Wednesday - November 17, 2010
I charge extra for bugs
I had a little window job this morning at one of the condos here. Getting the glass clean wasn’t so bad, although I am going to have to try to find a product that will easily dissolve nicotine. Nothing more fun than yellow-brown sticky windows. But at least I put a few lungs full of fresh air in the place by opening the windows. The wind here is blowing at almost gale strength today. That makes being up on a ladder a little dicey, but I managed.
No, what got me about this job were the stinkbugs. These condos use windows that are in sliding tracks. Her tracks were almost solid stinkbugs. Hundreds of them, half comatose, crawling slowly around. And setting off their PU alarms at the smallest provocation. You know, like a strip washer or a squeegee coming near them. Rank. So I scooped them all out and drowned the lot. This took some extra time, but I had nothing else to do. Well, until this evening, when I have to start a 2-3 day painting project in a small office. So I’ll be on night shift for a day or so perhaps, so they can have the office opening in the day time.
I charged the window customer an extra $10. Because of the bugs. I do her windows twice a year. She was at home the whole time I was working. I bet she smoked a whole pack of butts in the 4 hours I was there. It really reeks in there.
Posted by Drew458
on 11/17/2010 at 03:38 PM
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Permalink • Tuesday - November 09, 2010
eye candy of a different sort but the same. mom and daughter & a broken english call center.
Mom here is 49, daughter is 19. I think they both look pretty darn good. But then, my eyes are a lot older these days.
Apropos of nothin ... just had another one of those call center experiences.
Wanted to order an article of clothing on the phone in answer to an interesting add. Had to hang up. Could not understand one freekin word the guy said.
India? Nope.
Scotland!
Those folks are I swear impossible to understand unless you grew up there or are tuned to the accent. Trust me, ain’t nothin at all like the romantic Hollywood
version of an accent. I think since everyone discovered they had civil rights and employers had NONE, this is what we have to live with.
And no, I’m too damn tired to call back and be bothered. They lost a sale but hey, I think I’m better off buying in a regular store anyway. Even if I pay more. At least I can see what I’m buying and almost everyone speaks understandable English around here.
Posted by peiper
on 11/09/2010 at 01:00 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - October 23, 2010
teacher is banned for being useless … no kidding. read all about it …
Fine but what does this say about the morons who allowed him into the system to begin with? And he was in the job for 13 years?
This is an example of Labour throwing money at a problem and then saying, it has to work cos we gave it all this money. Maybe if we throw more money at the education problem, it’ll get better. Right.
Wanna bet somewhere down the line we’ll read about a race complaint?
The first teacher banned for life for being uselessBy Sarah Harris and Arthur Marti
A teacher who is judged to be incapable of ever improving his work has become the first to be banned for life from the classroom due to incompetence.
Nisar Ahmed will never reach ‘requisite standards’ of teaching and cannot work in state schools again, a panel ruled.
The General Teaching Council for England found the 46-year-old guilty of serious professional incompetence and said there was a risk that pupils would be seriously disadvantaged if he was ever allowed to return to lessons.
Mr Ahmed was head of business studies at the John O’Gaunt Community Technology College in Hungerford, Berkshire, from September 2007 to January 2009.
He had taught for a total of 13 years at schools across the South-East.
His management of lessons was ‘invariably’ below standard, the GTC disciplinary panel was told.
The school, which has more than 450 pupils, aged 11 to 18, gave Mr Ahmed ‘extensive formal and informal’ support for more than a year but he failed to improve.
Just 13 teachers have been banned from the profession for fixed periods for incompetence since 2000.
Mr Ahmed is the first to receive a prohibition order without time limit.
Posted by peiper
on 10/23/2010 at 07:09 AM
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Permalink • Friday - October 15, 2010
My Day From Hell
In which Drew finally learns to read the instructions and the fine print, and to actually accept what they say.
Today was the day to install that threshold for Mrs. G. What should have been an easy one hour job, a quick $50, turned into a day-long nightmare. And I lost money on the deal. Sadder but wiser.
The previous owners of her condo installed a floating laminate “wood” floor in the kitchen. Over concrete slab. She has carpet in the room next to it. Over concrete slab as well. The floor guys installed one of those thresholds that look like a comma in cross section. They used a cheap piece of crap that was wood-tone vinyl over pressboard. Masonite. Pressed cardboard, not even wood. First they tried gluing it on. That didn’t work. Wrong glue, or wrong approach. Then they tried using their air stapler to shoot a dozen wire staples to hold it down. That didnt’ work. Every single one of them bent up like spaghetti when they hit the concrete. So finally they just got 2 concrete screws and screwed the damn thing down. But they didn’t do a good job. They didn’t cover the screws, or countersink them, or anything. Ugly-ass screw heads sticking up. And she lived with that for 20 years, until the yucky pressboard started falling apart. I knew I could do better.
So, 2 trips to the hardware store later, and I had her a lovely bit of real oak that was nearly the color of her floor. And I had my countersink bits, a depth stop I made from a ply ripped from a bit of plywood, some concrete screws and the screw company’s own concrete drill bit.
And today, away I went. I measure twice, and cut the threshold to length. Perfect fit. Well, I had to trim one end in a little since the sides of the doorway weren’t parallel. But then it was perfect. I found the thickest part of the wood, and taped a perfectly straight line down the piece. Found the exact center, and found both spots exactly 1 3/4” in from each end. Drilled them all and countersunk them. Took my time so I didn’t even smoke the sawdust. Perfect. Laid the part in place ... and found out that the floor has a hump in it. Crap. Still, no biggy. 3 sturdy screws will hold it down, right? So now it was time to drill the hole in the concrete.
