A Stunning Revelation

I'm completely gobsmacked

so anyway, I get to my small (but tiny) Stoopid Business™ cubicle this morning, and go through my morning routine. As I was checking that my planner was up to speed, I noticed the "motivational quote of the day" at the top of the page:

Home is not where you live,
but where they understand you.

--Christian Morgenstern

Now, I am unfamiliar with C.Morgenstern and his (or her) body of work. My "go to" source for quotes, QuoteDB, doesn't list Morgenstern in their vast collection, so I still haven't got a clue. One thing I do know, for certain:

I'm homeless.

Quick! Somebody get me a bottle of Valu-Rite Vodka and a shopping cart.

There's so much more bloggable stuff out there, but I'm still completely gobsmacked. If you need me, I'll be over there, by the dumpster. thatisall

It is to laugh

Frank J. makes with teh funneh

so anyway, I had decided it was too late to post, but then I tripped over this:

President Bush should denounce "dickless wonders who crap themselves in the face of any opposition and both look and smell like a baboon's butt" and see if any Democrats get angry saying Bush was talking about them.

That's some inspired siht, right there.

I could stay up all night posting supporting links, but the Stoopid Business™ re-convenes in seven hours, so I must go.

We'll have words again soon.

Things going on

there's always more.....

so anyway, much has happened since we spoke last. The ill-fated (Babe Magnet) WindStar has been replaced with a Ford Fusion, and I am pleased so far. I'll do a review of the Fusion later, so far I have refused to view it with my "professional" Stoopid Business™ eye. It's my first new car. It's true! In forty-five plus years on this planet, I've never acquired a vehicle with single digits on the odometer. Needless to say, I'm diggin' the new car smell.

In other news, I heard a rumor that the California Supreme Court rendered a decision this week. Please hold, still checking. Right, gay marriage. It's been beat to death by everyone by now (note to self: blog it while it's fresh).

I don't particularly care about the issue. Live how you want to live. Vote, go to work, do your job, pay your taxes (I know, it sucks being a growd up), don't litter, help a brother in need, mow your lawn, don't put an El Camino up on blocks in your driveway. As long as you're not messing with me or my family, live the dream.

Doubleplusundead hit it smackly:

More than anything, I'm worried about the precedent these sorts of rulings set for other judges who may decide to restrict our liberties. Judges should not be in the business of declaring things law, but declaring if laws written by the legislative bodies are constitutional or legal. They should only be in the business of declaring laws constitutionally valid or invalid, and that is it.

Right. What he said.

Regarding the President's remarks in Israel this week, My comment is that this should have been the encore speech to the "you're either with us or you're against us" speech.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Mr.President: Dude! You should have been pounding this siht for six or seven years by now. You could have used the old "crocodile / eat me last" analogy.

h/t to Drew M. over at Ace of Spades for the quote. Niiiiiice. Steve H. Graham has some thoughts, as well:

I really can't wait to see Obama negotiate with Ahmadinejad. "The President and I have reached an agreement. We will let him make all the bombs he wants, in exchange for his 'pinky swear' that he will not use them to destroy Israel or blow up American cities. If he violates his promise, I have assured him that I will be very cross with him, and I will force him to explain why he 'acted out,' in a conference call with Oprah and Dr. Phil."

With Obama, the price for violating a negotiated truce will be...more negotiations. And of course, the Iranians know nothing about negotiations. Haggling is unheard-of in the Middle East.

"Pinky swear" LOL. Am I the only one who just spewed their drink of choice all over their monitor? I thought not.

Wanna know what sucked up my Friday night bloggin' time? It was this Ragin' Dave post on the RINO's pathetic attempt to make nice with their supposed dance partners. You could read for hours, I know I did.

I reserve the right to revise and extend at a future date. But you knew that.

There's something about Tuesdays

I gotta look into this

so anyway, I've been intending to post this since last Thursday: a follow up to my post from last Tuesday on the "missing" Department of State laptops. I've been busy, OK?

As I expected, Consul At Arms has the goods on the whole fiasco. He cites Outside the Beltway and Dead Men Working to make the point.

Turns out that "losing" things is often more of an accounting issue than a real security issue.

James Joyner on the subject:

Truly bizarre. My guess is that Bruce McQuain is on the right track here and that this is more a matter of bureaucratic incompetence rather than any serious security issue. Indeed, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the computers wound up pretty much where they were supposed to go but that the system for keeping track of them is so screwed up that we’ll never know for sure.

As I said last Tuesday:

Big organizations, such as the Department of State or a ginormous Stoopid Business™ corporation occasionally loses things. It happens.

Dead Men Working hits it smackly:

They may have been in a warehouse, but nobody knew where they were, and "not knowing where they are" is the definition of "lost."

Read the whole thing(s); you can thank me later. thatisall.

Quick Question

it's been Monday all week

so anyway, I managed to blow out the transmission on the (Babe Magnet) WindStar on the way home from the office this evening, so my evening commute went from the normal 35 minutes to well over three hours. Imagine my joy.

