Most fan costumes look like crap, and the people who were them are exactly the people who shouldn’t (unless they are going as the Moleman) but this is damn good and the girl is pretty hot. I give it 2 thumbs up.
found at Lulu Bonanza via Doubleplusundead
So here I am in the middle of week three and the work is not that hard, but I do wonder how some people make an entire career out of help desk. Since I am still new at this every call is an “adventure” I don’t know who is going to be on the other end of the line with what problem. After 5 years I imagine that feeling goes away.
My first full week on the phones is coming to an end. So far it hasn’t been bad. Yesterday we got access to an expanded tool set that makes things much easier. Off tomorrow, but then long days all next week.
Not that there is really anything to report. So far it’s what I expected. This is a seasonal position with a small chance of going long term (48 weeks or so). The training so far has been the normal combination of cheerleading and thou shalt nots, including an NDA. The most irritating part is that since I have to be at work by 7 I , of course, could not fall asleep until 1. I tried I just couldn’t do it.
Since I am talking about this job let me link it to something I read on Instapundit yesterday.
The explanation behind temporary job creation is pretty simple: uncertainty. Companies don’t want to make longer-term commitments if they don’t know what the next couple of years will look like. New regulations are being imposed on companies, be it health care, finance, the environment, and the other areas. And the exact form and extent of these regulations still have to be determined by regulators.
Many small companies don't even know what tax rates they will face after the beginning of the year. Neither the president nor the Democratically controlled congress attempted to prevent income tax rates from rising for even the middle class until just a few weeks before they were expected to rise.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/13/recovery-like/#ixzz185llU1B9
I am not an economist, but let me be the first to say “Bulls**t!” While taxes may be helping to hold back economic growth the real hinderance is companies have found out that it’s cheaper to hire temporary workers and retrain every 48 weeks than it is to hire permanent employees. There are no benefit costs, costs associated with maintaining human resource departments are lower, less chance of unionization etc. etc. The bit about taxes is an excuse to justify sitting on profits and not hiring. In some cases it goes so far as to say that if you want holidays (i.e. Christmas, 4th of July, etc.) off you have to take a reduced pay rate. On the other hand there have been much hire rates of job growth during period of much higher tax rates, and it isn’t like companies don’t have money to hire. The balance sheets show they are sitting on cash that could be used to hire, which would then help with the economic recovery.
The companies are of course within their rights to make and enforce such hiring policies, and I as an employee can either take or leave the jobs. It’s an open marketplace, and I support the companies rights to maximize their profits, but let’s at least be honest about why all the job growth is in temp jobs.
Customer Service at Nintendo. It’s probably seasonal but hey it extends out my savings and pays tuition.
Not a whole lot else going on. Family holiday stuff mainly.
(I know I owe some emails, they are coming)
Superhero law seems to be all the blog rage today; I saw it on Volokh Conspiracy, Instapundit and Memeorandum, so I figured WTH I’ll join in:
Although the government may be limited in its ability to discriminate on the basis of mutant status or innate superpowers, could the federal government or the states regulate superpowers as weapons without running afoul of the Second Amendment? I think the answer is a very qualified yes.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Again…
From The Daily Caller:
TheDC: You’ve called for an investigation into 9/11. Do you think the government was behind the attacks?
MG: Individuals in and out of government may certainly have participated with the obviously known perpetrators of this dastardly act. Suspicions abound over the analysis presented by government. Obviously an act that has triggered three wars, Afghan, Iraqi and the continuing War on Terror, should be extensively investigated which was not done and which the government avoids addressing.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/09/gravel-considering-obama-primary-challenge-calls-for-new-911-investigation/#ixzz17hduyy6r
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I guess I should just hope that it turns into a bitter drawn out fight that lets the GOP nominee slip in. The chances of that seem low however; Gravel ran for President in 2008 (well actually he started campaigning in 2006) but could only get about .5% of the Democrat vote in New Hampshire, and after the CNN / YouTube debate was compared to a crazy old uncle who lives in the attic and excluded from most follow-on events. Do I dare to dream that he could end up the nominee?
“Come to Zombie Jesus”
“Only those with the most succulent livers will be saved”
Presented for your Christmas enjoyment.
