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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Thursday, July 08, 2010

What The Heck; Might As Well Make It Official 

Gone Fishin'
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:51 PM 22 comments

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Time For Plan B 

...it's always good to have a plan and it never hurts, once you have that plan, to make sure to draw up a backup plan. According to documents that have come into the hands of Congressional investigators, Toyota may have had a plan to deal with unfavorable Congressional testimony regarding that little unintended acceleration problem that seemed to be plaguing several of its model lines: attack the critics. Now, there's something to be said for a strategy of attacking your critics; we lefties are all the time demanding that elected Democrats attack the usually moronic criticisms that the SCLM so cheerfully airs from right wing leaders, spokesmen, talking heads, and loose wackos roaming the airwaves. But, that is that and this is this and there is a pretty big difference between the two...

We could delve deeply into the "science vs. blathering" difference, because that's pretty big all by itself. No need, though, because what we are talking about here is the difference between some radio blowhard coked to the gills on Oxycontin fighting through the brain mists to transfer all those twisted hate-filled thoughts to his speech centers and the possibility that the subject of a Congressional investigation just might have been cogitating - at least for a while - the prospective value of going after some Congressional witnesses who disagreed with that subject's approach to solving a particular safety concern. There are, I am told, real live prison cells in the Capitol complex and - at the very least - the advertising agency executives advising Toyota would be well served by the understanding that there is little other than a can of WD-40 and a couple of overly frank emails that could spell the difference between another weekend with the trophy wife at the Hamptons beach house and cooling your heels alone with the cellar rats in a D.C. version of the Bastille, waiting for federal prosecutors to draw up witness intimidation charges that trump that Contempt of Congress vote that changed your weekend plans and put you here in the first place...

It may be some time before we understand, if we ever do, what the subject of the investigation and its paid advisers and pollsters had in mind, but it is clearly time to unlimber Plan B...
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:12 PM 5 comments

Friday, May 14, 2010

Brief Thoughts On Why One May Not Tell People What One Does 

...throughout the Executive Branch of the Government of the United States, there are thousands of employees who earn their daily bread by honorably defending the interests of the American people through the administration of contracts that deliver services, supplies, and the construction and maintenance of real property. Day in and day out, they try to do the best they can to make sure that the requirements of the Federal contracts that they are charged with administering are met...

And then there's this. The real irony about this report is that the Department of Defense maintains an online site that is the go-to location for all sorts of training on how to properly administer federal contracts. In fact, this go-to DOD site is approved as a source for fulfilling the annual training requirements necessary for all Federal contract administration employees to maintain their certification to handle contracts. And yet...

And yet, it is the very Department that offers what is considered in some circles to be the definitive training on contract administration that not only can't - one more time - seem able to guarantee best value for the country but also can't provide acceptable products for the ultimate customer, which - one more time - is our own troops. Somewhere out there, somebody has the job of making sure that the production line cranking out combat helmets met the required specifications. Somewhere out there, the job didn't get done. It may turn out that the failure to meet spec's is a simple technical issue involving chin straps or some such, but at first blush this is another unnecessary black eye delivered - courtesy of DOD contract specialists - to all those other people who get the job done right every day of the week all year long, every year, with little recognition and no reward other than a paycheck...

...because that's the way this stuff is supposed to work...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:09 PM 2 comments

How Hard Can It Be? 

...I was going to make some idle sport of Sarah Palin most recent comments when I first read the AP report; you know, test out some other potential moves Obama would make if only he could, such as:
Obama would allow people to eat Christian babies if he thought he and his Democratic allies could get away with it.

Obama would gather up registered Republicans and Death March them on foot to internment camps in the New Mexico desert if he thought he and his Democratic allies could get away with it.

Obama would force all Americans to face toward Mecca and pray daily if if he thought he and his Democratic allies could get away with it.


But then, as I was reading through the story again, I realized that the back story wasn't that Palin is just running around the country saying whatever she thinks the crazy 30% of the population will eat up, or even that Palin probably wouldn't even be considered a contender for the 2012 Republican nomination if outlets like AP actually provided some sort of rational analysis to her bizarre litany of comments. No, the back story is that journalism as practiced by those razor sharp professionals of the AP is so easy that just about anybody with either sufficient fingers, toes, or elbows to type (or even a voice recognition system to provide Reasonable Accommodation in accordance with ADA) should be able to do this job to AP standards, regardless of any other training or experience...

I started getting to this point with this selection:
"...the only thing stopping Obama from gutting the Constitution's right to bare arms." (emphasis mine)

The critical issue of the right to bare arms has been discussed already during this first 18 months of the Obama regime, particularly with regard to Michele Obama's wardrobe selections. In fact, no less an elite-level journalist/blogger than Jake Tapper has weighed in on Barack Obama's own apparent beliefs when it comes to baring arms. What he thinks about firearm ownership and the meaning of the Second Amendment is less well known, but I think it's safe to say that either the unnamed AP reporter's or Palins' own wild conjecture is seriously off the mark...