I hate concrete. I hate the builders who built these condos and were too cheap to put in actual subfloors over foundations or crawlspaces. No, these units were built over slabs poured right into the ground. Wonderful. And folks wonder why their floors are so cold in the winter.
So I put the long and skinny concrete bit in my drill, and away I went. And nothing much happened. Huh? So I pressed harder. And still nothing happened. Harder. And the only thing that happened was that the bit got really hot. Blued steel! I had smoked the damn thing.
So off to the hardware store. Again. 15 miles away.
“Oh, these don’t work as straight drill bits. See how it says “hammer drill bit” on the label? You have to set your hammer drill to hammer to use these bits.”
Um, I don’t own a hammer drill.
“Well, you could try a regular masonry bit, but even those work better with a hammer drill.”
Fine. And that’s when tool lust made it’s entrance. I could have bought a cheapo hammer drill for $59. It probably would have done the job. Mostly. Or maybe a demolition drill? Nah, they’re way too expensive. So I looked, and I learned, and I realized that at some point a hammer drill becomes a rotary hammer which eventually becomes a demolition drill, and the price goes up the whole time. And rotary hammers only take socketed bits; they don’t even have a drill chuck. So I “settled” on the 2nd priciest hammer drill, a Rigid. 1/2” chuck, pulls 9 amps. Holy cow. An 1100 watt drill. It was only $20 less than the Milwaukee, and it had a stronger motor and a lifetime warranty. So I bought it. $160 tool to drill the holes for 3 75¢ screws. Shit. But what can you do?
So then I picked up a 5/32” x 6” Bosch bit for $1 less than the “official” bit the screw company makes, figuring my heat-blued bit was a goner. Same size right? Wrong. The Bosch bit drilled the holes pretty well, but the screws didn’t quite fit. Seems like the “official” drill bit is merely nominally 5/32”. It’s actually a hair over. Secretly metric. And guess what happens when you try to drive concrete screws into holes that are just a smidgen too small? They don’t go. So you lean on them harder of course. And they still don’t go, but the heads tear up. Crap.
So I had to remove several screws that were halfway down their holes. Couldn’t do it with my regular screw driving drill. Couldn’t do it with pliers. Had to go home, get the full size pair of vise grips, come back, and clamp that mother down with both hands. That got the screws out, screaming all the way. The screws, not me. Although it was tempting.
Fine. Back to using the official drill bit. That opened up the holes just a tiny bit, and away I went. First screw went right in. Second screw went right in. Third screw went almost all the way in ... and then it sheared. Son of a dessicated camel! Crap. Hey, there’s a little bit of screw still in the wood. Maybe it will hold. It seems to be holding. Cool! Glue up the other 2 holes, get out the little bits of wooden dowel that fill the holes, pound them into place. Still holding. Glue and pound the last one into place. Sweet. Hey look, I’m all done! And it’s holding beautif ... poing! And that end pops up. Shutze no saco. Now I have to take the whole thing apart. After I just glued in the covers on. And the “one hour setting time” really means “dries in one minute or less”. Gotta drill them out. Sucks.
Ok, got them all out. This is becoming a real pain in the ass project. Grab the grips and turn that sheared screw out, since it sheared 1/4” above the concrete. Quarter turn at a time, then reclamp. Sheez. Ok, done. Finally. Fine. Redrill the hole, in case there was something down there. Threshold back in place. Screw another screw in ... and this one sheared too. Right at the concrete. No way in hell I can get it out. I am now totally effed. Damnation!! Sure, I can just put a cap on that hole and drill another one near by. That will work, but it will look like junk. And I don’t do ____-rig work. Shit. Double damnation. Half a day wasted already!!
So I went home, 2 blocks away. And made some coffee. And tried to get my head together. I’d done such lovely work, and everything had gone pretty well. Right to the end, when I was done in by a crappy screw. Two cups of coffee and a small Why ME tantrum later, it was time to go back to the hardware store. Get a new piece of threshold wood. And a tube of universal fast-set extra tacky ultra-glue construction adhesive. If I can’t screw it, I’ll glue it. Screw it!
15 miles, 5 traffic lights, and 8 speed bumps later I was back at the hardware store. Again. New piece of wood in hand.
“What, you’re doing another one?”
“No, the screw sheared off right at the concrete. I’m screwed, so I have to start all over and drill the holes somewhere else.”
“Those screws sheared? That never happens. Builders love these things, they never go wrong.”
“Well, good for them. They went wrong for me.”
“Here, try some medium length ones this time, and make sure you follow the directions. They should work. They always work.”
Fine. Drive half an hour back to her condo. At this point I’ve been at it for 6 hours. For a 1 hour job. I swear I’ve spent half the day just driving. Ok, I stopped for lunch. But it was a speed lunch. And I’ve spent nearly $40 more than anticipated, plus the cost of the new drill. But I’ll eat that one, since “I always wanted one”. I did? Ok, maybe. I guess so. It’s a helluva power tool, so fine.
Measure, cut, drill, countersink. That part of the job takes all of 10 minutes. I took the easy way out this time and decided on 2 screws, each 1/3 of the way in from the edges. Plus I knew it would be tempting fate trying to hit that old center hole exactly right with a new piece of wood. And those holes have bad ju-ju. And I had that tube of wonderglop, so that ought to do it. Please God, let that do it.
