Sending them back over the walls

Posted on October 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

I’m sleeping soundly yesterday afternoon when, at around 1430, a phone call wakes me up. I know I shouldn’t sleep with my phone on, but it is a habit.

Anyway, I answer the phone and it is the manager at one of the facilities at my work and he is asking me if I could come into work early to cover an open shift. I don’t do the job he is asking me to cover for any longer, and I ask him why he called me in particular. He wheedles out an explanation full of compliments (which I simply must have if I’m going to be called off the bench to do a job I don’t like) and I follow up and ask him what happened to his new-hire that he has been training.

To my surprise, he says that he had to fire her.

He wouldn’t, and isn’t supposed to, tell me, but I went in three hours early anyway to clean up the job and then get along to my actual line of work. Upon my arrival, I start asking around as to what happened to cause the dude who doesn’t fire anyone, even if they deserve it, to have to cast this one aside.

And here is the scoop: One of our contracts demanded it.

My company contracts to every single animal testing lab in the tri-county area. Their locations are kept a secret, for obvious reasons, and in one of these contracts is a clause that basically states that anyone who will come in contact with their information must not only be given the standard criminal background check, but their information must also be given to the company so that they can do their own checking.

Let’s just say that the new girl didn’t pass the stink test for these folks.

From what I am able to gather, she was only able to pass the regular background check because we are not able to get our hands on recorded aliases. The unnamed company which hires us to get rid of their dead animals, because they have special domestic terrorism contacts, can.

Luckily for both us and said unnamed company, she barely got passed HR’s orientation and the prelim systems training before they called us. She hadn’t even gotten her login from IT yet so, no harm was done and the unnamed company is quite happy with the resolution.

Yes, I have passed their background check, and yes, I have been to all but one of the facilities. If the ALF/ELF knew where that one was, they’d just probably shit all over themselves because they walk past it every gotdam day on their way to the granola store.

I’m not sure if this was an attempt by the animal rights dweebs to get to information forbidden to them or if it was just a formerly misguided girl who got caught up by her past, and frankly, I could care less.

FYI: the dead animals are not just tossed into the landfill willy-nilly, they are cooked first in an autoclave, just like we have to do with all the trash that originates from outside the US. One of the jobs I hopefully never get trained for is what is known as “Working the Cooker”. It is a mobile autoclave you could park a Suburban in.

Needless to say, it is not the best smelling machine on the lot, and we deal with dozens of cubic yards of crab guts per day during the summer.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 1 Comment

RNS Quote of the Day: 10/25/06

Posted on October 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Over at the Babalu Blog, Henry “Conductor” Gomez fisks an editorial on the subject of the Cuba enbargo published in the Madison, Wisconsin “Capital Times” to within an inch of castro’s life.

Well worth a whole read, and to attempt to sell you even further, here is the closer.

fidel castro has had many opportunities to negotiate an end to the embargo but he does not want to negotiate. In 47 years the only variable to the equation that has not changed is castro himself. We can and have taken a variety of measures (and non-measures) on our side but it’s obvious that as long as castro remains in power nothing will change in Cuba. For that reason it’s my theory that we should hold on to what’s left of the embargo until a new Cuban leader emerges that is willing to sit down at the table in good faith. That’s a concept that is alien to fidel.

Henry “Conductor” Gomez

I’m sure that getting forcibly fed to ravenous hell-hounds by satan himself is alien to fidel as well. But hopefully, not for long.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

The Dumbest Thing I’ve Read All Day: 10/25

Posted on October 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

CNN, fascinated to the nines with showing the enemy propaganda sniper film they insipidly titled “Insurgent Video” over and over again. To any American who actually does want the US to get Iraq settled so that we can leave and not retreat, it was simply CNN playing enemy propaganda. Even Rep. Duncan Hunter asked if CNN wanted America to be successful in Iraq.

