Category: Uncategorized

by Smitty

Jobs, man: jobs. As the video states, DC’s Metro is a magnet for escalator mechanics. The Metro is working hard, trying to maximize the number of people taking home a paycheck, and these unreasonable Reasoners are. . .throwing a wrench in the gears.

The other interesting point about Metro is one that you can’t observe without a ten yard penalty for Political Incorrectness: the stunning lack of diversity in the employees:

Ninety-seven percent of the bus and train operators at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are black, with only six white women out of more than 3,000 drivers, according to Metro documents — a lack of diversity at one of the region’s largest employers that has led to an acknowledgment of failure in affirmative-action documents and spawned a series of lawsuits.

Part two of the Washington Times series on WMATA deals with escalator mechanics:

The mechanics tasked with maintaining the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s chronically broken escalators start at $81,000 a year. Bus driver pay goes as high as $114,000 for anyone with a driver’s license and a GED.
Yet despite an economy that has left people from all walks of life looking for work, Metro says it can’t find qualified job applicants.
The transit system’s failure to meet its personnel needs was largely responsible for the $88 million in overtime it paid in 2010. The overtime paid to some station managers exceeded their base salaries, and maintenance workers made as much as $100,000 in overtime alone, according to an analysis of the most recent records officials would provide.

Hmmm, that sounds enticing. . .
Thankfully, there is a union to keep the troops whipped into shape:

But Metro “has a policy in place that does not allow employees to speak to the media about safety, fraud, mismanagement or bad management,” Anthony Garland, the chief safety officer of Metro’s largest union, said in 2010, according to the union. “An employee’s federally protected right to speak to the media or any entity investigating safety, an accident, fraud, etc., must be respected.”

We’re really got to elect Mitt Romney, so that Brian Williams can again sustain outrage at this sort of story.

via Breitbart

The insanity defense works for smoking in an airport:

Denver Police say they’re not going to investigate a case involving a woman who stripped naked at Denver International Airport on Tuesday. . . .
The woman was reportedly upset and was taken to a local hospital for a mental evaluation.

Judging from available photos, the woman was a Reubensque natural blonde. More background on the case:

A female passenger at Denver International Airport caused a stir Tuesday morning when she stripped naked inside Concourse B, airport officials said.
The incident happened at about 8:45 a.m. when, according to DIA spokeswoman Jenny Schiavone, the woman was caught smoking a cigarette at gate B81, in a non-smoking area.
At some point after airport workers told her to extinguish the cigarette, the woman took off her clothing. It wasn’t immediately clear why. However, Denver Police say it was unrelated to the smoking issue.

So if you’re caught smoking in an airport, just take off all your clothes and plead insanity. We’ve all been under enormous psychological pressure lately. There are unconfirmed rumors that this unindentified passenger is a Republican who found herself unable to cope with the realization that Mitt Romney will be her party’s presidential nominee.

Post-Primary Traumatic Stress Disorder strikes again . . .

by Smitty

So, like, this is a response to your way totally uptight letter dated April III, MMXII. Noting that it was dated, you know, April III, we figured that this was three times an April Fool’s joke, or something.

And so we’re including with this little memo your three single-spaced pages. Yeah, you might think “They’re blank!”, and stuff. But we worked totally hard to get a single space character on each one. Get it? Single spaced? Welcome to the ‘space age’ DOJ, Mike Foxtrot! I know you guys were all spun up, and thought you were gonna rich slap* us, but we figured you left us a totally easy out for a reason.

After all, you wouldn’t want to hassle us and cut into our party time, and whatnot. We’re just getting wrecked over here doing all of this political stuff for the re-election. People harshing our mellow with all these Fast & Furious questions, FOIA gras requests, like we’re some kind of a French restaurant or something. See what we did there?

Man, we don’t care what you guys in the 5th do with bouncing laws. Congress is paid by the law; they’ll just throw together some more crap like ObamaCare. Just as long as you make sure the ones you bounce are the ones we want you bouncing. Are you smelling what we’re stepping in?

Now save all your non-triumphant attitude for the next Republican administration, which will be. . .ha! We’ve got that rigged, and don’t worry your pretty heads how. There won’t be another Republican administration, and you won’t be getting your nose dislocated about the Administration’s opinions. Or maybe you will.

Cordially,
D. L. Kaersvang.

*The maneuver formerly known as ‘bitch-slapping’, but which has been newly toned into a slam on the 1%.

by Smitty

Over at the Daily Caller, I think somebody’s abject, utter, despicable incompetence may be showing:What a gross dereliction of duty. But if you poo-poo the possibility that the Congressional Affordable Care Act (CACA) was a 2,801-page dump taken due to hating a black man in the White House, then you, too, might be a raaaaacist. What other possible explanation could there be for such a failure of due diligence?
Unexpectedly, Nancy’s famous emission takes on an aromatic character:Poor #OccupyResoluteDesk, surrounded by sphincters and abused by the hand of his northern hemisphere oppressors, with no toilet tissue at hand to catch the flood of tears.

Update: linked at The Rio Norte Line.

Update II: linked by The Lonely Conservative.

by Smitty

The comment threads are getting a bit dodgy on Stacy’s last two posts. Have your opinions, but please don’t soil yourself with ad hominem.

The FedoraCon idea is interesting. “Success is the best revenge,” someone once told me.

The Quotes of the Day post at Hot Air grabs the NYT:

“If the administration loses its argument [on ObamaCare], one early strategy is to run squarely against the Supreme Court. Democrats believe that Mr. Obama could fashion himself as a modern-day Franklin D. Roosevelt, trying to convince voters that a majority of the justices are in the pocket of the Republicans. A Democratic senator on Wednesday referred to that as the ‘martyr strategy.’

One of the crucial lessons we all have to learn about being online is that this exuberantly free speech we enjoy is totally non-binding. I don’t owe you a link, you don’t owe me a link. If I have time to respond to comments, or read your posts, great. It’s all best effort.

Also, I can rail at you all day and night about you not paying attention to my work. Laughing at my jokes. Tweeting my posts. And you really don’t owe me the time of day. If I’m not paying you, I have no real cause for complaint. And if you go on Twitter and call me everything but a white man, what cause have I for complaint? I could say you’re wrecking me professionally, but, over time, the truth will out. If there is no basis for your finger pointing, you look a Charles Johnson.

We could plan do some kind of ‘FedoraCon’, perhaps as an in-joke attached to CPAC, I’m all for it.

Just keep in mind that the ‘martyr strategy’ is not a creative one, and, ultimately, impresses nobody.

Update: linked by The Catholic Bandita!