Put the threshold it place. Perfect fit. Put the official drill bit back in the mighty hammer drill. Brrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaapp! It’s a little spooky leaning my entire upper body onto a big drill with such a long skinny bit in it. I’m waiting for it to snap and send me face first into the floor, but it doesn’t. And it drills the holes real well, leaving a perfect anthill of concrete dust. Sweep that up, clean up the holes just to be safe. And then I remembered what the guys at the store said, so I read the fine print on the back of the little box of concrete screws:
1. Drill hole with your hammer drill, drilling 1/4” deeper than the screw will penetrate.
2. Drive screw into hole using your hammer drill.
Say what? Son of a gun. I have to screw them in, in hammer mode? That’s when it hit me: concrete screws really aren’t screws. They are dual groove spiral ring shank nails. They only look like screws. They have heads like screws. They only mostly behave like screws. But they’re really a special kind of nail. You have to sort of hammer them in while turning them. And that’s what a hammer drill is for. If you try to put them in using a hand screwdriver you’ll blow a blood vessel before they will turn. Put them in with a screwdriver bit in your regular power drill and they will probably shear. I found that out the hard way, twice. I should have listened at “once”, but I didn’t. But put them in with the hammer drill ... and fother mucker, the damn things go right in. Brrrrrapp! Tight. And they hold like little blue demons. Awesome. And no glue comes squirting out from underneath. Sweet.
So after a full day of very careful work, some messing about, one fatal screw-up and a bit of a panic attack, probably 100 miles of commuting to the hardware store, I read, accepted, and followed the instructions. Come on, who knew that screws came with instructions? Like, duh! So my second attempt at building and putting in a solid oak threshold took just over an hour. Like it should have the first time. And yeah, I used a big ass glob of construction adhesive underneath too. Probably not necessary, but that thing ain’t never ever gonna come loose. Evah! And it came out perfect. And everyone lived happily ever after. The end.
She gave me a $25 tip. Felt sorry for me, but appreciated my tenacity. So I have to write today off as a learning experience, and my net is out $120 for a potent power tool I now have to find uses for. Hey, I bet that puppy can stir up batches of thin-set concrete like damn! And I need a shower. And another beer.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/15/2010 at 06:16 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - October 13, 2010
off work 8 years, demands long service and good conduct medal …
This might come under a heading we don’t have yet.
Well, if that don’t beat all.
Had I been here yesterday I would have posted this bit of lunacy. Least, I think it is. So I held on to it and am happy to share now.
Here’s a case of, HUH? She is out sick, she claims, has been for eight years. But she wants, among many other things,
An award for Long Service and a Good Conduct Medal
Couldn’t make that up. But here. Read the part of the story here and then the rest at the link.
Injured policewoman on sick leave for 8 years sues force ‘for not giving her holiday pay or long service medal’
By Daily Mail Reporter
A tribunal into a former police officer seeking damages from the force she worked for heard that some officers on sick leave hate the police so much they can never return.
Alison Doyle, who spent eight years on sick leave from Northumbria Police, claims she was never able to return to work after an attack on the beat.
She already had a painful back problem from a previous car crash when she made an arrest in October 2001 which turned violent. She claims the scuffle caused her existing injury to become unbearable and never returned to work, although she remained with the force.: ‘She could not even perform administration tasks because of her enmity towards the police force.’
Her long-running dispute that she deserved a medical pension reached the High Court in November 2005. Lawyers for the Northumbria Police Authority challenged the doctor’s assessment and argued that Miss Doyle’s problems did not amount to a permanent disability.
Mr Wirz said employees off work sick could foster hatred of the force which meant they were unable to return to work.
He added: ‘She could not even perform administration tasks because of her enmity towards the police force.’
I know we aren’t supposed to be judging books by their covers but. Sometimes ya just can’t help it. Looking at this dork I couldn’t help but wonder about the standards of the cops and thought perhaps if they’d not been forced to lower those standards to meet certain quotas .... yadda,yadda.
Posted by peiper
on 10/13/2010 at 11:09 AM
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Permalink • Monday - October 11, 2010
Never a Dull Moment
One thing I can say for being a handyman is that the work is never repetitive. Unlike the guys who work in factories, screwing the same 4 nuts to the same part 800 times a day, I never seem to do the same job twice. Well, except for cleaning windows. They’re all pretty much alike. Mostly.
Last night it was installing steel shelving and assembling a cabinet. Customer has one of those wall mounted pigeon hole racks used to keep thousands of paper folders in. Can I put one more of them up on the wall? Sure. I get there and find out that the racks are attached to each other with rivets. Rivets! So I had to drill them out and then figure out how to install new ones without the proper riveting tool. Answer, naturally, was a big old hammer. Then I had to put together one of those little wooden cabinets with drawers. Save money, put it together yourself! Great idea until the customer got overwhelmed by the fussy little parts and the two dozen pages of “insert tab A into slot B” instructions. So that was 90 minutes work for me and a couple hundred itsy bitsy little screws. Magnetic screwdriver bits are a blessing.
This morning it’s adjust a bi-fold door and replace a floor threshold. Oh fun. Nothing like lying down on the floor trying to work that finicky little adjusting bolt underneath. Followed by prying up a bunch of nails. And then getting paid to go shopping! Then later on I have to do the plumbing on a sink. Looks like the pop-up lever has worn out and it’s leaking, so I’ve got to put a new downpipe and lever in. Better find my little jar of plumber’s putty for that job.
Tomorrow? Who knows? Every time the phone rings it’s something new. Never a dull moment.
