Random Nuclear Strikes

Ezra Klein sees something else besides a whine for government run healthcare in Moore-On’s Sicko.

That American’s work too hard and he wants the government to do something about it.

The most astonishing revelations in Michael Moore’s “Sicko” have nothing to do with healthcare. They’re about vacation time. French vacation time, to be precise.

Sitting at a restaurant table with a bunch of American ex-pats in Paris, Moore is treated to a jaw-dropping recitation of the perks of social democracy: 30 days of vacation time, unlimited sick days, full child care, social workers who come to help new parents adjust to the strains and challenges of child-rearing. Walking out of the theater, I heard more envious mutterings about this scene than any other.

“Why can’t we have that?” my fellow moviegoers asked.

The first possibility is that we already do. Maybe that perfidious Michael Moore is just lying in service of his French paymasters. But sadly, no. A recent report by Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research suggests that Moore is, if anything, understating his case. “The United States,” they write, “is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation.” Take notice of that word “only.” Every other advanced economy offers a government guarantee of paid vacation to its workforce. Britain assures its workforce of 20 days of guaranteed, compensated leave. Germany gives 24. And France gives, yes, 30.

We guarantee zero. Absolutely none. That’s why one out of 10 full-time American employees, and more than six out of 10 part-time employees, get no vacation. And even among workers with paid vacation benefits, the average number of days enjoyed is a mere 12. In other words, even those of us who are lucky enough to get some vacation typically receive just over a third of what the French are guaranteed.

This is strange. Of all these countries, the United States is, by far, the richest. And you would think that, as our wealth grew and our productivity increased, a certain amount of our resources would go into, well, us. Into leisure. Into time off. You would think that we’d take advantage of the fact that we can create more wealth in less time to wrest back some of those hours for ourselves and our families.

What Klein fails to notice is that art of the reason we are the richest is that we work our asses off. We also appreciate our vacation days more than those who get them handed to them. I work for mine and I make sure that I earn them.

If the fed were to come in and mandate that I get 30 days off a year, I’d be pissed off because that is only six weeks. I currently get seven. I’ll max-out at eight next year. That was what I negotiated with my employer, along with my pay structure, which I took a lower bid on so that I could get the paid days off.

I may have over done it though because the past couple years I haven’t ever take it all. Mostly it is because me being out of the office equals me answering four or more phone calls from either my customers or coworkers per day off. Usually I either cash out right before Christmas or burn through it taking every other Friday off at the end of the year.

It is not the government’s job to tell businesses how many days off employees will get, just like it isn’t government’s job to tell my employer what kind of health care plan I deserve.

Even after whining about how much more time we’d be able to spend with family if the government would mandate paid leave instead of individuals or unions, and about how that is what is the best thing we could do with the fed doing so, Klein goes on to state that even part-time employees should get a mandated number of days off.

If they’re not working full time, don’t they already have the option of hanging out with “The Fam”?

Not that any of this whining for government mandated vacations and administered healthcare surprises me. Hell if you ask a leftists what “Promote the General Welfare” line in the preamble to The Constitution means, they’ll tell you that it mandates the redistribution of wealth.

But are you planning on throwing that chicken wing in the trash?

That will be what resident subjects within the Seattle city limits will be hearing come January 2009.

City to require table scrap recycling at homes in 2009

All single-family homes in Seattle must sign up for table-scrap recycling in 2009, the City Council decided Monday.

While residents will have to pay for the service, the city will not check whether they are actually dumping food in the new separate bin.

Reducing food trash was a piece of a larger plan the council unanimously approved Monday to reduce the amount of garbage sent to the landfill.

When I originally got wind of this idea via my place of employ, it was going to be that residents were going to be able to toss food waste into their yardwaste container, which would be sent off to the city’s contractor for yardwaste, who grinds up and sells it off as compost.

Then the idea of seperate containers came up. Why, I do not know. What I do know is that I, quite literally, banged my head on my desk when I heard of it.

I did so because this food waste, in their separate containers, will be picked up and taken to the city contractor for yardwaste, who will grind the foodwaste up, mix it in with the yardwaste, and sell it as super kickass compost.

Hell, it may even go into the same truck as the yardwaste, which will now be making double pickups at each residence.

Real fucking smart, huh?

And have no doubt, this will be required. No compliance will result in fines. the forced recycling orginally began as a voluntary process. Then it was moved to “Mandatory”, though with no recourse other than a notice placed on your can if you didn’t comply. At the beginning of 2007, a fine structure was put into place.

Because of all this, the City of Seattle has what are called “Trash Inspectors”. City employees whose job it is to find households who are out of compliance with the recycling mandate. They do this by randomly, or not so randomly, stopping at people’s homes and going through the trash. If the inspector arbitrarily decides that there aer too many recyclables in the trash, you get a ticket.

Their other job is to try a sort of “trash speedtrap” on the trash collectors (read: My Coworkers). The inspector will will spike a trash can with recyclables, then go park a couple blocks up and watch to see if the guys in the trucks pick it up. If they do, my employer is hit with a $500 fine.

If the driver does what he is supposed to do and tags the can with a special “Too Many Recyclables” tag, my employer gets nothing and all the driver gets is a radio call to go back for that can after the inspector takes the recyclables out and calls our office to let them know the driver can now pick it up. 

Just bunch of folks, huh?

The city is doing this for the simple reason that they are no longer the #1 recycler in the nation. They want that title so damn badly that they are willing to make stupid ideas like this one happen.

But here is the kicker

Recycling food waste will be voluntary for apartments, as well as for businesses, which produce twice as much food waste as residents.

First of all, the word they were looking for was “Residences”. Leave it to the Seattle Times to support this dumb idea and then assign an illiterate to write about it and another one to edit it.

Secondly, last week when I wrote about some super stinky loads that we hauled, Rivrdog mentioned how Ketchikan grinds their offal up and dumps it into the bay. That will never happen in Seattle, thanks to (Barely) Governor Gregoire, who signed a clean water act that covers the enitre Puget Sound, which, believe it or not made it illegal to dump tap water into the Sound because of the agents used to treat the water.

But when you think about it, the crab and fish loads like the ones we hauled last week would have been perfect fodder for the compost facility. However, the city binds that type of material to a “Trash Only” status, so we cannot take it there (for 25% of the cost per ton and no city taxes).

Again, nice bunch of folks, huh?

And lastly, I am just so damn glad I got out of that town when I did.