Aha! Yess!

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Phil Kadath

I blame the Puritanical division of the Republican Party for a lack of commercials such as this in America

Posted in Kewel! | 3 Comments

I’m making so much big green

Posted on April 4, 2009 by Phil Kadath

That you should call me Bruce Banner.

The new Big Muni trash contract that is keeping me away from Boomershoot this year has begun.

This week was a wild one, but my fellow employees and I have taken up the challenge and beaten it. There are still plenty of things to get set upright that will smooth out the processes, but upon consideration of everything that could have gone wrong, I think we’ve done a damn commendable job (we’re talking 90,000+ households and a few thousand small, medium and large business cleared in five days by 200+ drivers and 25 office staff).

One of the oddest parts of this whole process is that the information we are working with was mandated to be given to us from our main competitor (also a national corporation with local operations) by the Muni. We beat them so bloody during the last couple years in number of customers won, quality of service and safety that they had about the same chance at winning the contract that I would have at winning the Bianchi Cup.

And while I won’t say here that the “errors” in their transferred database were intentional, if I wanted to have a thousand or so people start out pissed off at the new contract-holder, this is close to what I’d have done.

So now it is the weekend and we’re all beat after having worked a large quantity of overtime. Some of us are even putting in some short Saturday work so as to make sure we start Monday fresh. I’ll probably be pretty quiet this weekend, but back with a vengeance on Monday.

I hope your weekend stays quiet, unless you’re going to the range, and that you get some decent weather to enjoy it under.

Until Monday AM then, be good to yourselves.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 3 Comments

Not an April Fool’s Joke

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Alaska

If you’ve never seen an actual working pillbox shaped like two boots and a helmet, well, here it is:

GuatemalaPillbox430.jpg It’s like wacky roadside fast-food architecture designed to attract the kiddies, but with machine guns. Click to embiggen. I played with the brightness and color saturation of Dirtcrashr’s photo so you could see the laces (OMG!). Click the link for the backstory.

Reminds me of Marvin the Martian after he’s been disintegrated.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 2 Comments

Doggie Surgery

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Alaska

Been out of pocket since Wednesday evening on doggie matters. Took Alaska, the white shepherd/white wolf mix, in for his dental cleaning and asked them to look at a large growth on his paw that had appeared out of nowhere and was bothering him something fierce all night. Time for that to come off, they said, and so in for surgery he went. As the doggies are inseparable, Kaya stayed at the vet in the cage with him until surgery time. The techs said it was so cute how they obviously care for each other. They rattled off lots of examples (they lick each other, etc.) that we’re used to seeing at home but that always evoke “Awww”s from others. At one point Alaska woke up in the recovery room and heard Kaya whining, so he whined back, and they both started howling. (Alaska howls from time to time — his wolf heritage — and Kaya does her best to imitate it, even though as a lab/pit/shepherd mix she’s not really close). They calmed down after he went into a recovery cage right next to her. The surgery went well, the growths (two!) are off to the lab for analysis, and I picked both of our babies up yesterday afternoon.

I used to think pet owners who paid for pet insurance were ridiculous fools. I’d never do that, I said.

Well, I’m glad I did after paying this bill for (gasp) slightly over $1k. Happily the insurance will reimburse me for most of it in fairly short order.

They said pound-rescue dogs were inexpensive! Not when you treat them like your children, I suppose. A common failing here in Cali.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Officially (again) Not Their Job

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Phil Kadath

These are not men. They’re only “males” of the homo sapien species.

A Queens judge ruled yesterday that subway employees do not have to do anything but pick up their phones if they see a crime — as he threw out a suit against the MTA and two workers who did nothing more to stop a rape.

A conductor saw the rape from the window on his train, and a station agent in the booth witnessed a screaming woman being dragged down a staircase inside the desolate 21st Street station of the G line. But neither one left the safety of their assigned posts to help her. Instead, conductor Harmodio Cruz and agent John Koort called the command center to summon cops.

Justice Kevin Kerrigan ruled the two workers had taken “prompt and decisive action in obtaining police help,” according to the decision handed down in Queens Supreme Court. The help came far too late for the victim, who was raped on the platform.

This cannot be natural. Just how long does it take to train someone to be like this?

Does growing up/living in a city make you like this or does it just take a particular amount of acclimatization?

Fuckin’ eunuchs.