Update: two jobs down, mostly. Laminate flooring installers: I hate you all.
First, the bi-fold. It had popped off the mount. No big deal, 10 seconds to put it back on. Right? WRONG. The customer has been living for 20 years with a pair of bi-fold doors that would not close properly. And the right hand door was 3/4” lower than the left hand door. What is it with people that they will accept crap like this and just live with it?? So I fixed it ...
How To Adjust Bi-Fold Doors Properly: The $1 solution. Or the $1.50 solution if you’ve got the space.
Bi-fold doors are all pretty much the same. At the hinge end you’ve got a spring loaded plunger on the top that fits into a hole in an adjustable slider clamp that rides in the top track. At the bottom you’ve got some sort of socket mounted to the floor, and the door has a screw-in pin with some sort of collar on it. At the knob end of the door there is always a roller wheel on top that also rides in the top track. Installing a set of these doors is not hard, but adjusting them can be a right pain in the buttocks. They are fussy, and to make it look right you have to get both doors exactly the same.
So, here’s how to use that dollar. With the doors not yet mounted, use your long level to find where the bulges are in the side walls. Trust me, they are there. There is no such thing as a straight wall. Take a few inches of painter’s tape or masking tape and tape a quarter to the wall on the two highest bulges on each wall. 4 quarters = $1. Loosen the top adjustable slider clamp and slide it towards the middle of the track about a foot. Measure (A) the height of the opening from the floor to the bottom of the top track. Measure (B) the height of the door and (C) the height of the floor socket. A-B-C - 1/8” = D, the distance from the bottom of the door to the underside of the collar on the screw-in pin on the bottom of the door. Screw the pin in or out until you get that distance. Now comes the fun part. Fold the door panels mostly together and lift them up at an angle, like that Rosenberg photo of the Marines planting the flag on Iwo Jima. Insert the floor pin in it’s hole (if the floor pin socket rides in a track) or in the track (if you have the splined [grooved, looks like a pinion gear]) style floor pin. Slowly straighten the doors up towards vertical and get the top pin into the slider clamp. Now, with the outer panel in the half open position (about 45° relative to the top track) push the doors towards the wall until they contact the 2 quarters. Stop. Tighten the top sliding clamp. Push down on the roller wheel and maneuver the inner panel so that the roller snaps into the top track. Open the door fully and peel the two taped quarters off the wall. If you have the style that also has a slider clamp on the bottom pin socket then tighten that one now as well. You’re done. The quarters work as spacers, and give you the clearance you need so that the door doesn’t scrape the wall when you open an close it. That 1/8” of excess vertical distance can be adjusted out later if necessary. Repeat the process with the other door.
The other 50¢? Most bi-fold doors come in standard widths. Builders build to these widths, and they sometimes (ha!!!) take shortcuts. So sometimes the opening is a bit wider than necessary. Bi-fold doors do not have to contact each other to fit properly, but you want them to be pretty close to each other when closed. If you find that you’ve got a wider opening than the door minimally need, and that your two doors are closing and nearly hitting each other, then open one and tape a quarter to the top and bottom of the edge that the other door butts up against, and then adjust one of the doors over, top and bottom, so that it closes against the quarters on the other door. Tighten the clamps, remove the quarters. You now have clearance and the gap between the doors is even top to bottom.
Today I did not have clearance. These doors were a very tight fit to the walls. So I did the “quarters trick” with the thin blade of a wide drywall knife, and that gave me just enough room so that the doors now open and close without contacting the walls or each other. But damn, I couldn’t slide a dime between both doors when closed. But it is warm and humid today, so I’m guessing the wood is expanded, and a tight fit like that will only get bigger when the wood shrinks due to colder and drier weather. Good enough.
Oh, the one door being 3/4” lower than the other? Geex. Some whizbang decided that the door opening needed some fancy molding over the top to make it pretty. So they installed grooved molding horizontally over the opening, right down to the bottom of the track. Hides it real well, sure. And then they put those square wood rondel medallions on each end, centered on the height of the grooved molding. Which means that the end of the medallion hung down 1/2” lower. Below the edge of the track. DUH. So when Whizbang #2 installed the door, he mounted that side real low so that it cleared the medallion. DOUBLE DUH. I popped the medallion off the wall, raised it up a bit, then glued it back on. Then I adjusted that door up so that it just cleared the medallion and the track, and that fixed things so that the height difference between both doors when closed is less than 1/8” of a inch. Looks right, works right. Customer is very happy but pissed off at the guys who first installed the door and at herself for living with poorly hung doors for 20 years. “Everything’s fine now”, I told her, “they just needed a little love and attention.” And $50 in my pocket.
Oh yeah: my hating on laminate floor installers. You lazy bastards. You worthless twats. Every damn one of these things I run across is installed by drooling morons. Yes, I understand fully what a floating wood floor is and how they must be installed. You have to allow some edge room for the wood to expand seasonally. That’s why you take the baseboard molding off first and then measure and cut!!! ( and honestly, the less expensive laminate floors are just vinyl or veneer over pressboard, which doesn’t expand or contract for shit, so it can be cut to a tighter fit ) But oh no. Every last one of these rotters comes in, measures between the existing baseboard molding, then cuts the flooring a full inch less than that, both in length and width. Then they install the floor, hopefully over a membrane, and cover over the massive edge gaps with a giant ass strip of inch and a half quarter round. And they use the cheap crap too, which isn’t even wood. It’s wood tone vinyl over pressboard. So the customer ends up losing an inch and a half of room length and width because they now have two different kinds of baseboard molding. And it looks like total shite. Pull of the customer’s molding you lazy gits, put in the floor and then sell them some slightly thicker molding and install it and paint it. Use shoe molding if necessary. This quarter round “fix” is a kludge, not a solution.
