Saturday - December 13, 2008

ONE MORE GOOD REASON TO CRUSH BY ANY MEANS …. UNIONS ….

Which doesn’t mean I would let off greedy management.  They aren’t pure as driven snow either.

But this isn’t the first time unions here have disrupted the country.  I’m all for the hard working stiffs who are out in all sorts of weather and deliver mail under trying circumstances.  But remembering my own sorry and disagreeable experiences with unions, I have no use for them.

They have outlived their time.  They are also the cause (though not the only one) of higher and higher prices at the consumer level. 
I never tried looking it up and only just thought about it.
What is the percentage of cost say on a new car, that’s directly related to union demands?

Back in Nashville many years ago while working with union musicians, I discovered something that to this day I find unreasonable. Of course, it doesn’t mean anything to me now but.

There’s something called “cartage” which meant that we had to pay extra for the drummer who brought in his own set of drums. OK it’s a small item I admit. But it’s one small item among many small items that drive up costs.  You have to pay someone to bring the equipment he earns his living by, extra money because he has to tote it with him?  I wonder if that’s one reason many producers started using drum machines. 

How about extra pay for a plumber because he brings his tools to your house?  Oh right.  You already do.

I worked with a lot of non-union guys as well and guess what?  They were just as good!  Just not as well known outside the recording studio.

So what has me so worked up on a cold Dec. day?

This.

Postmen sabotage Christmas: ‘Cynical’ union orders strike on the busiest day of the year

By Becky Barrow
Last updated at 12:44 AM on 13th December 2008

Millions of cards and presents could arrive too late for Christmas because of plans by postal workers to strike next Friday.

The cynical decision to walk out at the peak of the festive postal rush was condemned by Royal Mail and consumer groups yesterday.

Around 120million letters and parcels are sent every day in December. The strike organisers, the Communication Workers’ Union, could not have chosen a more damaging date in the entire calendar.

December 19 is the day after the deadline for posting second- class letters in time for Christmas and the day before the first-class post deadline.

The 24-hour strike involves five sorting offices in the North West but will inevitably have serious knock-on effects around the country, and action could spread.

The union warned that the walkout may turn into a rolling programme of crippling strike action. Yesterday the Royal Mail said it was ‘disappointed’ by its workers’ decision to go on strike at such a crucial time.

A spokesman said: ‘We are clearly disappointed that the union would urge strike action at this important and busy time of year.

UNIONS

Posted by peiper     on 12/13/2008 at 09:59 AM   
Filed Under: • UK • Unions-Labor •  
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Britain endured its coldest start to winter in 30 years.  Anyone seen Al Bore around here?

Okay ... couldn’t resist this. 

The article is severely edited by yours true, simply because I wanted to post these few lines. 
The entire article at the link.

My research (?) is hardly scientific with regard to the warming trend I’m told I’m too damn dumb to recognize.
Thing is, I know for certain that so far this winter I have been running the electric floor heater in the bedroom almost all night long.  Didn’t do that last year. It was cold but I could turn it off.  There is no central heating in this old house and electric in this country is far more expensive then it is back home.

Example, our electric bill for the last quarter was approx. $550.00.  We estimate our next quarterly bill will be approx. $1400.00.  That’s taking into account the recent increase in electric by a whopping 30 PERCENT. 

During what was supposed to be the summer, there were many,many nights I went to bed wearing flannel PJs.  In actual fact, I did not put away all the winter stuff when spring arrived.

At the time of writing this and with a storage heater running, I’m wearing a flannel shirt over which is a hooded sweat and over that a quilted flannel shirt/jacket.  Oh yeah, am wearing long johns and have been ALL week long.  Last year hardly wore em at all.

I don’t need the hood on this thing but it’s comfortable because it covers my neck very well.  Feet still a bit chilly tho.  If I stay on the puter into the evening, I probably will pull the hood up.

Warming?  Where?  Not where I am.