The GOP came out with an ad that is being compared, even and especially by right wing bloggers to the LBJ 1964 “Daisy” ad. I’ve seen it, you can watch it here. The ad is non-specific as to who people should vote for until the very end and unless you already think like a member of the party, and by that I mean not someone who has already figured out that terrorists are bad, unless you already think like that, the ad is not going to do it’s job, which is to make you want to vote for the (R)’s on November 7th.

However, because the leftosphere is wanting to get the attention off CNN for showing the “Insurgent Video” Steve Benen is now equating the new GOP ad to the CNN video.

One of the biggest topics among conservative bloggers the past several days is a video, broadcast last week by CNN, that shows insurgent snipers in Iraq shooting at U.S. troops. The right is nearly apoplectic about this, and this week, they’re getting support from Republican members of Congress.

(snip)

Of course, if anyone is serving as the publicist for an enemy propaganda film, it’s the Republican National Committee.

Of course, I could be misunderstanding Benen here, he may just see the RNC as “The Enemy”, and in that case, he would be right by calling the GOP ad “enemy propaganda”.

If this is the case, then his only fault would be that it is bad propaganda.

Posted in Too Stupid to Live | Leave a comment

Not Only

Posted on October 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Does Seattle have the claim to fame of The World’s Richest Man, we now also can claim the title to The World’s Top Money Making Dead Guy.

Kurt Cobain is showbusiness’s top earning dead celebrity – surpassing Elvis Presley.

The Nirvana frontman raked in a staggering £26.3m last year, putting Presley’s £22.1m in the shade, according to US business website Forbes.com.

It is the first time Cobain has appeared on the list.

Nearly $50 Million bucks equals a whole lot of sales of bad music.

FWIW: Yes, PacNW locals, I know that Gates lives in Medina which is not in Seattle, but who the hell outside the area knows about Bellevue?

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 4 Comments

Earlier this week

Posted on October 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

I wrote about Lyn Davis Lear getting all conspiratorial when she looks at Karl Rove being so confident about the (R)’s chances in the upcoming election. One of the factors mentioned was the money factor and about how the GOP has more now since the DNC pretty much blew their wad over the last couple weeks.

I think also that Rove, being the evil ten-headed genius that the left portrays him to be, also factored in some dissention in the ranks over money in these last couple weeks.

Like this from none other than the dKos himself

Here’s the bottom line — safe Republican incumbents are ponying up in an effort to keep control of Congress — to the tune of $2.3 million more than Democrats. It’s why they win — they work harder and sacrifice more than our safe, lazy, entrenched incumbents who would rather stew in the minority than actually extend themselves out a bit.

Ask any campaign around the country at this stage what they would prefer — a campaign visit from Kerry (or anyone else save the Big Dog), or cold hard cash, and guess what they’ll answer? Money and volunteers will help us close this election strong. Not campaign appearances that is more about Kerry building support and chits for 2008 as it is about helping our guys this year.

“Help us, we’ve gone broke! Oh, you won’t? Well then you’re just a stuck up loser!”

The first part sounds like a typical Democrat constituent. The second, like a tried and true socialist.

Imagine that, Kos is both!

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 1 Comment

On the Cheap

Posted on October 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

I do not fault anyone for using the Google owned Blogger program to put their thoughts on the web. It is quite suitable for just about everyone. If I had not inherited RNS from the Blogfather Nukevet Neal, I probably would too, though I consider the money I spend to blog here as just cheap therapy.

However, with that money and the help of the RNS Ether-Deities Craig at MTPolitics and Joe Huffman, I am able to not have to worry about much other than script-kiddies who don’t like my opinion. Whereas the users of Blogger have to deal with Google and their lack of ability to keep the program running 24-7, as was evidenced yesterday.

One of the bloggers who went bye-bye yesterday was John Avarosis at the ineptly named AmericaBlog. Let’s just say that he didn’t enjoy it.

Open Thread – Blogger is down again

God forbid what happens next week, right before the election, when Blogger most assuredly dies and takes all of us with it.