My in-laws (to whom I would gladly give a kidney each) provided the "rescue ops" for this fiasco, and have loaned me one of their cars for the duration. Here's where my question starts:

The graciously offered car in question has (as does all of their vehicles) a particular bumper sticker that espouses a political view that is a quantum leap (several, actually) leftward from my political views. I mean, can you picture me tooling around in a Lincoln sporting an "Impeach Bush!" bumper sticker?

I thought not.

When they first installed it, I referred to it as the "Dick Cheney for President" bumper sticker. I thought it was a tremendously clever comment; my in-laws (and my wife), not so much.

What to do? Removing it is out of the question, that would be bad form in the face of such generosity. Thought the Second was to cover it with one of the Hillary! bumper stickers that TheMissus™ has "secreted" away in the laundry room cupboard.

How screwed up is that? Replacing a "Impeach Bush!" bumper sticker with a "Hillary!" sticker to appear more sane?

Fortunatly, "Obama"-labeled merchandise bursts into flame when in my presence. It's a Gift. The Force is strong within me, or some siht.

My solution was to cover the offensive slogan with tear-tape. Not familiar with the product? Picture black duct tape only about ninety-seven hundred times more sticky. A staple in The Stoopid Business™, it's horrendously over-priced for the consumer market, but us Stoopid Business™ yobs eat it up by the case-load.

Ask me again later why your next new car costs more than my first house. thatisall.
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Linked by doubleplusundead - Thanks!

The Next Right

and no, not three left turns

so anyway, Jon Henke of Q and O fame is hip deep in launching a movement.

I want to believe, I really do. I would love to see right wing activism in action. I would love to participate. Alas, I'm reminded of Frank J.'s opinion on why we don't see right wingers marching in the streets:

There are rarely large scale protests by right-leaning people on account of them having things called dignity and jobs.

Money quote from Henke:

That is not a sustainable state of affairs. The Republican Party isn't serving the Right, and the Right isn't likely to continue serving the Republican Party.

From time to time, when it becomes necessary to throw off such entrenched politicians, we must provide new guards to ensure our future security.

Go ye therefore to The Next Right and sign up. Whilst electrons are still free

Menchen Quote

and some shop-talk

Priceless, it is. I'm sure you know someone who fits Menchen's description:

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy. If these villains could be put down, he holds, he would at once become rich, powerful and eminent. Nine politicians out of every ten, of whatever party, live and have their being by promising to perform this putting down. In brief, they are knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits.

– H. L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, June 15, 1936

Written almost 72 years ago, yet still holds true today. Just substitute "Big Oil" or "predatory lenders" for the "Wall Street werewolves" and you're good to go.

Previously posted elsewhere. I still wish I knew where I found it.....

In other (shop-talk) news, I'm adopting the practice of updating posts with a reciprocal link to whomever links to a SupplySidePolitics 2.0 post. Q and O started doing this recently (albeit sporadically), and I think I can speak for all us "unsuccessful bloggers" out there: we really appreciate the mention. When one's weekly traffic is measured in (small) multiples of tens, seeing an extra couple of dozen hits does the bloggin' heart some good.

So, if you link to a SupplySidePolitics 2.0 post, leave a mention in the Comments or shoot a quick e-mail to me at heywoodblogger at yahoo dot com (you know the drill) and I'll update my post accordingly.

In all my free time, I plan on making this policy retroactive, and putting up reciprocal links to all the previously linked posts from the past (almost) four years. Insert your own "when flaming pigs fly" joke here.

that, I think, is all. More soon,

Tuesday, 06 May 2008

what? It's Tuesday again already?

so anyway, I saw this yesterday over at Q and O, now tonight Consul-at-Arms has picked it up. Looks like the Department of State has had some laptops gone missing. Quoting from the source material:

"Hundreds of employee laptops are unaccounted for at the U.S. Department of State, which conducts delicate, often secret, diplomatic relations with foreign countries, an internal audit has found.

As many as 400 of the unaccounted for laptops belong to the department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, according to officials familiar with the findings."

Always the optimist, I take this at face value:

“Unaccounted for” does not necessarily mean the laptops have been lost. But they are “missing” until they have been found or otherwise accounted for.

Big organizations, such as the Department of State or a ginormous Stoopid Business™ corporation occasionally loses things. It happens. McQ sums up the contrast between "public" and "private" concerns:

Apparently no policies or procedures which procured and secured laptops that gave the Department a way to keep up with who had them and whether they were secure.

I have to wonder what would happen to the person in the corporation I work for, and which provides me with a laptop, if this same problem existed. Well really I don't have to wonder, but I do wonder what will happen to the person or persons responsible for this particular mess.

My guess - nothing.

I don't have to wonder, either. McQ's closing comment is spot on, and unless I am mistaken (which has happened, it's true!) is his whole point:

Another, in a long line of examples, of why you really don't want government running anything in your life.

Late, tired. We'll have words again soon, I'm sure.
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Linked by doubleplusundead, Consul At Arms and Four Right Wing Wackos - Thanks!