Furlough

I've worked a lot with Government as a contractor. Anyone coming from the private sector cannot but be astonished at the culture in Government offices.

Because they get early retirement and decent pensions, unlike the rest of us, from the day they are hired, government workers have a single goal: to stay in post until they collect their pension. This means as long as they don't upset anybody they're sure of a well-funded retirement. The best way to avoid upsetting anybody is to never do anything. And that's what they do. As little as possible. Day after day. Month in and month out. Until retirement.

If you've come from a private company with customers who can take their business elsewhere, the atmosphere in government is a real shock. The pace of change isn't glacial, because glaciers do move. Imagine working in a place where nothing happens, year after year. Go back five years later and everything's the same (except a few more people will have joined the ranks of the long-term sick and are now doing nothing at home on full pay).

Former Chicago Fire Chief James Joyce had it right when he heard on his vehicle radio about the fire at 69 West Washington. "It's Friday afternoon in a government building - it's gonna be almost empty".

So it comes as no surprise that in bankrupt states like California they have started letting staff take Fridays as unpaid furlough days. So now staff are getting paid for doing nothing for 4 days a week instead of 5.

Why not just sack the lot of them and move them to the welfare rolls? They'd cost a lot less, while still sucking at the tit of the productive members of society.

Seen While Shopping

Here's a title to conjure with.



"Take one downed US Airman. Marinade in a pit full of pigshit for three weeks. Remove, bind to tree and gently poach in sun for 3 days. Behead and serve!"

Great New Announcement from Microsoft

Sharepoint 2010 is coming out

Strapline: "2010 times the Frustration! 2010 times the hassle!"

In summary:

* More Bugs

* More Bloated

* Even slower

* No backwards compatibility

* 90% of features now officially undocumented - huge new opportunities for bloggers to fill the gap

* Write a custom workflow action in C# in as little as 1,000,000 lines of code

* Minimum system requirement: the computers Tom Cruise used in Minority Report. Should be available around 2020

All you corporate guys, enjoy!

How dumb can you be and still get a job on a national newspaper?

As far as I can see, if it's the LA Times, the answer is pretty f***ing dumb!

The justices don't make *anything* a right.

Our rights as American Citizens come from God.

The US constitution lists what the government is allowed to do. (Unlike constitutions in places like the USSR and the EU where they list what the government allows people to do.)

The purpose of the justices is to interpret the constitution. I'm sure the justices realize that even if the LA Times doesn't. I'm a bloody immigrant and even I know it!

The most fundamental right of any human being is self-defense.

Corrupt tinpot dictators like Chicago's Mayor Daley are happy to subcontract their defense out to a team of heavily armed bully-boys provided round the clock at the taxpayers' expense.

As for the rest of us, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Despite this, Chicago, probably the most corrupt city in the US, has denied its citizens this basic right since 1982.

And now the justices are about to tell Daley to stuff his ban where the sun don't shine.

God Bless America.

Judicial Misconduct

It's not April 1st.
It's not "The Onion".

It's about a guy on Death Row.

But still...

Can you get a fair trial if the judge is/was sleeping with the prosecutor

Here are some quotes which are destined to be cited by legal clerks for decades

“I had a truck that everybody recognized,”
She was “was tired of laying over,” she said, and “getting licked without any input.”

And the conclusion?

Campaign spending may undermine the integrity of the judicial system. The same goes for a gag gift of confectionary genitalia. But a love affair between the judge and prosecutor in a death penalty case is, in Texas, at least, another matter.

How the fuck do you repair a lake?

A car ? I can see that
A TV ? If it's new and expensive enough
A washing machine ? Maybe

But a lake?

The caring sharing Obama administration is going to spend $2,200,000,000 of your and my money on Repairing the Great Lakes

It's a business

More from the NY Times in the section "Studies on the bloody obvious"

This one says 60% of Americans believe that colleges today operate like businesses, concerned more with their bottom line than with the educational experience of students.

As news this has to rank with revelations like "17 year old boys like porn".

Of course education is a business. How did people think colleges paid for all the staff and buildings?

Everything's a business - some very lucrative

Showbusiness
The religion business
The criminal justice business
The politics business
The warfare business
The Security business
The intelligence business

etc. etc.