The “us” he is talking about is the leftosphere. In my blog surfing I go through a number of sites on both sides of the ailse, I have notice that there are more left wing sites are hosted on Blogger than on the right, though my sampling is considerably less than scientific.

However, if it just now that Avarosis has figured out that a singular sight on a dedicated server is more reliable than one with a Blogger address, I think I can safely bet you dollars to doughnuts that he hasn’t got a single emergency preparation item stashed the Avarosis hizouse. Why do that when an (R) is President? You can just blame him for your thirst, hunger and lack of power.

I say this especially because if you clicky the linky above, you’ll see that with his traffic numbers, the guy has to be raking in some decent moola, so it isn’t like he can afford it.

In other Google related news, LGF tell us that Google has form it’s own PAC.

I’m sure they’ll tell us that this is only for lobbying causes when the gov’t tries to clamp down on the interweb tubes (remember, the Dems are supposed to win something in two weeks), but I seriously doubt that that will be it’s only function.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Jack Murtha Has Been Lying for 26 Years About ABSCAM

Posted on October 24, 2006 by Alaska

…or so claims his Congressional opponent, reacting to the apparent disclosure of hitherto unseen ABSCAM FBI tapes in which Murtha allegedly makes a $50,000 bribery deal. Video here.

I remember reading about ABSCAM in my grandmother’s Readers’ Digest. I think it was the first sting operation I’d ever heard of (hey, I must have been all of eleven years old), and I was enthralled.

At some point I’ll sit down and watch the full 53 minutes of video. It’s unclear from Murtha’s opponent’s writeup whether the newly released “complete videotape” of Murtha has anything new to contradict what seems to have been an indication by Murtha that he wasn’t interested “at this point” in the $50,000, according to the Wikipedia writeup on ABSCAM. Perhaps that was just because he wanted it laundered through some banks before he touched it, but in any event he wasn’t among those prosecuted.

So even though we know the guy’s a crook, I’m not sure this “newly released videotape” has anything truly significant to add to the old evidence against him.

Anyway, yours truly promises to spend 53 minutes of his life examining this grainy undercover footage in the next few days. Revelations and smoking guns, if any, shall be reported in this space.

Any of y’all can’t wait and wanna watch it for me, go right ahead! Just be sure to enlighten us all in the comments.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment

You Don’t Say?

Posted on October 24, 2006 by Phil Kadath

The Geek w/a 45 points out some information that will surprise none here.

Though it will make the gun bigots claim false data

Buyback has no effect on murder rate

Half a billion dollars spent buying back hundreds of thousands of guns after the Port Arthur massacre had no effect on the homicide rate, says a study published in an influential British journal.

The report by two Australian academics, published in the British Journal of Criminology, said statistics gathered in the decade since Port Arthur showed gun deaths had been declining well before 1996 and the buyback of more than 600,000 mainly semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns had made no difference in the rate of decline.

The only area where the package of Commonwealth and State laws, known as the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) may have had some impact was on the rate of suicide, but the study said the evidence was not clear and any reductions attributable to the new gun rules were slight.

“Homicide patterns (firearm and non-firearm) were not influenced by the NFA, the conclusion being that the gun buyback and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia,” the study says.

OMFG! Are they actually saying that criminals doen’t care about gun laws? Why yes, I do believe they are.

Hello, and welcome to the real world, Brady Campaign and VPC. We would like to say good day to you and that no, just because the people are in a different country doesn’t mean you should try it here.

John Howard, while a good and intelligent man in almost every measurable respect, bowed to public pressure and was possibly struck by a severe lack of IQ in the building, most likely caused by screaming gun bigots.

In his first year in office, the Prime Minister, John Howard, forced through some of the world’s toughest gun laws, including the national buyback scheme, after Martin Bryant used semi-automatic rifles to shoot dead 35 people at Port Arthur.

And what did the gun owning community do? Other than tell Mr. Howard the results of his folly ten years in advance? They just sort of registered their weapons. They’re law abiding.