The figures will come as no surprise to the millions of Britons who have spent weeks braving morning ice and scraping frost from windscreens.

The statistics came on the day ministers in Brussels were meeting to set new global warming targets and at the end of the first week of major UN climate change talks in Poland.

The frosts and night temperatures of minus 12.7C (9.1F) are in stark contrast to the recent run of mild winters.

The last time Britain had such a cold start to December was in 1976 - after the drought summer. Then the average temperature was 0.8C (33.4F).

DAMN COLD WHERE I ARE

Posted by peiper     on 12/13/2008 at 08:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
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Peiper gets new neighbors

Stoaty the WeaselBlogger has moved to Peiper’s corner of Jolly Old. Perhaps Steamy could arrange introductions? He is the perfect go-between.

Fans of Stoaty have known this move was coming for a long time. And they know it actually happened several weeks ago. But you don’t want to barge in on the new neighbors right away. Give them a chance to get settled in a little, sign up for milk delivery, and so forth. Then perhaps you try to “accidentally” run across them down at the market and make a polite overture. Don’t want to be too pushy you know.


But I somehow think they’d get along just fine. To quote the Stoat:

I have to be cute about the exact town, since that plus the name of the house (not really Badger House) is sufficient unto a mailing address. Houses with names are common here, but our whole neighborhood is houses that are named but not numbered. That’s just how special we are. I think I can safely say Sussex.

Heh heh. Weasel make funny. The county of Sussex is so wide that, for administrative purposes, it has been divided into West and East Sussex since the Twelve Century. Had to be, since you couldn’t ride a horse from one end to the other in a day.

The motto of Sussex is “We wun’t be druv” — which means I shall end my life as it began: in the company of stubborn, illiterate rednecks

Badger House is walking distance from the nearest good sized town and a few miles from the English Channel. On a clear day, we can stand on the shore and see France, but not well enough to get a missile lock.

Yup, just fine.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/13/2008 at 02:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • UK •  
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   Friday - December 12, 2008

Phrase of the Day

“contumacious conduct”

It means ”obstinate resistance to authority”, which means “acting like a #!$% when you were told not to”. Legally, if the authority is the court system, such an activity can get you slapped with a Contempt of Court violation, as Michelle Malkin points out this afternoon.



This small vocabulary builder is my way of mentioning that yet another law abiding Clinton Era bureaucrat has been short listed for an Obama appointment. Caroline Brownoser Browner looks to be set to get the nod to be “Energy Czar”. Essentially she comes to the job with a proven track record of flaunting the rules to the point of breaking the law, and is also owned part and parcel by the whacko left enviro-looneys. Wonderful. As Malkin points out, this is not progressive, it’s recessive.



First, I’m about as fed up with “Czars” in the government as I am with “-gates” in the news. Get a new title already. We’ve had more czars in the past 20 years than Russia had in it’s entire history. How about “chief”, “leader”, or “under secretary”? (yes, Under Secretary actual means something in England, but this is America. We’ll steal the term and just use it how we want).

Next, my level of HOPE for some real CHANGE is diminishing by the day. Obama has put so damn much of the Clinton system back together that the only part missing is the stain on the blue dress. So much for his promise of “new voices” in DC. And here’s silly me, thinking that they didn’t do reruns on BET.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/12/2008 at 04:19 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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Nice Try

Hasn’t this happened several times already? I guess it’s just too good of an idea to let go. Maybe they should try faking a DHL truck next time instead. They’re a little rarer, so fewer people would be able to spot the fake ones.

A cloned UPS delivery truck was caught last month transporting marijuana in Tucson, officials announced Tuesday.

Arizona Department of Public Safety officials pulled over the phony UPS truck on Nov. 14 because of a suspicious license plate. They found 2,118 pounds of marijuana in the back, according to a press release by DPS.

The driver fled on foot after being pulled over and is still at large.

The suspects painted the truck a similar shade of brown then attached yellow decals in the same arrangement as an authorized UPS truck. They even went as far as to make a homemade license plate with the number that is assigned to UPS in Phoenix.