But Wait, as Billy Mays used to say, There's More. Later in her speech, Palin referred to the vicious manner in which sow grizzlies defend their cubs and made a connection to Republican/Teabagger women who she said need to rise up and help take back the country. Said unnamed reporter failed to mention this connection by writing just this:
Palin challenged Republican women — "mama grizzlies," she called them — to help the Republicans "take this country back" and elect anti-abortion lawmakers.

The report, in the next sentence, offers - apparently with a completely straight, dedicated professional journalistic face - this helpful reference:
A grizzlie is a bear.

No, really, that's what the article says...

...or at least that's what it says right now, prior to some actual educated English-speaking editor frantically pulling the copy off line to fix it. I promise, I really tried to be charitable about this, but I just couldn't find my way. Aside from the fact that the reporter somehow felt it necessary to explain what a 'grizzlie' is, she or he wasn't even capable of spelling the bear's colloquial singular name correctly (that would be "grizzly' and Heaven forfend that there would have been a need to go all Latin with Ursus arctos horribilis just to make sure all y'all knew what a grizzly is), which is the sort of error than a 10-second Google search could have corrected. This is what led to my realization that Serious Professional Journalism clearly isn't as rigorous a profession as Serious Professional Journalists would like us to believe it is, especially when they are discussing the Information Age blight represented by the the unwashed vermin of blogtopia. This report represents just one example of the best work available from what is supposed to be a premier provider of straight-up Fourth Estate Media, and it should lead all the rest of us in the 'unwashed masses' bleachers to the realization that we, too, could be an AP reporter...

How hard can it be?

Update:
Screen shots, just in case the AP editors actually get around to reading a fixing the story....
Posted by: Jack K. / 6:07 PM 0 comments

Monday, May 10, 2010

My Own Private Antarctica 

...it is snowing outside. By which I mean "again". The Winter That Would Never Be has slowly morphed into the Spring That Won't Ever Come. In the larger context of the outside world, this doesn't amount to much; it's doesn't hold a candle to the reality of sitting along the Gulf Coast knowing that there is a vast slimy pool of spilled crude oil spreading across an area larger than a couple of European countries that may or may not be headed your way and having no more say in the matter than if you were duct-taped to the hood of a speeding truck barreling into some dark unknown madness...

But still, enough is enough. It's been over a month since the deadline for removal of our much-debated studded tires, yet the last vestiges of a winter that didn't amount to much keep lingering on and on. A week or so ago, my morning commute featured a several-mile-long Christmas Light Show where all manner of flashing light bars from police, emergency, Incident Response, and tow vehicles reflected gaily against the heavily falling snow, and I am certain that one Sheriff's Deputy managing the extrication of his own Crown Vic from the roadside ditch by one of those gaily flickering tow vehicles is glad that I didn't have a camera to contribute to whatever on-screen hell he will face at his next going-away/retirement/promotion party. I do, after all, know people...

Tempers are growing short, skin is growing pale, and there is a desperate darkness around the eyes of all those sun-worshiping outdoorsy types whose total buy-in on that "300 sunny days per year" Central Orygun hype is reflected by the usual seasonal ritualistic exchange of rooftop ski racks for rooftop bike racks. Those who cherish snow skiing are living in a wonderful dream world while the rest of us are trapped in a nightmare that seems to have no defined endpoint...

This, too, will pass, and not too far down the road we in this little corner of the world will be fretting over dry lightning or 8-year-olds burning ants with a magnifying glass - either one of which could end up burning down half the county - and all the talk about climate change will wander off into whatever corner such discussions go when they can't gain local traction. For now, on the other hand, it is time for My Own Private Antarctica to end...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:07 PM 4 comments

Monday, May 03, 2010

The Last Refuge Of "Drill, Baybee, Drill" Scoundrels 

...it was to be expected, and it was delivered just about on time. Texas Governor Rick Perry, a man whose "best if used by" date is rapidly approaching as far as any of his desperate hopes for further political advancement are concerned, has decided to add to his already bulging Democratic oppo-research files by suggesting that we should all avoid falling to some sort of "knee-jerk" reaction to the ongoing BP oil spill disaster...

It is almost hard to put into words just how stupid this sort of comment really is. It isn't even necessary to scrounge around to find links to buttress counter-arguments; the simple fact is that a region that has not yet fully recovered from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the late summer of 2005 is now facing the sort of man-made disaster that could devastate its fisheries and coastal economies for decades to come...

This isn't a matter of odds or of "acts of God that can't be prevented". There is too much at stake to play the odds and God long ago stated his position on His views about people being stupid about stewardship of His creation. "Good Hair" Perry is hoping to ride his current poll lead to a virtual free pass to reelection as Texas governor, but his necessary pandering to all those Texas Big Oil special interests is a lame note that will fall on a lot of desperate ears along the Gulf Coast during these desperate days. Fact is, this current crisis is the perfect answer to the question of whether or not we should expand offshore oil exploration. It isn't a matter of odds; it's simply a matter of "what if". The "Drill, Baby, Drill" gang, represented in this case by Perry, don't want to address the "what if" because they have the luxury of playing with the past history of statistics. They are wrong, of course, because it only takes this one statistically improbable episode to make us realize just exactly what sort of fire we are playing with...

