re not authentic. We don’t do personal appearances or take requests. As the anthropomorphic personification of a blended holiday we are entirely too involved in attempting to fulfill the unreasoned expectations of various groups. Besides which, we noticed that many of the requests came from people with French surnames, and I don’t think it is necessary to remind people what happens to rabbits in France: in Britain bunnies are found in children books; in France in cookbooks. [See also North Korea.]

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So, Duncan is celebrating his tenth blogiversary™ at Eschaton by counting down to the worst wanker of the decade.

John Mckay celebrated his ninth at archy with just a passing mention, as did Jams O’Donnell at Poor Mouth for his sixth.

Moi at Bloggg decided to shut up shop and move on to other things.

We are told that blogs are over, but I doubt that, mainly because everything that is supposed to replace them keeps coming and going. The problem is the urge to change things and make them ‘better, faster, cheaper’, which is great initially. Unfortunately, people don’t know when they have hit the optimal point for utility and tend to change for the sake of change.

Jerry Pournelle who has been writing about computers since the days of CP/M has a useful standard for things – Good Enough. This means that something makes things better. It isn’t perfect, but it is useful and worth having. Too many things that were Good Enough have become a PITA through ‘improvements’. [Did you know that Blogger is going to version 3? I’m at my current location because of what they did to me in the change to version 2.]

Oh, well, back to sniffling and sneezing…

So, today was Good Friday and the beginning of Passover. As a result a lot of people weren’t around when I tried to deal with a few issues. It’s amazing how observant some people get when there’s a Friday involved.

Peeps were revolting enough when they were just yellow, but the ‘teal’ and ‘plum’ versions are really gross. I finally saw actual packages of the ‘bunny’ version that I had previously only seen on the ‘Net in videos purported to be ‘humorous’ … OK, whatever. People don’t seem to realized that if they buy them, they will continue to be made. I wonder if anyone actually eats them?

The oak pollen is not letting up. The rain scrubs the air for a few hours, but the yellow dust is back soon after covering everything in sight. This started much earlier than normal this year and is continuing well beyond what we normally experience. I surrendered and switched from pseudoephedrine to loratadine [generic Claritin] so I don’t have to watch the time. I’m also considering attaching a toilet paper holder to the side of the computer desk to make things easier than trying to retrieve a tissue from the box. It might not be classy, but it would be cheaper and more efficient.

The problem is that this is the best time to work on outside projects before the heat index starts hitting triple digits, so I can’t just stay inside with the HEPA air cleaner. I have things that need to be planted, and some building repairs to make.

Well, it’s always something …

Tonto 2004-2012

It is time.

[Editor: Tonto took over as alpha female when her sister, The Lone Ranger, left for the Bridge, but she hasn’t been very happy about it. They shared kitten rearing, sitting for each other when either needed a break, and backing each other when there were conflicts. Lately she has spent most of her time on the lawn in front of my house trying to warm up. Last week she became noticeably shaky on her feet, and then she disappeared to her special place on Monday to prepare to meet her sister at the Bridge. She wasn’t very nice, but she will be missed.]

Friday Ark

Steve Bates notes that Pruneface¹ [in his disguise as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell] is complaining about Zero stealing the shtick of the GOP by talking about ‘unelected activist judges legislating from the bench and overturning laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people’, which is obviously plagiarized from the standard Republican stump speech.

While he could have filed an intellectual property complaint against Zero, it would have come as an unpleasant shock to the Republican base that the party actually has any ‘intellectual property’, an obvious characteristic of liberal elitists.

1. You have to be really old to recognize the name of villain in the Dick Tracy comic strip … I’m that old.

The Tampa Bay Times covers the discussion on city security arrangements for the GOP convention: Showdown looms on GOP convention protest rules

What remains is a sweeping proposal to create a designated protest area near the convention site, plus a much larger “Clean Zone” covering downtown and surrounding areas.

Inside the Clean Zone, virtually anything that could be used as a weapon — with one big exception — would be banned. The city also would establish permit procedures for parades and demonstrations in the Clean Zone, and set a 60-minute time limit on parades and rallies in the zone.

Still, Tampa officials say no amount of tweaking could stop gun owners with concealed weapons permits from bringing their guns to the protests.

That’s because the Legislature passed a 2011 law prohibiting cities from enacting any rules of their own on guns, and socking them with big fines if they do.

You can’t have a water pistol, but a Glock 10mm, no problem. Is this state insane or what?

They are going to force all of the various groups that are demonstrating into a ‘free speech zone’ and some of them are probably going to be armed. This is in the summer, in Florida, so the temperatures and tempers are going to be hot.

I do not envy the cops who have to work this event. This is one of the many reasons the police did not support all of the recent gun legislation – it makes their job more dangerous.

The BBC reports: James Murdoch resigns as BSkyB chairman

James Murdoch has resigned from his role as chairman of UK broadcaster BSkyB, but will remain on the board.

The move is part of an effort to distance that company from the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper, once a Murdoch title.

It means he no longer has a major role at a UK company. He also stood down as chairman of the newspaper publisher, News International, last month.

To keep losers like James Murdock, Donald Trump, and Paris Hilton from controlling anything of importance, we need an estate tax. It doesn’t make any difference how successful a parent is, that is no indication of the ability of the child. In general the child will not have been subjected to the adversities that the parent overcame to achieve their accomplishments, and is less likely to be able to deal with them.

The US Constitution was designed to limit the power of the Federal government. It is built into the document. The powers of Congress are listed, and changing that list requires a Constitutional amendment. State constitutions tend to give states more power in more areas than Congress has.

People forget that simple fact. Just because a state can do something doesn’t mean that the Federal government can do the same thing. Nixon couldn’t just get Congress to pass a law mandating a 55mph speed limit, he had to threaten the states with a cut-off of Federal highway funds to force the states to do it.

Bmaz at Empty Wheel has a comprehensive post on the issue in Requiem For ACA at SCOTUS & Legitimacy Of Court and Case.

I have never felt that the individual mandate was Constitutional as written. If they had used Medicare buy-in instead of the complicated mess they created, it would have passed muster, because it would have revolved around the Federal government’s taxing authority. The way they did it depends on an expansion in the Commerce clause, and they should have known that it wouldn’t get by the current Supreme Court.

Cute Overload went all out with a complete home page dedicated to the celebration.

Steve Bates chimed in with a post that satisfies the spirit of the day.

Elayne embedded Google’s entry, and links to several others in another post.

I enjoy things like this, and the infamous BBC ‘spaghetti farm’ program, but I think of it as the anniversary of the first session of the US House of Representatives in 1789. That should have been a warning, but it was ignored and we got Newt and Boehner. The joke is on us.

Update: CBS has the ‘spaghetti farm’ and 14 other fake programs.