Tag: linkery

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

You could have used that same product and those same video to show what a great country we have. You could have shown what unique freedoms we have and how those freedoms are not being abused and I would have gladly given you permission to use my video. Seattle King 5 Evening Magazine did that with this video: http://www.boomershoot.org/2005/KING5.wmv. But you didn’t do that. You merely demonstrated you are a Puritan–afraid that someone, someplace, is having fun. – Joe Huffman, Cease-and-Desist letter to John Bachman of WSBTV

Damn. That whole letter was beautiful, but that last bit? Classic!

We Keep Losing Them

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We Keep Losing Them

You entered the plane on a rickety jump ladder in the tail, walked through the fuselage filled with wooden ammo boxes and gun emplacemements, climbed around the retracted ball that was his home for forty missions, and then had to walk on a catwalk less than a foot wide between the bomb racks to get to the cockpit. All this for a man who needs a walker. – Sippican Cottage, My Father Asks for Nothing

Read it all.

(h/t PrinceWally)

Zero Oversight and Insufficient Regulation

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Zero Oversight and Insufficient Regulation

Mostly Cajun has a very interesting post up on government interference regulation of his industry, the pumping of natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico up North where people use it to do stuff like, oh, heat their homes. Excerpt:

One of the things I learned was that when these engines were designed, the EPA was some sort of bad dream only found in the diseased minds of abusers of heavy drugs. That was then. This is now. Students of engine operations know there is a certain proportion of fuel to air that produces maximum power. We can’t run many of our engines there. Why? Because we’re not interested in maximum power any more. We’re interested in minimum pollution, and that ‘maximum power’ thing give a higher level of oxides of nitrogen.

That’s okay, though. We learned how to operate there, and we tested our engines regularly to see that they met the goal, and if one was acting up and emissions went up, we dutifully took it off line and fixed it. Life loped along. So they changed the rules. Where we could hit a “twenty” on the spotted owl-killing scale, they dropped the number to five. Okay, you guys on the pipeline, tighten up your acts. So the engineers twiddled and tightened things even more. And goals were met. But the baby seals were still crying from their big, soulful eyes, so the number was changed again.

You know, it’s getting VERY hard to meet the numbers. And our people tell the rulemakers. And the rulemakers say “Meet the numbers or face fines.” And our people say, “We can’t meet these numbers. We’ll have to shut down horsepower.” And the rulemakers say “Meet the numbers.” And that’s where we’re heading.

The policy-makers apparently think that we’ll keep lights on and homes heated by means of windmills and unicorn farts. I’m telling you that we folk who work in a real world have real and immutable laws to work with, things like Ohm’s Law and Boyles’ Law, and these laws and others like them say that you can’t move gas from the well to the end user without horsepower. There are other laws too, and those laws, despite the attitude of the current administration, say that when it gets to the point that it costs more to do a thing, then you stop doing it, and that’s where a lot of industries, mine included, are headed.

Read the whole post. Pay particular attention to the last two lines.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

This one, I’m sure, will be getting a lot of play. From Van Der Leun:

Man one: “Did you see that article in that magazine last week?”

Man two: “Which magazine?”

Man one: “You know, the one with Obama on the cover.”

Man two: “With Obama on the cover? Christ, they all have Obama on the cover. It’s getting so the only place I want to see Obama’s picture is on a milk carton.”

Heh.

Quote of the Day – “Cultural Framework” Edition

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Quote of the Day – “Cultural Framework” Edition

I should be in bed asleep, since I’m writing this at 9:45PM for delayed posting tomorrow, but . . .

Perusing my Sitemeter stats tonight, I ran across a post from 2004 that links to a piece that, well, I just can’t describe, but I’ve decided to archive here in case the originating site ever disappears, since new posts apparently stopped in June of 2006.

LeeAnn of the defunct blog The Cheese Stands Alone wrote about being called in to HR for being “intimidating”:

Sorry, You Forgot To Give Me A Lobotomy With My Nametag

Just got home from work. Am purple with aggravation, frustration, and disbelief. Cannot possibly speak rationally right now. Also apparently have lost all my pronouns somewhere between the car and here.

Breathe deep. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean…….

Okay, I’m better now.
Here’s the thing… I was called into the HR office today, because one of my coworkers (let’s call her Blondie) wanted to file a complaint against me. The complaint stated that I made her feel “threatened”.
I was slightly reassured, however, that they’d given the problem to the Intern. This bodes well in favor of this being silly enough to count as training for her, apparently. The Intern is approximately 12 years old and has not blood but political correctness flowing in her pre-pubescent veins.
“How” I asked the Intern, “in the world does she think I’ve threatened her?”
Intern: “You’ve made no overt action. She feels intimidated by you, however, and wished to make an official complaint. We felt it was better to discuss the matter with you before taking any action, if necessary.”
Me: “Exactly what did I do?”
Intern: “Er… nothing, really…. she said she’s intimidated by you, because you talk about people and events that she knows nothing about, and she said it makes her feel stupid.”
Me: “You’re kidding, right?”
Intern: “We have to take it seriously, it’s in the manual. “
Me: “Exactly what was it I said that got her upset?”
Intern: “She mentioned something about medical references, and once you talked about Henry VIII…. it bothers her that she doesn’t understand what you’re talking about most of the time. Oh, and McGuyver. “
Me: “She’s upset because she doesn’t know who McGuyver is?”
Intern: “We’re not writing a complaint on this. We just wanted you to be aware of her feelings and be more sensitive to her cultural framework.”
Me: “Oh, you did NOT just say that.”
Intern: “Beg pardon?”
Me: “Nothing, nothing…. okay, so basically if I have to talk to her, I should talk slow, use small words, and mention nothing that happened before last Tuesday?”
Intern: “Did you know sarcasm is considered a form of aggression?”
Me: *backing slowly out of the room* “Uh… okay, gotta go, late for my shift… buh-bye now.”

I haven’t quite decided how to handle this yet. Part of me wants to completely and utterly ignore Blondie and speak nary one more word to her… ever.
And the other part of me wants to start a discussion about quantum physics and watch her head explode.
I’m probably going with the third path…. I’m going to laugh my ass off.

Any guesses as to who The Intern (much less the cow-orker “Blondie”) voted for in the 2008 presidential election? (Though I’m fairly certain “Blondie” screwed up her ballot.)