I have to go shop for the replacement threshold now. The two I bought her were close, but not the best color match. And it looks like I’ll have to trim the flooring a little to get a best fit, and I’ll have to leverage the hardware store guy’s knowledge for some how to: the threshold installs over and between the end of the laminate floor and the carpet in the next room, but the subfloor for both rooms is all concrete from the same pour. That means there is no wood directly beneath the threshold. And that means I have to learn how I can nail the thing in to concrete. The old one gave the flooring guys fits. You can tell. First they tried to hold it on with glue. That didn’t work, duh. Then they tried to pin it on with a dozen brads from their air nailer. That didn’t work either; the underside of their POS pressboard threshold is littered with bent up brads that didn’t shoot into the concrete. Finally they just screwed the thing on with three massive black dual-thread concrete screws (aka backerboard screws). That held, but it looks like crap. There has to be a better way. And as part of my $75 for this job (plus parts), I’ll find it.
Off to the hardware store!
Posted by Drew458
on 10/11/2010 at 07:40 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - October 02, 2010
the eu court says, working fathers in Spain are entitled to take ‘breastfeeding leave.
You just know the world is a very mad place with stuff like this accepted as a matter of normal course. And of course as Spain is an EU member and the rocket scientists at the EU know all things .... well it just follows that what the EU says, Spain must follow.
I mentioned this the other day but didn’t post the story as other things got in the way ....
Remember when I thought I found the Moonbat Award for the whole year believing nothing could be dumber then Sense of humour failure: Council slaps ban on mother-in-law jokes for being ‘offensively sexist’
I was sure that took the prize. Well not so fast there P. This one might trump that earlier entry, although that one still deserves to be remembered as Moonbat stupid. But take a look at this one.
Spanish fathers entitled to breastfeeding leave
Europe’s top court has declared that working fathers in Spain are entitled to take ‘breastfeeding leave’ everyday, even if the mother of the child is not employed.
By Barney HendersonThe new legislation means that both the mother and father are allowed to leave work for an hour during the day or reduce their working day by half an hour during the first nine months following the birth of a child.
The European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on Thursday that the Spanish law caused an “unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex” because fathers do not have the same rights as mothers.
Fathers are currently only allowed to apply for breastfeeding leave if the mother is employed full time.
The Spanish man who challenged the law, Pedro Manuel Roca Alvarez, said his request to take breastfeeding leave from his job in Galicia was rejected because the mother of his child was self-employed.The top court said such a refusal could have the effect of forcing self-employed mothers to limit their work because the father cannot share the burden.
Not giving dads the same right as mums in this case “is liable to ... keep men in a role subsidiary to that of women in relation to the exercise of their parental duties,” the court ruled.Breastfeeding leave should now be considered as “time purely devoted to the child” in order to reconcile family life and work after maternity leave.
Posted by peiper
on 10/02/2010 at 02:05 PM
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • EUro-peons • Insanity • Stoopid-People • work and the workplace •
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Permalink • Friday - October 01, 2010
well talk about barking moonbats … as if things aren’t stupid enough … there aren’t enough bats
No kidding BMEWS readers. If the powers that be in this country can find different ways to do themselves in, they will do so and happily wave as their ship sinks.
Keep in mind that not every Brit goes along with the lunacy. I don’t believe most do. Not the ones I speak to anyway. So how does this stuff happen? I’m at a total loss to explain it. It’s way beyond pc gone amuck.
Imagine this guys ... you own a business and two ppl are sharing a gag or a comment. Someone overhears what is being said AND ... they can charge harassment under a new law if they say it offends them. And that’s the least of a law taking effect today, a law pushed thru by the previous govt. under that hag, Harriet Harperson. (Harman) I tell ya, they are getting flakier and flakier here.
However .... here is something even dumber. Oh, you didn’t think things could get dumber? Well in Spain, men are to be allowed breast feeding time off.
You could not make this up. Govts. are just plain stupid when it come to common sense and going overboard to ensure that all people and all things MUST be equal.
Seems that since women are given an hour or so to tend baby, then husbands also must get equal time. Just what they’re supposed to do during this time isn’t stated. Maybe join wifey dear and watch? Oh yeah, they still get paid for the time off. I think it’s called Spanish Practice. Pay but no work.
Death of the office joke: Coalition enacts Harriet’s PC equality law which means ANYONE can sue for ANYTHING that offends themBy Daily Mail Reporter
New equality laws masterminded by Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman have come into force today, threatening to create a political correctness minefield for recession-hit businesses.
Under the Act, vegans, teetotallers and atheists are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups while gipsies and travellers will get special favours because of the ‘many socio-economic disadvantages’ they face.
There is also a provision which extends protection from third party harassment, meaning employers have a responsibility to shield their staff, where possible, from abuse by customers.
This has led to fears that bosses could be sued for jokes or comments that staff overhear and find offensive - even if it is not directed at or about them.
The Act, which ministers claim will help stamp out pay discrimination, have been slammed by employer groups who claim it will cost £189million to implement.firms will be banned from asking job applicants about their health, while new protections for disabled people will make it easier for staff who have taken a large number of sick days or who look after elderly relatives to win unfair dismissal cases.