Posted in Evil walks the earth | 4 Comments

I don’t know if he needs monetary support

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Phil Kadath

But I’ll gladly toss some money his way if he needs it to cover legal costs.

An Army reservist employed at the University of Washington has filed suit against the institution, asserting in court papers that he has been harassed and discriminated against for serving in Iraq.

Employed by UW as an electrician since 1992, Army Reserve Lt. Col. James Lukehart had risen in the ranks of the university’s facilities department and was working as a maintenance manager when he was ordered to deploy to Iraq in June 2006.

Before he went overseas, a group of his coworkers had told him he would be “engaging in immoral, if not illegal, action” if he went to Iraq as ordered, Lukehart asserts in court documents. Still, the reservist went to war less than three weeks after receiving notice that he’d be deployed.

According to military news reports, Lukehart served as an executive officer in an engineering brigade stationed at Ballad Air Base, 70 miles north of Baghdad. Among Lukehart’s duties while deployed, according to an August 2007 edition of the Camp Anaconda Times, was the construction of a water-treatment plant in rural Iraq.

Hoping to return to work in September 2007, Lukehart found that his manager had launched an investigation into allegations of misconduct made against him while serving overseas, according to court papers.

Through his attorney, Sidney Strong, Lukehart alleges that the university gave him no notice that he was under investigation. Confronted by Lukehart, the university even declined to say what the allegations had been made.

The university “refused to provide him with any statement of the charges made against him, instead insisting that (Lukehart) had no need to know either the allegations made against him or the source of those allegations,” Strong said in court documents filed earlier this month in King County Superior Court.

If anyone hears something, please send the info my way so I can post it.

UPDATE: Forgotten link added.

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 2 Comments

RNS Quote of the Day: 04/03/09

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Phil Kadath

If you think this is annoying

A person who believes that the power of the unified state is needed to correct the failings of human greed, ignorance, tribalism, for the furtherance of the nation?as a whole, regardless of constraint. The good of all is more valuable than the desires of any one individual.

Amateur Writer “Logical Premise” – What is a Statist?

Then this little essay on the topic of his hatred for the Constitution will likely make you throw things.

Posted in Quote of the Day | 2 Comments

It was bound to happen sooner or later

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Big surprise! It was sooner.

MSNBC’s David Shuster appears to now sadly be taking tips from colleague Keith Olbermann, for on Wednesday the “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” host did a segment bashing Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) the text of which appears to be taken directly from a Daily Kos posting.

Even more absurd, both Shuster and the DKos’er conveniently cherry picked a statement made by McConnell back in 2006 that when put in the context of what was occurring on Capitol Hill at the time makes those pointing fingers look tremendously foolish.

If you’ve ever wondered why they always “guest” Markos Moulitas via satellite, it is because his head is too big to fit in the studio.

I don’t know how they’ll “guest” him now without pulling the camera back about 20ft.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | Leave a comment

The Soundboard: Protestation and Placidity Edition

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Phil Kadath

As it usually goes, I went though the CD collection and dug out the Portishead rarities.

And after a thorough going-through I was jonesin’ for “more but different”, which led to the Tricky file.

And as such, you get Maxinquaye to-day.

It has been a while since this progression has taken place, and what with all the Organizing for America “Army” and “mandatory volunteerism” talk going on in our current events, this song rang deep with me in a way that it hadn’t before.

Black Steel

I know who the original artist is and I know the subject matter. But would truly like to see someone rehash this in a way that’ll pertain to the above mentioned “non-military governmental service” requirements currently spoken abotu in Congress and elsewhere.

And now, on the opposite end of the dynamic spectrum,

Overcome

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Good for them

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Phil Kadath

It only took the Canadian government $1 Billion dollars or so to figure out it doesn’t work.

The federal government introduced a bill in the Senate on Wednesday to abolish the long-gun registry.

“It’s totally inefficient and ineffective against crime,” Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, told reporters on Parliament Hill.

“We believe the long-gun registry as a device simply does not work … It’s a misdirection of resources,” he said.

“I know there are a lot of members in the NDP, some members in the Liberal Party who have shared that view, who campaigned on that view, have spoken publicly on that view and we hope to achieve their support for that.”

Now to see if they’ll have a public data dump.

Yeah, right.

Still, I nominate Joe, Craig, Robb and Jerry for the verification committee.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 1 Comment