The number on the impostor truck was an actual number assigned to an UPS truck in the Tucson area.

The bales of marijuana in the truck were still attached to burlap back straps, which human drug smugglers, or “mules” use to carry the drugs through the desert. The marijuana has a street value worth nearly $1.2 million.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/12/2008 at 03:42 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Bailout Bucks, One Way Or The Other

The eviiil Bush White House is planning to take a big pile of that $700 billion for the stock market and give it to the auto makers. So even though the Detroit bailout failed at the legislative level, the executive level will make sure they get some money.

This reminds me of voting on school budgets in NJ. They get voted down, but the town councils approve them anyway. The will of the people be damned.

After the Senate refused to pass a rescue bill for the U.S.  auto industry that was endorsed by President Bush and congressional Democrats, the Treasury Department said Friday it is ready to prevent the collapse of Detroit’s Big Three carmakers.

“Because Congress failed to act, we will stand ready to prevent an imminent failure until Congress reconvenes and acts to address the long-term viability of the industry,” Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin told FOXNews.com that no decision has been made yet and wouldn’t speculate on when one would be reached. But sources close to the discussions told FOXNews.com that a decision could be made as early as next week.

The White House said Friday it would consider using money in the Wall Street bailout fund to help the automakers.

“The current weakened state of the economy is such that it could not withstand a body blow like a disorderly bankruptcy in the auto industry,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

In further news on this topic, the UAW is blaming the Republicans for the bill’s failure. Which ignores the truth completely, that it was the UAW’s refusal to comprimise and set a schedule that caused the bill to collapse.

Bush’s Republican Senate allies said the bill failed because of a dispute with US autoworkers unions on the timing of bringing their wages in line with those paid by foreign automakers to non-unionized workers in US states.

But why let something so silly as the facts get in the way?

The head of the United Auto Workers union lashed out Friday at Senate Republicans—Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, in particular—blaming them for scuttling the $14 billion auto bailout package approved earlier in the week by the House.

GOP objections stalled the measure in the Senate Thursday night. Republicans put pressure on the powerful autoworkers union as they tried to squeeze out concessions in exchange for their support.

“This was just simply subterfuge on the part of the minority in the Republican Party who wanted to tear down any agreement that we came up with,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said at a press conference, declaring “the auto industry around the world is in peril.”

Intense negotiations broke down over the union’s refusal to meet GOP demands for wage cuts. Corker, the architect of the Republican counterproposal to the House-approved bill, told FOX News that negotiators were “just three words away from a deal.”

But Gettelfinger said Republicans were holding the union to a “double standard” and trying to applying an undue burden on their workers.

He questioned whether Republicans had an ulterior motive, but said the union was nevertheless willing to negotiate.

Well gosh, so glad you’re “willing”. What was it that you were doing the other day, when this whole mess failed?

I think the time for unions has passed in America. Not just in the auto industry, but everywhere. Especially for teachers and government workers. Throw them all out.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/12/2008 at 03:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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SOMEONE IS TO BLAME AND IT’S EVERYONE’S FAULT BUT THE PERSON WHO MADE THE ERROR!

THE BLAME GAME

This is personal and as stated once before, what else is a blog site for? 
I’m not upset, really I’m not.  In fact, this would be quite funny in a Loral and Hardy film. 
In fact, it’s somewhat funny anyway. 

Lets see if I can explain this coherently.  It is not a big deal and it isn’t even bothersome.
But it’s an indication of a particular mind set and incompetence.  A way of thinking and doing one’s job, making a mistake and saying, “BUT IT’S NOT MY FAULT.” And pointing the fickle finger at someone else.

As in the past, those who read BMEWS will know I have posted before on the nuttiness of some things medical here.  From the lunacy of how to get a prescription filled, trouble with the agency that provides in home care for the wife’s mother, and of course my own adventures recently with making an appointment to see a doctor (needed a password ), and more recently my Colonoscopy adventure.