The Act will also make is easier for staff to claim they were discriminated against because of disability because they no longer have to prove they were treated less favourably than a non-disabled colleague.
Tory and Lib Dem ministers are still arguing about whether to implement Miss Harman’s notorious plans to force local authorities to discriminate in favour of the poor in order to narrow income inequalities.
The plans were hailed as ‘socialism in a single clause’ when Miss Harman unveiled them last year.
UPDATE ... I goofed in a way. What way? Well ... it wasn’t the Spanish that enforced this law. I read it wrong.
The mandate to enforce was done by ....The European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg
can anyone spell “sovereignty?” Anyone care anymore?
Posted by peiper
on 10/01/2010 at 10:10 AM
Filed Under: • Politically Correct B.S. • UK • work and the workplace •
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Permalink • Monday - September 27, 2010
tats and piercings, self mutilation? some more thoughts on the subject.
Gee, had no idea when I posted that story with regard to the moonbat job hunting with a face full of studs, that it would engender so much interest and argument. I haven’t changed my position on the subject and I don’t suspect any of you have either. However, I found this today and thought it explained a bit and there are links at the site with tons more info if anyone is interested. Meanwhile, I haven’t found any follow up on the story although she apparently has Facebook and Myspace accounts.
Tattoos and Body Piercing: Adolescent Self-Expression or Self-Mutilation?
Understanding ourselves through pop culture.
by Lawrence Rubin and Michael BrodyLawrence Rubin, psychologist and counseling professor, is co-author with psychiatrist Mike Brody of Messages: Self Help Through Popular Culture.
Dr. Michael Brody is a practicing child and adult psychiatrist and Chair of The Media Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Contemporary adolescent and young adult culture has embraced tattoing and body piercing, ostensibly as a form of self-expression. It seems that if not tattooed themselves, there are very few degrees of separation between any adolescent and someone in their life who bears a tattoo or is pierced somewhere on their body. Sports stars, rock stars and movie and television icons are covered in images and piercings; but we expect that of them, for they are in the public eye.
When a recent news piece highlighted a young woman who received 56 star tattoos on her face after only requesting three, I was moved to ask the question as to whether this phenomenon, as well as multiple and multi-site tattoos and piercing is really just a socially sanctioned form of self-mutilation?! I am, of course, driven to reflect deeply on this as I am after all, a psychologist and a tattooed one at that.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry released a statement in 1999 in which they listed tattooing and ‘excessive piercing’ along with picking, burning, head-banging and cutting as possible forms of self-injury.While this may seem somewhat of an alarmist conclusion to many, especially those who are tattoed and pierced, the AACAP is not the first on the block to reach this conclusion. In mainstream professional journals, including The Journal of Psychosomatic Research (2006, volume 6, issue 4), Adolescence (2002, volume 37, issue 147), The Journal of Adolescent Health (2005, volume 36, issue 4), Deviant Behavior (2009, volume 30, issue 6) and Pediatrics (2002, volume 109, issue 60), tattooing and body piercing have been associated with dangerous and sometimes lethal risk-taking behavior, eating disorders, self-loathing, substance abuse, depression and social alienation.
These findings and interpretations may well be valid, particularly for the samples upon which they are based. Certainly, we have all witnessed young people swathed in images, both benign (butterflies, roses and hearts) and horrific (skulls, demons and swastikas), and wondered “what the heck could they have been thinking...if they were thinking at all?!” And what about those who have gone to incredible lengths to virtually change their appearance by tattooing whiskers and cat’s eyes over their own, in addition to having their incisors sharpened. And then there are the real over-the-top instances where someone will surgically implant horns on their forehead, and permanently paint their faces to mirror those of demons?
Are these all instances of self mutilation, especially in the case of multiple or full-body art and piercings of everyting from nostrils, tongues, belly-buttons, earlobes and eyelids (favorites among teen girls) to nipples, genitals and everything in between. All of these hurt, to a lesser or greater extent, depending on the place in the case of piercings and tats, and the amount of time the body is exposed to the unrelenting ink-bearing needles. And I must admit, of the 4 tattoos I have received, they hurt! You would think; however, that a little tat here or a little ring or stud there can’t be compared side-to-side with repettitive self-inflicted razor wounds, beer chugging, street racing, and the myriad of other creative ways young people abuse themselves and flirt with danger, if not death?
Might there be alternate, less pathological explanantions for this tsunami of seeming self-desecration? At a most basic and benign level, perhaps tattooing and piercing are simply forms of self-expression, a means of marking ourselves in a society that fosters, both wittingly and unwittingly, anomie and anonymity.
Perhaps, as postmodernists might argue, this self-marking is a means of asserting mastery and control over our boides, and anchoring ourselves, quite lterally during a time of life when the only constant is change. Maybe it is not self-mutilation, but rather self enhancement and adornment, a means of saying “I am’ in a way that is heard...body bling! And don’t forget the socio/anthropological possibility that tats and piercings may demonstrate loyalty, affiliation or be a ritualistic rite of passage. For some, it may simply be the rush of adrenaline that accompanies a self-chosen and self-controlled moment of physical pain.
You decide for yourself
Posted by peiper
on 09/27/2010 at 11:07 AM
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Permalink • Tuesday - September 14, 2010
slavery is alive and well with some minorities. just ask doctor saeeda khan. yeah, doctor.
Can you imagine this? And that creepy looking old bag is or was a doctor? Jeesh. Of what?
I wonder if the dogs of the hellish left will now be demanding her head on tower gate.
No. Not hardly. That’s reserved for white folks and conservatives.
