Rapid Fire

       I know I promised lengthy discussions on topics, but sometimes there is a lot of ground to cover in a short time so hang on and close your eyes if you have to.  Remember, my views are mine.  I only speak for myself, and sometimes my dog, but never anyone I have ever worked for, or whose schools I have attended, public or private, real or imagined, dead or alive.
   
       In my former fair city of Chicago there is currently a movement led by alderman Danny Solis to make the possession of marijuana a misdemeanor, punishable by a ticket, rather than jail time.  Rather than focus on what may or may not be the positives and negatives of this move in terms of legalization, lets focus on the alderman's argument.  That argument is that police spend 89,000 man hours arresting, booking, and jailing offenders.  That is just the police in Chicago.  No other city, not counting court time, etc.  This alderman feels that the officer's time would be better spent on more important things.  Good point.
       Alderman Tom Tunney is suggesting a crackdown for ordinance violations in the city ranging from dog licencing, and handicap parking to using camera technology to enforce speed limits and sidewalk shoveling.  I like that, enforce speed limits with robo-tickets.  That is the point when you stop pretending it is about safety.  A police officer giving you a warning enforces the speed limit.  An electronic ticket, aside from violating due process, is only about revenue.
       So Chicago news is summed up as:  Marijuana possession, decriminalized.  Not shoveling snow that you did not put there: criminalized.  See what I did there.

       At work we had a teleconference where some upper level executive was proudly telling us how CEO's of other major companies are approaching our company with basic problems, and asking for solutions.  He was rather happy because this clearly meant more money for our company.  What's not to like?  It does point to a sad truth though.  The CEO of a hospital does not know enough about running their business to know what equipment, or professionals they need to treat patients.  At that level this is actually expected.  They also don't know enough to ask the Doctors and Nurses and Technicians who already work there, and would know this information.  Likely they would know it better than the sales team of a single company.  Just sayin'...

       The Gross Domestic Product is up.  That is pointing to a recovery, or at least the end of the downward slide.  This is great news.  Unless you are unemployed.  See the current 9 percent rate is only those collecting unemployment.  The actual rate, which counts people who are no longer looking, no longer eligible, and the people with advanced degrees working the drive thru., is around 30 percent.  If you are a teacher, a nurse, or in any field where governments' bad decisions affect your ability to find employment, then the following does not apply to you.  With unemployment so high, and growth occurring anyway, there is only one interpretation to be had.  Those currently unemployed, with the exception of those listed above, were not really needed.

       In the paper today some buffoon wrote in bashing the tea-party.  I will not defend the Tea-Party, or their practices.  This buffoon's letter, though was not attacking their beliefs or practices.  Rather she was attacking the fact that these people are "half-educated, non statesmen".  Perhaps it is time for a civics lesson Martha (redacted) of Crystal Lake.  Our founding fathers were half-educated non statesmen.  Our country is founded on the belief that half-educated non statesmen can run it.  Until recently you would have been laughed out of the room for such an asinine moronic inaccurate statement.  Since we mostly have Ivy-League-educated statesmen running government now, and given the complete wreck they have made of it we should give the half educated non statesmen their shot.
 
       The true crime here isn't that the GOP has a splinter group of half educated outsiders that are winning elections.  The crime is that the Democrats don't.

In Defense of Herman Cain: A progressive, flat, regressive tax.

       I was listening to the news on the way home from work, as is my wont, and they were discussing the oddly controversial 9-9-9 plan that Herman Cain has cooked up.  For those unfamiliar with it, his plan is to have all taxes boiled down to a nine percent income tax, a nine percent corporate tax, and a nine percent sales tax.  You know like in Sim City.  This post is not about whether I agree or disagree, or even what a valid opinion might be, or even if he stole the idea from Sim City.  Rather it is a vocabulary primer for the obviously under-educated media.
       You see they were calling Herman Cain's plan a "Regressive" tax.  Now I may not be the sitting chair of the political sciences department of a university; but I do know that a tax that is equal to nine percent of earnings, regardless of income, is not regressive.  It is flat.  One light argue that it is a regressive tax since the rich would miss that nine percent a lot less, but while that may be true, it is a misnomer.
       A regressive tax is one like they had in medieval times.  the poor pay a higher percentage of their income than the rich.  In this example of course the rich, being lords, pay nothing.  But this does illustrate what a regressive tax is.  Conversely a "progressive" tax is one where the rich pay a higher percentage than the poor.  This is the type that most Americans would consider "fair".  This is based on our long held belief in the "ability to pay principle".  The rich can afford to pay a higher percent because they have so much.  Ten percent tax on one million still leaves you nine hundred thousand.  Ten percent tax on one thousand dollars leaves you only nine hundred.  Don't be offended at these simplifications, remember this is for journalists to read, and if they could understand simple concepts, they would have useful occupations.
       Now it wouldn't bother me that this taxing plan was mis-categorized; except that Rick Perry's plan to have a "flat" twenty percent tax was called exactly that by the same media, in the same news story.  Possibly they like Perry better because he provides more sound bites.  I don't know.  I do know that the percentage involved does not matter unless it changes up or down by income level.  Nine percent for all is nine percent for all.  Twenty percent for all is twenty percent for all.
       So let's review:  if you plan to tax people at a flat rate of nine percent it is somehow a "regressive" tax, but if you raise that by eleven percent, up to twenty, it suddenly metamorphoses into a flat tax.  It must be the media's bias in favor of people who provide good audio clips.