Well, here’s more and it isn’t just the idea that it involves the same agency mentioned. And it does.  It’s the idea that has taken root globally that mistakes and boners are NEVER the fault of the person who originates the error.  Oh no.  It’s always somebody else’s fault.

So here at last is the latest installment of pass the buck. 

Every week we get something called a client rota.  In our language (USA) a schedule.  It is a weekly schedule that tells us what time the care givers come to change the diaper and clean the old lady in the next room. It gives the times both morning and afternoon and who will be coming at those times.

Schedules we’ve been told, are made up two weeks in advance. And so every week we receive a schedule in the mail for the coming week.  This would be snail mail btw.  That’s important to note because 200 schedules went out this week at a cost to the agency of approx. $160.00 in postage.
With the wrong date and times. They thought they were mailing out a schedule for the Christmas week.  But no, what arrived in the post were four sheets of paper.  Two of those sheets are for next week, Monday through Sunday, 21 December. .  The other two sheets are for …… the very same thing.  In other words, duplicates.

When the care givers, as they are called, arrived to make the afternoon diaper change, one of the team was someone who normally works in their office and fills in on house calls when they are short handed.  Since she was office personnel my wife pointed out that we had a duplicate schedule and asked if it shouldn’t have been the Christmas one instead.

She immediately said yes and went on to defend herself saying, “It wasn’t my fault.  I made the copies and handed them to someone else to put in the envelopes for mailing.  IF I HAD DONE THE STUFFING AND MAILING, I WOULD HAVE CHECKED THEM FIRST.”

She actually said that. 

Now why on earth would the person being handed stuff to mail, think to check her co-workers work?  So if it isn’t her fault, whose?

More likely I suppose it was my fault for opening this morning’s mail and even the postman who delivered it. 

Hey that’s right.  The postman.  Like I said. “IT WASN’T MY FAULT.”

Oh boy.
Stay Tuned. 

Posted by peiper     on 12/12/2008 at 10:27 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Humor • Personal • UK •  
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Barack Obama always manages to rise above the fray.

I wanted to edit this and let you go to the link for the whole story.  But, I just found the article holding my interest.  Things that scare the heck out of me usually have that effect.  Or is it affect?  Whatever ... I think I fear Obama’s team as much as I do him.  Maybe more.

And with regard to this headline, Dr. Jeff said it all when he commented,“ It will be more of a public relations problem for him than anything else.”

Illinois scandal: Barack Obama always manages to rise above the fray
President-elect Barack Obama may not be implicated in the alleged effort to sell his vacated senate seat to the highest bidder, but the scandal swirling around his home-state governor is hardly welcome.

By Alexandra Starr

Obama would have liked the day’s headlines to focus on his appointment of a Nobel-prize winner to the Energy Department. Instead, Americans are riveted by how Governor Blagojevich attempted to shake down would-be Obama replacements for personal gain.

But although the attention on Illinois’s murky politics is cause for some embarrassment, it does reveal Obama to be a singularly talented politician: it gives an inkling of how very deftly he must have navigated his way through some shadowy public workings.

Given the state’s culture of machine politics, it can be difficult for someone lacking any connections to break into the highest positions in government. But Obama managed it, without even being a Chicago-native. And while he can play the most aggressive brand of hardball politics, the president-elect has always seemed to operate beyond the fray. He has cleverly made use of machine characters, without ever being branded as one.

Survey the people at the top of the Illinois political hierarchy, and the usefulness of a familial connection fast becomes apparent. The mayor, Richard M Daley, is the son of the late Richard J “Old Man” Daley, who ruled Chicago for nearly two decades. Blagojevich is the son-in-law of a powerful local politician. Jesse Jackson Jr is the oldest son of one of the most famous African-American leaders in the US. And two people who are purported to be eager to settle into the governor’s mansion – state attorney-general Lisa Madigan and state comptroller Dan Hyne – are respectively the daughter of the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and the son of a former Illinois state senate president. Chicago power brokers are often loath to let outsiders in the club. An idealistic young law student interested in campaigning for the state Democratic ticket in the 1950s was rebuffed with this phrase: “We don’t want no one no one sent.”