Doctor kept ‘£10-a-month slave woman from Africa’ at her million dollar home
By Tom KellyA retired doctor held a slave in her suburban home for four years, a court was told yesterday.
Saeeda Khan, 68, is accused of making Mwanahanisi Mruke work up to 24 hours a day cleaning, cooking and gardening.
She fed her scraps of bread and made her sleep on a thin mattress on the kitchen floor with only a sheet for warmth, it was alleged.
Khan and her late husband, who was also a doctor, allegedly paid Miss Mruke just £10 a month – a low salary even in Tanzania, the African country they brought her to Britain from in 2006.
Miss Mruke, 46, had all her calls monitored and was not allowed to leave the £500,000 home in Harrow, North West London, without Khan, Westminster magistrates heard.
‘She lived in extremely poor conditions for a number of years,’ prosecutor Malachy Pakenham told the hearing.Additional payments of £40 a month were meant to go to a bank in Tanzania to pay for Miss Mruke’s daughter’s education, but much of this was never received, the court heard.
Khan, a British citizen who has lived in the UK for 30 years, is believed to be the first person charged with modern slavery.
Scotland Yard detectives started investigating the case in February following a tip-off.
Officers from the Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command, known as SCD9, were involved.Khan did not have to sit in the dock during the ten-minute hearing because she suffers from arthritis and has recently had an operation on her knees.
She pleaded not guilty to a charge of arranging and facilitating the arrival of a foreign national with the intention of exploitation in the UK and elsewhere.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of ten years in jail.Khan was bailed to appear before the court next month. Before she came to the UK, Miss Mruke worked in a hospital run by Khan’s late husband in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania.
Khan is alleged to have kept her slave in her three-bedroom bungalow in Harrow which she shared with her 40-year-old son, who has mental health problems.
Khan’s daughter, who also has learning difficulties, lived in the property too but has since moved out.
Neighbours said Khan spent tens of thousands of pounds renovating the property when she moved in about a decade ago. Two cars, including a new Volvo estate, are usually seen parked in the driveway.James Carpenter, who lives next door, said he often saw Miss Mruke going for walks with Khan’s son. He said: ‘She would follow him up and down the street, normally about ten yards behind him.
‘She only spoke the East African language of Swahili, so we couldn’t communicate with her and she couldn’t really speak to anyone. ‘Sometimes, we would wave and nod at her just to be polite. She would normally wave back.
‘She wore normal, western clothing. I had no reason to suspect anything untoward was going on.
‘But it’s a very quiet area and nobody round here really knows their neighbours very well.’
Slave trading has been outlawed in Britain since the 19th century.
Posted by peiper
on 09/14/2010 at 12:43 PM
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Permalink • Monday - August 30, 2010
Great Minds Think A Light?
While Peiper was starting his hoard of 75W incandescent bulbs, I was researching fluorescent upgrades. My state - yours too perhaps - has a rebate to businesses if they upgrade their old style tube lights to the newer high efficiency designs.
You can look up New Jersey’s Smart Start program, and you’ll see that the state will pay $10 per fixture to retrofit the modern gear. Gee, $10. Wow. But if you run a business, and have 300 fixtures in your office, that starts to add up quickly. Especially when it only costs you $20 plus labor to do the retrofit, and the actual labor only takes 15 minutes. High tech bulbs extra of course. But make the changeover and you can save more than 40% on your lighting bill. And that really adds up.
Most businesses, office and retail, have those 4 1 1/2” diameter 48” 40 watt bulb fluorescent fixtures in the dropped ceiling panels. Fluorescent lights run on high voltage, so they require a device called a ballast to raise the voltage. Ballasts last just about forever, and the bulbs are generally good for 5 years in theory. The old style ballasts are of the “magnetic” style which means they have lead heavy transformers inside. Used with the standard F40CW bulbs they throw that icky green, nearly seasick light in the 4100K color temperature range, with a terrible CRI (color rendering index) of 50-65. Which means everything looks awful under standard fluorescent light.
Some years back the light bulb companies came out with 32 and 34 watt “energy saver” bulbs for these fixtures, which helped companies save some money. Maybe. It turns out that the magnetic ballasts tend to overdrive these bulbs, so their lifespan is shortened some. And almost nothing is more “generic” than a 48” T12 bulb, which means people buy them based on price, and ignore the color temperature, the lifespan, and even the output lumens of the bulbs. Which allows a lot of cheap, dim, short life bulbs to be sold for a “great price”; you can get them as cheap as $1, although a decent bulb will usually cost $2.50.
These days ballasts are “electronic”. Instead of being the size and weight of a brick, today’s ballasts are thin and light. And today’s bulb is the slimmed down T8, which gives off just as much light as the old T12. But wait, there’s more! A modern electronic ballast only costs a couple dollars more than the old magnetic ones. And there are now very high efficiency T8 bulbs for sale that outlast the old F40CW by 2 to 1. And you can get them in a variety of color temperatures, right up to 5000K to 6500K, with CRIs of 80 to 90. That means the bulbs produce a very white light like daylight, and they don’t mess with colors much at all. Put together new ballasts and new bulbs in your old fixture, and you can save 30 - 45 percent on your office lighting bill. That adds up real fast.