European Union

       I will not be using any of my space to complain about the spectacularly self-serving removal of troops ordered by our President.  There are many others doing that, and this is a space for deeper lines of thought.  Instead I will be offering this little aside, roughly based on a conversation I had with my brother-in-law.  It is intended as humor, despite any facts presented.

G:  "You know why the European Union was created, right?"
Me:  "No, why?"
G:  "To keep an eye on Germany."
Me:  "Yeah, speaking of, they are one of the only countries in Europe right now with any financial success."
G:  "True, and they don't seem to care for that."
Me:  "Yeah, they might feel like there is an unfair subsidy of Europe, with German-earned money.
G:  "Also they don't much care for the influx of immigrants that began when the Euro was adopted.
Me:  "What?"
G:  "Yeah, apparently the floodgates opened and now there are a lot eastern Europeans in Germany."
Me:  "So Germany has a lot of non-Germans working in the country, and a lot of people they might consider  'undesirables'."
G:  "Yeah, that's about right."
Me:  I wonder if we, in the rest of the world should be concerned."
G:  "What about?"
Me:  "I wonder if there is some 'historical precedent' of anything similar that happened with Germany.  Some point in history where they were sending a lot of money to the rest of Europe, and had a country full of non-Germans."
G (laughing):  "None that I can think of."
Me (also laughing):  "Me neither."

It is what it is.

       OK.  See that bit of idiocy up there.  The title.  Worst bit of tautology ever conceived by the English speaking world.  Lets begin our forensic disassembly of this moronic bit of language.  First, if course "it is what it is".  What the hell else could it possibly be.  It goes without saying that this expression goes,... without saying.  It not only is a statement of the painfully obvious, it is also...

       Untrue.  The primary argument people raise against M-theory (its string theory, science stuff, you don't actually need to know anything about it, just play along.)  Anyway, the primary argument against it is that it cannot be proven false.  Therefore, reflexively, it cannot be proven true.  Much like the canned idiocy that is, "it is what it is".  Aside from being obvious and untrue it is also...

       Passive aggressive.  There are ways to express that further action will not help that do not place the blame nowhere in particular.  One might say, "Oh, well, what can you do?"  That phrase places the onus for action on the person hearing it.  Also there is "Que sera, sera."  or in English, "What will be, will be."  This at least places the inevitable in the future where it may or may not be acted on.  But moreover these phrases are used in particular ways, to achieve effect.  "It is what it is" is a phrase used in a host of inappropriate ways.  "Why aren't I getting a raise this year?"  "Well there's no money left in the budget so, it is what it is."  It adds nothing to the conversation except a second.  That is a second you will not get back.  

       A coworker once used that banal idiocy in a conversation with me and I told him, "Stop.  Don't use that moronic phrase, man.  You're better than that."  He agreed.  (Although I did catch him saying it again)  Certain phrases, like this one should be avoided at all costs, because it tells the world they are dealing with an idiot...

       Who is not worth talking to.  There's the silver lining.  I no longer need to wonder if the person I'm talking to is the sort of person who when being asked about the average level of intelligence replies, with no sense of irony, "I think most people are smarter than that."  (actual conversation.)  "Than average"  I said.   "Yes"

"You are saying that most people are smarter than average?"  I condensed.  "Yes"  They replied.  

       But if they had replied with "it is what it is" I would have known them for an idiot without the need for clarification.  (Most people may be smarter than the average level, if there are more profoundly retarded people than geniuses.  But such things are beyond the grasp of the person I was talking to, and not within the scope of the conversation.  Just for clarity's sake).  By the way, I have sworn off ever uttering such ridiculous drivel as that cursed phrase.  The only time I have employed it is here, and it will be the last.

Ron Paul has lost my respect.

       Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I am an ardent supporter of Ron Paul.  They also know that I have been since before I could vote.  The man has made some brilliant points about the need for less government intrusion in our lives and again, anyone who knows me knows that I feel much the same.  I have backed his efforts.  I have voted for him.  I have explained his positions to people, since the media seems to have forgotten that occasionally people with an ounce of brain run under one ticket or the other.  Or in his case, until recently, a third party.
         If you hadn't heard, we have recently fired a missile at, and killed, a terrorist leader.  There are those who would argue that this was a military action, not an assassination.  I am not one of them.  I will not shrink away from what this was.  I also will not pretend that it is somehow morally superior to have troops march in, at great risk to their own lives, and kill him with a bullet.  The end result is a dead terrorist.  How we killed him is academic.
       In referring to said removal of the newest terrorist leader by a long distance missile, there was his recent quote:  "and now we are told that assassination of foreigners, as well as American citizens, is legitimate and necessary to provide security for our people.  It is my firm opinion that nothing could be further from the truth."    
       Let's dismember that particularly asinine statement, just for fun, shall we.  Firstly, an American citizen who removes themselves from the country and leads an organization against America is by definition, an enemy combatant.  Otherwise Abraham Lincoln is our country's preeminent assassin.   Remember that Civil War thing.  Blue guys, grey guys, lots of guns.  Yeah that was a group of American Citizens who made themselves enemies of America.  (that's the way it's taught up here anyway.)  But assuming that Mr. Paul is right, then honest Abe is our greatest villain.  (He is not the good guy we were taught, by the way.  That is for another post though.)
       Moving on.  The assassination of the enemies of America is acceptable.  I could make an elaborate moral justification of this, but I do not need to.  If we can eliminate the enemies of America by a method that does not endanger the lives of Americans are we not obligated to?  That aside: If we have the ability to plant a missile in someone's teeth from so far away that they don't even know where it came from, should we not?  (I never know if question marks are appropriate for rhetorical questions.)
       Let's face it, the weak will of the American public and the consummate lack of testicular fortitude of our government has crippled the greatest military the world has ever known. The only thing we have that everyone fears is our ability to remove a threat to our way of life from a distance.  We should be able to, as the worlds foremost military power, cause a sudden eruption of liquid flatulence from every terrorist in the world, at the mere mention we are coming for them.
       So let's review.  Foreign or American born terrorists are enemy combatants.  Assassinating them is not only "legitimate and necessary", but preferable.  Ron Paul is not fit to lead, because he is not able to separate the idealism of his morals from the reality of running the free world.  So when Mr.Paul says that this was an assassination I say, "You're damned skippy it was."
     
   

If you don't have a door, don't use speaker phone.

       Today we will again delve into the world of office ignorance.  There are times when using a speaker phone is appropriate.  Such as when you are on a conference call, or are listening to voice-mails that were left for the whole office, or the entire office is crowded around one monitor and phone for a we conference.  If you are an executive with your own office and a door, then it is OK to use speaker phone, provided the door is closed.  That is not today's topic.
       Today we will be discussing when not to use your #^<!^@ speakerphone.  Such as, when you share an office with other people.  We don't give a rat's ass what your messages are.  Also, we are trying to do our work, you inconsiderate moron, so please pick up the ever-loving handset.  The same rules apply to cubeville.  If someone is listening to their messages it is definitely not OK to use your speakerphone.  those sour looks; not because we all had the same bad bagel for breakfast.  We all hate that you can't see how ignorant you are being.
       If you have a job that requires waiting on hold with technical support, such as IT; then you may use speakerphone, with the volume low, provided you are doing other work while you wait.  It is still ignorant, but it is acceptable.  If, however, you are just sitting at your desk complaining about the music, you may not use speaker phone.  Unless you wish people in your office to begin doing unholy things to your coffee mug, chair, water bottle, and handset.  (For those rare occasions you use the thing.)
       There are many companies that manufacture headsets if you require hands-free operation.  I hear that in this wireless age there are even ones with no cords.  Now I have a solution for correcting the ignorance of others, and surprisingly it does not involve violence.  Wait until they are checking voice-mails, (of course on speaker) and make an important call.  The other person will likely ask what the "noise" is.  Apologize for the noise and say that you have a co-worker who has an earache and cannot put the handset to their ear.  Or just say "I'm sorry, I work with a self-important moron, I'll call back when they are done using their speaker phone at full volume."
       I would recommend just putting a call on speaker every time they do, but experience shows that the caliber of idiot who does this sort of thing is: A, immune to irony  B, unlikely to notice, and C, not likely to learn.  I would not recommend cutting the wires with their own scissors while they are using the phone.  Nor would I recommend Unplugging the cord, applying super glue to the contacts and letting it dry, then plugging it back in.  Those sorts of thing will get you in trouble if you are caught.  And after all, we can't have that.