Obama overcame this bias against outsiders partly by cultivating powerful patrons. He became a protégé of sorts of state senator Emil Jones, a machine politician who has himself faced questions about the leveraging of influence in the legislature to funnel money and promotions to family members. Jones’s support of Obama was crucial in the 2004 senate race that catapulted the young legislator into the national spotlight. In the primary, Obama faced Dan Hynes for the Democratic nomination. Jones’s influence with the trade unions allowed Obama to ensure that some of these powerful groups either threw their support behind him or stayed neutral.

The president-elect may have occasionally forged alliances with operators such as Jones, but he has never been tarred for being of their ilk. That is in part the result of his public demeanour. He comes across as cool-headed and cerebral, ill at ease launching verbal attacks against his adversaries. During this year’s Democratic primary contest, the American media continually chided Obama for not being more combative in his debates with Hillary Clinton. But behind the scenes, it was a slightly different story: he did not hesitate to throw elbows.

Playing the good cop while embracing aggressive tactics below the radar screen is a strategy Obama seems to be importing to Washington, DC. Just look at his decision to anoint Congressman Rahm “Rahmbo” Emanuel – the most intense, take-no-prisoners politician of his generation – as his chief of staff.

Emanuel made his political debut raising money for Mayor Richard M Daley; he was renowned for making phone calls to businessmen decades his senior berating them for not shelling out sufficiently. He broke fundraising records in that election, a coup that landed him a job with the nascent Clinton presidential campaign.

But even after his candidate was elected to the White House, Emanuel didn’t forget those who hadn’t played ball: he ended a celebratory dinner vowing to exact revenge on politicians who had crossed Bill Clinton. After intoning each name, Emanuel plunged the blade of his steak knife into the table top, declaring “Dead man!” with each thrust.

It is unlikely that the incoming White House chief of staff will so publicly parade his animus in the years ahead. But his crack-the-whip disposition will certainly help muscle bills through Congress. Observers remarked that the Rahm appointment was a signal that the president-elect was intent on moving his agenda forward once installed in the White House.

And indeed, that is a strong Chicago tradition: one reason the Daley dynasty has maintained its lock on power in the city is because both father and son have ensured that government delivered for most voters when they were in charge.

It seems Obama did learn from the city’s masters during his years in Chicago: while he eschewed the methods of obscenity-laced phone calls and corruption, he picked up how to win campaigns and muscle through legislative initiatives. He himself pointed to those years in that world during the presidential campaign.

“I’m skinny, but I’m tough,” he reassured voters. “I’m from Chicago.”

THE ONE

Posted by peiper     on 12/12/2008 at 04:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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I STOLE THIS FROM MACKER WHO GOT IT FROM VILMAR.  FUNNY STUFF.  THANKS MAC. V. TOO.

JUST ONE WORD OF CAUTION FOLKS ....

A TINY BIT OF VERY BAD LANGUAGE.  SO THERE.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.  BUT IT IS FUNNY ANYWAY.

CHEERS ON A FREEZING FRIDAY MORNING FROM WINCHESTER.

Posted by peiper     on 12/12/2008 at 04:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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   Thursday - December 11, 2008

This could be bad

Oh yeah, this could be really really bad ...

Posted by Drew458     on 12/11/2008 at 09:51 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Sex •  
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If I cook it they will run

I tried my hand at making Swedish Meatballs for dinner tonight. I faithfully followed the recipe in the Joy of Cooking cookbook. Page 723! And it sucks. The gravy comes out Ok, but the meatballs are pretty much tasteless. I hate when typos get into cookbooks. I Googled up a few recipes on the ‘net, and most of them look just as awful. They all have at least one screwed up or missing ingredient. One calls for FIVE CANS of condensed milk. Another neglects to include any meat. Give me a break already.