Although furious licensed gun-owners said the laws would have no impact because criminals would not hand in their guns, Mr Howard and others predicted the removal of so many guns from the community, and new laws making it harder to buy and keep guns, would lead to a reduction in all types of gun-related deaths.

Law abiding gun owners: 1

Gun Bigots: 0

And now for the field goal

Politicians had assumed tighter gun laws would cut off the supply of guns to would-be criminals and that homicide rates would fall as a result, the study said. But more than 90 per cent of firearms used to commit homicide were not registered, their users were not licensed and they had been unaffected by the firearms agreement.

Make that 2 points for the law abiding gun owners.

I eagerly await the apology of the Australian government, though I think I’ll be able to climb a ladder to the moon before that happens.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger., The Left is Never Right | 1 Comment

It is sad, really

Posted on October 24, 2006 by Phil Kadath

That they would vote for their own destruction

Republican Party Losing Jewish Voters

The efforts of Jewish Republicans to switch the political affiliations of Jewish voters has floundered.

Earlier today, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) released its 2006 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion showing that the number of Jewish voters identifying themselves as Democrats has increased from 48 percent to 54 percent since the last mid-term election in 2002.  At the same time, the number of Jewish voters identifying themselves as Republicans has decreased from 18 percent in 2002 to 15 percent in 2006.

Yet, as LGF pointed out from WND yesterday

American Jews Top Hate-Crime Targets

If the latest FBI hate-crime statistics are any indication, of the 1,314 verified offenses motivated by religious bias, 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.

Only 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic, despite claims of rampant anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. by groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations.

I don’t like the classification “Hate Crime” any more than I used to, but those who promote the system should actually look at the statistics and see who is being hated before flapping their lips.

I just wish that the Jewish contingent who are registering as Democrats would listen to that party and see who that party believes are in need of legislative protection, because they ain’t speaking of Jews.

Posted in Armageddon | 1 Comment

The Whiniest Thing I’ve Read All Day: 10/24/06

Posted on October 24, 2006 by Phil Kadath

They’re watching. Oh, They may cry and wail and moan and bitch, but They are watching. They are watching that eevviill empire They despise so greatly. The empire’s ratings are higher than ever, and it may just be because They are watching.

Uber left-wing partisan site ThinkProgress watches the Fox News Channel, and does not like what is on. In this example, it is whined that their preferred party gets called out

Today on Fox News, Neil Cavuto had a segment asking whether Democrats will “crush the economy” if they win November’s elections. One of the guests, Jonathan Hoenig, said they would, because Democrats’ “overriding philosophy is socialism.”

I don’t watch Cavuto all that often, but when I do, I absolutely enjoy Hoenig’s comments because he holds nothing back, but doesn’t quite get into “Coulter-Territory”. No insults, just facts and quality questions and statements.

Yet that was all it took to set Think Progress off.

Of course the Dems will crash the economy, and TP knows it. They will raise taxes, which TP likes, and they will overburden the nationwide business community with regulation, namely on wages.

Think Progess also doesn’t like to be called out as a socialist. TP hates being shown for what he/she/it is. Anyone who advocates for the government to have power of my health and my wages and especially over what I do with my money, namely buying earth-destroying trucks and firearms, is a socialist.

It is just that plain and simple.

Media Matters for America (employer of Oliver Willis - Occupation: Toole) also watches Fox News.

They absolutely do not like it when Fox reports on and questions ads being played by Republican candidates, even when MMA themselves denounces and questions said ads.

Take the ones being played on “Urban Radio Stations” and funded by Herman Cain which cut to the quick on topics such as abortion.

Narrator: Today, one-third of African-American pregnancies end in abortion. Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies. The Democrat Party supports these liberal abortion laws that are decimating our people. Democrats say they want our votes. Why don’t they want our lives?

You can follow the link above and watch the segment that MMA is objecting to, but trust me, they are only objecting to the ads because they are probably quite effective and they are, in my opinion, only bitching about Fox News covering them because they didn’t invite someone from MMA on to argue about them.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | Leave a comment