I saw on the news that some Democrats are committing to extending the lame duck congressional session in order to get one more shot at DADT repeal. If this should happen I hope Congress will ignore the Generals and repeal this law. My reasoning is simple, on every major social issue put before it since WWII the military has consistently been on the wrong side of history:
Desegregation: The military was adamantly opposed. Even after Truman ended desegregation by executive order in 1948 the Army essentially refused to integrate and the military went to war in Korea with segregated units. It wasn’t until casualties forced white units to accept black replacements that integration was carried out.
The Draft: When President Nixon wanted to end the draft his efforts were opposed by the military, which had become used to the guaranteed flow of manpower. A full scale failure of the military was predicted. That however did not come to pass and today the U.S. Military is unmatched in performance (that’s my opinion anyway)
Women in the Military and Women in Combat Roles: In each case it was predicted that combat effectiveness would be severely downgraded. That has not come to pass.
The initial passage of DADT: I was in the service at the time and it was predicted that there would be a widespread exodus from the service, that service members wouldn’t stand for it (I had a Chief in IDC school while this was going on who informed us that he would kill the first person he found out was gay. (Ironically it turned out his son was gay and committed suicide)), and that morale would suffer. None of that came to pass.
There are probably others I am forgetting about but you get the picture.
But, not only have the Joint Chiefs been severely wrong on social issues deferring to them also cedes Congresses authority. The Constitution specifically give the power to make the laws governing the land and naval forces. It give the President responsibility to enforce those laws and regulations and it requires members of the military to follow them. While there is certainly a place for advice from the military congress needs to remember who works for who and proceed accordingly.
About once a month Bloomberg TV, NPR, and some other nefarious organizations host an “Oxford style” debate addressing some current social issue. They are usually worth listening to, you get some idea of winning and losing arguments on current social issues and if you are really lucky you can get a couple laughs out of it. Upcoming debates include:
Monty over at Ace of Spades continues to inspire me to read with his weekly book post. So, for another week I have thrown aside the coloring books which are my normal literary pursuit and picked up something with actual words.
The first book in The Helmsman series, by Bill Baldwin, which follows the adventures of Wif Ansor Brim.
Brim is the prototypical space opera hero. Raised in the galactic slums of Carsecaria, an entire sector devoted to mining some space ore such as unobtainium or imbecilium, he has risen far above his station thru his pluck and a well developed ability as a pilot, forged on the death trap ore barges that “his kind” are relegated to. Well that, and his love of bad poetry, which wins him the love of space Princess Margot Effer’wyck.
What is it with these guys and bad poetry? And this is real bad; Vogonesce in it’s badness. Lots of references to long thrusting lances and moist dark caves.
The story is a combination of the British military in the Napoleonic wars, and World War Two naval warfare, with the occasional ground action thrown in. How the Imperial forces are winning is a mystery to me. The only competence in the novel is exhibited by Brim and his 5 cohorts. Everyone else is an absolute idiot – To the point of the Imperial army having not figured out that it’s artillery can actually kill the enemy. Somehow Brim figures out how to save the day every time. It's not a horrible story but it’s not very good either.
Overall I would rate this book as OK. I didn’t feel like gouging my eyes out when I was , but I didn’t fall down in joyful seizures either. Read it if you think you can put up with the poetry, the made up words, and talking bears drinking vodka and hollering “Through Ice, Through Snow, To Sodeyska we go” every other page.
Something must be happening in Montana. Suddenly cousins who previously didn’t give two shits if I lived or died are friending me on facebook. So are high school classmates who actively hated me. Did I win the powerball or something? If I did someone let me know so I can collect my billions and start my live as an evil despot.
This is the second court to rule that the individual mandate is constitutional under the interstate commerce clause.
"I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals' decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market," ruled U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee. "Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.…
"Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, Plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now, through the purchase of insurance. As Congress found, the total incidence of these economic decisions has a substantial impact on the national market for health care by collectively shifting billions of dollars on to other market participants and driving up the prices of insurance policies."
It’s rulings like this that will drum up support for the constitutional amendment, currently being proposed by Virginia, that would allow 2/3 of the states to nullify a federal law.