The Joy Of Cooking Flavor-Free Swedish Meatballs

meat mix:
3/4 lb ground beef
3/4 lb ground pork
2/3 cup bread crumbs
1 cup water
butter
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon minced onion
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt

sauce:
flour
2 cups beef stock

makes 90 meatballs



You can tell right away something is wrong here. This recipe must have been put together by someone allergic to taste. 1 tablespoon of onion? Oh come on. 1/4 teaspoon of allspice? For 90 meatballs? Sheez. And notice that there is no sour cream/milk/condensed milk/condensed cream of mushroom soup to make the gravy with. Funny, just about every other Swedish Meatball recipe out there uses it, including the world famous IKEA recipe:

IKEA gravy:

* 100ml cream
* 200ml beef stock
* soy sauce
* 1 tbsp white flour
* salt, white pepper

Nope, not The Joy of Cooking tasteless food

So away we go ... melt a little butter, soften up the onions [Drew: next time, chop up a whole frickin onion. 1 tablespoon of minced onion is only 1/4 of 1 slice. Maybe they meant dried onion?]
bread crumbs in bowl, add water, let sit.

Measure out spices, separate eggs. [what am I supposed to do with 2 eggs whites??]

Put everything in a big mixing bowl and have at it with the power mixer for several minutes. The mix gets just about fluffy after 5 minutes on High, which is what you want. Hey, I get fluffy after 5 minutes on High too, but those days are behind me.

Heat half a stick of butter in a big frying pan. Slowly. When the bubbles stop forming it’s hot enough. Turn the oven on to about 325.

Form the meatballs using either the “2 spoons and some cold water” method, or the “just grab a little baby squeeze of meat from the bowl with your fingers, and then a fast dip in a bowl of water and ball it up” method, . Keep them small. Really small. Quarter sized or less. This recipe should make 80-90 meatballs! Fry them up 2 dozen at a time ... set up a production line:

While heating the butter in the frying pan, turn out a dozen meatballs. Butter done bubbling? Good, it’s ready to go. Set heat to medium.
Put the meatballs in to fry. You want them to sizzle gently. This isn’t Burger King.
Make another dozen
Turn the meatballs in the pan
Add the new batch to the pan
Make another dozen
Remove the first dozen from the pan, put on paper towels on a big plate
Turn the second dozen
Add the third dozen
make another dozen
Remove the second dozen from the pan, put on paper towels on the big plate
Turn the third dozen
Make another dozen
[lather, rinse, repeat. You get the idea]

When all the meatballs are cooked ... c’mon, scrape that bowl, you know you can make another meatball from the little meat bits stuck to the sides ... transfer them from the big plate to a baking dish in the oven. Turn off the frying pan. [ you did use a non-stick pan, right? Good! ] Scrape all the greasy goosh in the pan loose with a rubber spatula. Leave it in the middle of the pan.

Add 2-3 tablespoons of flour to the buttery grease in the pan. Stir it around, then turn the heat back on low. Let the mess cook for a couple minutes while you open up two 14oz cans of beef broth, or one 24oz can of beef stock [ huh, I never knew there was a difference. Beef Stock is much tastier! ] Add a bit of stock to the pan and whisk away. Hey, we’re making gravy now! Keep adding stock a little at a time until each new splash comes back to a boil. Cook it gently for about 5 minutes.

If the gravy goes all lumpy, pour the whole damn thing into a Magic Bullet mini-blender and vvvvvrrrrrrriiiiiiinggg! Instant smoothness, no lumps. I won’t tell if you won’t.

Pour gravy over meatballs, let cook for 10 minutes in the oven. Turn meatballs over, let cook some more. Serve over noodles or whatever.

And the verdict is .... these things suck. Tasteless. Bland. Needs a ton of salt and lots more onion and lots more spice.