Perry is, of course, going to play the game by the rules his Big Oil overlords dictate, so it isn't in the least surprising that he would insist that we should all just chill. That is the last refuge of the pro-exploration gang; since you don't remember the last big oil field blowout a generation ago off the California coast, you shouldn't judge the looming ecological and economic Gulf Coast disaster as some sort of warning. It was "an act of God", after all; nothing to see here, please move along. Never mind that God laid out his rules a few millenia ago and this potentially massive disaster doesn't fall into any category that God identified in his new covenant. The last refuge of bought-and-paid-for scoundrels like Perry is a false and potentially blasphemous linkage to God to mask and hide the sorts of personally aggrandizing and enriching sins that Oiled-Up lackeys like Perry want to protect...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:56 PM 1 comments

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

In Consideration of Why Anyone Can Be A Pundit 

...anyone can be a pundit at some level. You can write a letter to The Editor, start a blog, comment at major league websites and blogs, or in other ways fling your thoughts into the vast electronic river that flows through all of our lives...

That's Ground Level Punditry.

You can become a captivating writer who garners tons of hits on your blog, or you can become one of the trusted acolytes at some larger blog, or you can actually enter the world of the ink-stained wretches of journalism to have some sort of local voice...

That's Journey Level Punditry.

Or you can rise to the top of the mountain, gaining access to a national audience, regardless of your actual qualification to share any sort of meaningful opinion, via employment at a national media source. This is the region of rarefied air so lacking in oxygen that only a limited few favored beings ever develop the lung capacity to function successfully...

That is what I think of as Star Level Punditry.

The sad thing is that, while you can aspire to and perhaps successfully rise to that "Star" level, it will probably be necessary to check your intellectual capabilities at the door in order to walk through it. As an example, I simply offer this article, which by itself isn't so much a demonstration of my argument as it is a demonstration of where intellect "check-out" leads...

One can't help but wonder, while reading such articles as this, what strange calendar the Star Level Pundits are looking at. May Day is this coming weekend; we haven't even celebrated Mother's Day or Memorial Day or Labor Day, but we are many months into a fevered dialogue who's origin stretches back over a year about just how badly Democratic butts are going to get kicked in an election that is over five (as in FIVE[5] months away). This sort of conversation looks like nothing more that the mock draft talk leading up to the actualy real live NFL draft that ends up looking nothing like the vision painted during the run up...

May Day is on Saturday. It will be over five months before voters will actually select Representatives or Senators or a host of state, county, and local officials. It may be fun to game this whole system out and make predictions about What Will Be, but we are looking at the remainder of the spring, all of the summer, and a sliver of the fall before people will actually vote in an election that truly matters to the country. It really is a long time until the next election and there are many streams to cross before we get to that day. It is simply absurd to speculate about what the outcome of all those elections will be at this early date...

But that is, I suppose, what being a pundit at the Star Level is all about...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:00 PM 5 comments

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Say Hello To My Little Friend - The Rootkit Files 

...for Tony Montana (aka "Scarface"), it was an M203 grenade launcher attachment to his M16. For me, it has been KillDisk burned to a CD and launched from the boot menu. There is, it turns out, one surefire way to deal with a Win32 rootkit virus: scrub the hard drive and start over...

The freeware version of my little friend doesn't offer the full-on Department of Defense 5220.22 M standard of recovery-proof disk wiping that its own purchase version and some other disk wiping utilities provide, but it's good enough for my purposes. After spending several hours every single night for the past two week trying every imaginable thing - including sinking to the pits of desperation and calling the Dell tech service line - a few facts began to emerge from the inky blackness of my dilemma: my creaky old laptop probably wouldn't support the smallest readily available hard drive; the Dell-provided operating system reinstall disk (instead of real live XP CD's) wasn't bootable in the presence of an existing operating system; nobody I know had an XP operating system disk with a valid key; and my last straw-grasping idea of buying and installing Windows 7 was defeated because the old girl's architecture can't handle the required 1 gig of RAM. Since I really wasn't in the mood to buy a new computer right at the moment (a gadget guy I am most certainly not), I seemed to be at a technological impasse because of my inability to reformat the hard drive. That's when the light bulb finally went on...

Anyway, I'm back after many, many hours of installing and downloading, including a second rescrubbing and a second reinstall of the operating system (a word of advice: never install everything that comes on your recovery driver disk, especially if you are using an aftermarket wireless receiver), sailing the treacherous seas of Blogtopia in the company of an entire armada of freeware and purchased antispyware...except for McAfee. McAfee is bad juju on my laptop in any case (it came as part of the software bundle and I couldn't successfully reinstall it when I put in the new hard drive a couple of years ago), and Thursday's little update oopsie would have pushed me all the way over the edge if it was working and I had installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 on it, which I hadn't. Anyway, we'll see how this goes. So, anything been happening?
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:16 PM 2 comments

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