One of the nicer ballasts is the Sylvania Quicktronic QTP4X32T8/UNV ISN-SC. At $19.49 it’s an instant start model, with a reasonably high 0.88 ballast factor, <10% THD, Class A EMI, and Class A sound. This means that it doesn't make noise, it doesn't give off radio waves that mess with your computer or radio, and it doesn't muddy up the electricity. Name brand company, American made product. Used along with 4 of Sylvania's Octron ECOLOGIC 800 XP 32 Watt 5000K bulbs, just under $5 each, you will get a brighter, whiter light with great color rendition, and a bulb that lasts twice as long, and use 36% less electricity. Use their 28 watt Octron bulb and save 45% on your electric bill, get the same amount of light you were getting using those 34w energy saver bulbs, the same double length bulb life, though it doesn't render colors quite as well as the 32w bulb.
Philips makes a similar bulb called the Alto II, that gives similar lumen, CRI, and energy saving performance, but doesn't last quite as long, for slightly less cost. Both bulbs are available in color temperatures from the warm incandescent yellow (3000K) to the bright white (5000K). I like the bright white. I have one of those OttLite reading lamps, and that's nearly where it runs at.
Oh, and 3 other really nice things about the latest generation of T8 bulbs:
a) they have very very little mercury inside, so little that many areas don't consider them toxic waste, and
b) the bulbs don't dim out over time. The old style F40 T12 bulbs would start out nice and bright, but dim down to 80% after just a couple weeks, then ride out their lives at about 60% light output, even though they were using just as much electricity as when new. These modern T8 bulbs maintain 95% of their light output from day 1 until they burn out. So you get a lot more light/time for your lightbulb dollar.
c) they fit in the same sockets as your old T12 bulbs, but since the bulb is only 2/3 as thick, getting bulbs in and out is much easier.
At a typical 4000 hour business year, with the lights turned on and off once a day, when electricity costs you 15¢ per kilowatt hour, retrofitting to the modern ballast and high tech bulb will save you about $40 per year in a standard 4 bulb fixture, which means the ROI on your parts cost is just about 1 year. Add in whatever rebate your state might be giving, subtract off the installation labor, and the ROI is about 2 years. That's not bad at all, because you've got another 8 years life left on those bulbs, and your people will be enjoying a nicer quality of light the whole time.
Other companies like Advance and Keystone make similar ballasts at similar prices. To get the most light from your bulbs, look for ballast that have a ballast factor of .85 of better. Low factor ballasts with a .70 - .75 ballast factor will save you even more money, but at the expense of luminosity. Which means they run the bulbs softly, and they don't make as much light.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/30/2010 at 02:36 PM
Filed Under: • work and the workplace •
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Permalink • Wednesday - August 25, 2010
Anecdotal ObamaCare?
I suppose it could have nothing whatsoever to do with ObamaCare…
As I delivered the mail to the Chevrolet (aka ObamaMotors) dealership on my route a large notice on the employee bulletin board caught my eye. It informed (and I don’t remember the exact wording) All Employees: Effective 9/1/2010 all employee dental plans are cancelled. It went on about contacting the HR office for details and options.
I thought it was an interestingly ominous notice.
Thatisall.
Posted by Christopher
on 08/25/2010 at 07:32 PM
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Obama, The One • work and the workplace •
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Permalink • RETRACTION ? IT MIGHT BE IN ORDER WITH LIMITED APOLOGIES FROM YOURS TRULY
Yesterday I went on a rant over something in our morning paper to do with grass cutting and Health and Safety.
I don’t take back what I said about the liberal left pinko bed wetting loony tunes who have ruined this country. I stand by that.
HOWEVER .....
The story I reacted to did not come from something like the Natl. Enquirer and it didn’t come from the Sun. It came from the Telegraph.
In retrospect, I suppose I could have tried to call someone. Never thought of it. And not being a journalist working for a paper, not much to guarantee anyone would talk to me anyway. That said .... This appeared in the letters column of that paper today. But I didn’t see any retraction from the paper.
So here .....
It’s safe to cut the grass
SIR – In response to your report about grass-cutting at Carlisle Castle (August 24), I can confirm that there is no guidance from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) that prevents it.
Organisations, such as English Heritage, have a responsibility to look after the health and safety of their staff. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t mow lawns. The HSE has not issued any new guidance on mowers recently in this sector.
Three people died at work using mowing equipment last year, and a number of sit-on mowers turned over on steep slopes. The risks are real, but with appropriate management of those risks, for example using a different type of mower, activities can continue.
A straightforward, sensible risk assessment would quickly show where real dangers lie, and what can be done to address them.
Graeme Walker
Head of Agriculture, Health and Safety Executive
Bootle, Lancashire
SOURCE, LETTERS PAGE, THE TELEGRAPH
Posted by peiper
on 08/25/2010 at 04:07 AM
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Permalink • Monday - August 09, 2010
Damn Global Warming
I am wiped out. Spent another day up on a ladder in the sweltering summer heat. Sure, I’m getting loads of fluids - I think I drank a bit more than a gallon today - and I’m avoiding getting sunburned, but damn. This NJ summer swelter is just wearing me down. Hot and hazy with high humidity and not a breath of air movement day after day after day. Rain? Nah. It’s in the forecast, but not much of it actually gets here. We’re on water restrictions, and it could be worse. An hour to the north of us and they’ve hardly had any rain all summer long.
But man. I’m going up the ladder with 3 rags. One for the squeegee, one for the window trim, one for my head. And I come down the ladder 15 minutes later with 2 of them saturated. I’m dreaming of fall. Cool days, dry winds, weak sun, rainy nights on the edge of cold. Yeah baby. I can’t wait.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/09/2010 at 07:07 PM
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Permalink • Five Most Recent Trackbacks:
LAAR She Blows! Part One
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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