Next time, double the amount of spices. Add a big shot of pepper to the gravy. Use the whole damn egg, not just the yolk. Make the gravy, then add about a cup of sour cream or 1/2 cup of heavy cream or half ‘n half. Try adding a few shakes of cinnamon to the meatball mix, along with a little ginger and a dash of ground cloves. Not sure cardamom would work, but the Norskis use it in everything else so maybe. I’d think about adding a splash of Worcestershire sauce and maybe some cayenne or paprika to the gravy as well. Maybe another tablespoon of minced onions if I’m feeling daring. And some salt. Or at least I won’t pick up “reduced sodium” broth next time by accident.

So I guess I will be eating meatballs for the next few days. Hey, worst comes to worst, I have lots and lots and lots of hot sauce in the house.

Oy vey. And there is no beer here either. Damn.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/11/2008 at 08:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining • Stoopid-People •  
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It still ain’t right

Just because Tricky Dicky managed to get away with it doesn’t mean it was the correct thing to do. Hey, somebody broke into a house in your neighborhood last year. Then there was that burglary across town 4 months ago. That doesn’t mean it’s Ok for somebody to break into your house tonight. Precedent only matters if it was the right course of action the first time through. Or the second. Repeating an action (that ought to be a crime) because other people have done it doesn’t make it right. Any other way of looking at it is legal-beagle bullshit. As your mother used to say, “just because everyone else is jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge doesn’t mean I’m going to let you jump too”.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 6

Hillary Clinton’s pay check has officially been cut.
Congress voted Wednesday night to reduce the Secretary of State’s salary back to its pre-2007 level of $186,000 to conform to a clause in the constitution stipulating a member of congress cannot be appointed to a government job if the position’s salary has increased during the lawmaker’s current term.

Clinton’s second term began in January 2007.

The conservative activist group Judicial Watch circulated the clause in question, Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution, soon after President-elect Barack Obama announced he was nominating Clinton to the top diplomatic post. Noting the clause, Judicial Watch said it was illegal for Clinton to be nominated to the post since President Bush authorized a nearly $5,000 pay raise for job last January.

“There’s no getting around the Constitution’s ineligibility clause, so Hillary Clinton is prohibited from serving in the Cabinet until at least 2013, when her current term expires,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.

But lawmakers have gotten around the clause before in the same fashion they have now: with Congress changing the salary of the office in question back to what it originally was.

It happened when Ohio Sen. William Saxbe was named President Nixon’s attorney general in 1974 and again when Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen became President Clinton’s Treasury secretary in 1993.

While Clinton is missing out on the nearly $5,000 pay raise, she still stands to make about $10,000 more as secretary of state than she currently draws as a U.S. senator.

Sorry, this doesn’t wash. Just because Congress may have cut the position’s salary now does not mean that it was not increased then. And it was. I’m sure Condi has her pay stubs that can prove it. Thus those pesky “Emoluments whereof” have been increased. The Constitution doesn’t say word one about them being decreased later on. And I’m still holding onto the “Time for which he was elected” aspect. Her Term won’t be up until 2013. She can be SoS then. Until then, she’s SoL.

Since she didn’t actually do a lick of work, or even show up at the office the entire second term until after November 4 because she was out campaigning, she should have resigned instead of running for re-election. In which case she’d be perfectly eligible for SoS. Instead she ran, and has been collecting a fat paycheck for a job she hasn’t bothered to do until this month.

Friggin amazin how the Circle of O is bending all the rules into pretzels and he hasn’t even been crowned yet. Looks more like All Corruption, All The Term.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/11/2008 at 03:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Yeah, what she said

Huge noise on the TV last night and this morning over the Illinois governor mess. Funny thing though; at least a third of the noise was the talking heads swearing up and down that Obama didn’t know a thing about it, and another third was more talking heads going on and on about how Jesse Jackson Jr, aka Candidate #5 (not to be confused with Client #9), didn’t know a thing about it either.

Uh huh. Riiiiight.

Debbie Schlussel writes what we all figured out and didn’t say out loud:

Look for Son of Jesse to get away with it, just like daddy always does. Justice isn’t blind at all. Our federal justice system sees things through very tinted, politically correct glasses.

Commenter C at her site states another fact the media can’t be bothered to mention

[U.S. attorney] Fitzgerald is the same guy who politicized the Libby affair, and didn’t go after the real culprits, Powell & Armitage.

So did the FBI swoop in and make the bust when they did - the morning after Blagojevich met with Jesse Jr - to save Jr’s reputation or to haul him into the net too eventually? The affidavit was made out on Sunday, Jr interviewed on Monday, Blago was busted Tuesday morning. So if they had a real-time wiretap, anything recorded on Jr isn’t part of the original indictment. Got to protect the icons ya know. Even the Sons of Icons. Or Jesse Jackson Jr could actually have no part whatsoever in any of this mess, and be an entirely honest politician, as he has apparently been for the past 12 years. In Chicago. Hey, it could happen.

This is one big mess that might take months to pan out. Expect more arrests. Also expect the MSM to give scant coverage to this story starting Friday. By January 20th it will be down the memory hole.

Oh, and Fitzgerald is going to need a bigger cap. His current one is getting rather full of feathers in it.

It’s unusual for a federal prosecutor to have on his resume two such politically sensitive investigations in different parts of the country. And that’s not all. In an extraordinarily productive seven-year tenure, Fitzgerald also won the conviction of the previous Illinois governor, Republican George Ryan, who is in prison for racketeering.

All of which raises the question: What’s [or Who’s] next for the 47-year-old Fitzgerald?

Ordinarily, an incoming president chooses new U.S. attorneys, but Obama has pledged to keep Fitzgerald on the job, so the latest corruption case is not likely to be Fitzgerald’s swan song.

“I think he has been aggressive in putting the city on notice and the state on notice that he takes issues of public corruption seriously,” Obama told the Chicago Tribune in March.

Fitzgerald was appointed by a Republican president, George W. Bush, but Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said last week he will recommend another term for the prosecutor if he wants to stay.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/11/2008 at 12:27 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

COMPUTER GEEK BUILDS HIS OWN GIRLFRIEND … STILLS AND VIDEO. BIZARRE BUT INTERESTING.

Hey, was it the Mills Bros. or the Ink Spots who once sang,

I’m gonna buy a paper doll that I can call my own.

I didn’t post the whole article here so use the link provided for more photos and text.
It is interesting but ..... ??  Don’t know.  Kinda creepy having this around wouldn’t ya think?

Hey, remember an episode of The Twilight Zone with this very subject?  Stared the late Jack Warden.  Hmm. Funny I recall that.

Computer geek too busy for romance builds himself the perfect girlfriend

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:06 AM on 11th December 2008

If blind dates, speed dating or websites haven’t led you to the love of your life, you could always take a leaf out of inventor Le Trung’s book - and build your perfect partner.

The 33-year-old has created Aiko - a ‘twenty-something’ robot who not only looks feminine and sexy but also does household chores and his accounts.

But despite her shiny hair and 32-23-33 figure, Aiko - whose name means love child - is no trophy partner.

She is accomplished too with a talent for maths and a 13,000-sentence vocabulary - in English and Japanese. She can also recognise faces, read aloud from a newspaper and give directions.

Aiko, a fembot made from silicone and A.I. technology, is a genuine labour of love for Mr Trung.

He has taken out credit cards and loans, sold his car and spent his life savings on perfecting the machine - at a cost so far of £14,000.

The former software programmer, from Ontario, Canada, said he never had time to find a real wife but has not built Aiko as a sexual partner - although she is touch-sensitive and reacts if she is shown affection or is hurt.

SEE MORE HERE

Posted by peiper     on 12/11/2008 at 12:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Odd-Strange • Science-Technology •  
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