that other guy’s thoughts

Hurricane Me is coming to destroy Maine!

’bout damn time too. Those snooty Mainers think they’re sooooooo great, living in a state with a single-syllable name and bordering only one other state. Pfft! We’ll see how smart they are when they’re sucking on 6-feet of my salty storm-surge goodness.

wow, that sounds dirtyMamma Roma hd

In honor of our un-serious unqualified ill-prepared illustrious vice-presidential nominee, I’d like to share a few facts that I bet you didn’t know:

Alaska is next to Russia. Therefore, Sarah Palin is an international policy expert.

I can see the moon from my window. Therefore, I am a rocket scientist.

Hawaii is an island. Therefore, Barack Obama is an expert in Maritime law.

My next-door neighbor is a divorcée. Therefore, I am a marriage counselor.

I was once pulled over for speeding. Therefore, I know how to fry donuts.

Arizona is next to Nevada, which is next to California, which contains the city of San Fransisco. Therefore, John McCain is gay!

Florida is next to Cuba. Therefore, Jeb Bush is a communist!

My house has a basement. Therefore, I’m a coal-miner!

I drank a glass of water. Therefore, I can captain a submarine.

Fire engines have 8 wheels and carry 4 people. 8 + 4 = 12. There are 12 inches in a foot. One foot is a ruler. There was a ruler named Queen Elizabeth. A ship named Queen Elizabeth sails the seas. In the seas are fish. On the fish are fins. The Fins fought the Russians. Russians are red. Fire engines are always rush’n around. Therefore, fire engines are red.

I could go all day, really.

Any reader additions? Submit them in the comments. If you make me laugh, I’ll give you a cookie*

*by “give you a cookie” Obviously I mean I’ll put your submission in the main text of this post.

Everyone know the funniest professors are non-native english speakers. In that vein, imagine each of the following actual quotes from my professor as spoken by a middle-aged man with a heavy chinese accent:

“At age 20, you have a lot of strange energy but no money.”

“I want to talk to the girls for a second: You cannot find a guy you is rich, handome, and young, so you just pick one! Just like Ritz Method.”

“Think about your education. When you were in kindegarten, you watch sesame streee and they sing to you A-B-C-D! When you’re in elementary school, they didn’t sing anymore did they? It keeps getting steeper and steeper. Now you’re in AE 722 and I don’t teach! Ha Ha, joke’s on you!”

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

She’s a wonderful person and mother. She’s very genuine and charming. She refreshingly walks the Christian walk, rather than merely telling everyone ele how to live their lives. She seems to have good leadership instincts. She is definitely a “real” person as opposed to a ambitious power-hungry career politician.

She also has absolutely no business being the Vice-President of the United States.

…at least not right now. Because when the top of the ticket is a 72-year-old 4-time cancer survivor, the first and near singular task of the vice-president is to be prepared to take over the Presidency should he/she be called on.

Nothing about Sarah Palin remotely suggests she’s ready for that weighty responsibility. She has held two elected offices in her life, and screwed up both of them. She wasted $1.3 million of a small town’s money and abused her governing power enough to incur 2 separate bi-partisan ethics investigations.

I don’t want to the hear “executive experience” argument either. It’s hogwash. Being a small-town mayor isn’t hard. I know, I lived in a small town for 16 years, and our revolving-door mayors always sucked. Miraculously, the town didn’t burn down or go bankrupt. Something that can’t quite be said for the town of Wasilla.

Being a governor is typically nothing to sneeze at. However, being a socially-conservative Republican governor of Alaska is probably the easiest gig in the country. The legislator is overwhelmingly Republican, so no bipartisan compromises are necessary. The state gets way more federal money per-capita than any other state, PLUS it earns enough in oil royalties to hand out $3,200 to each of the 670,000 citizens each year. The state government has essentially no budget problems because it can pump money straight from the ground.

She would be a single lack of a heart-beat away from being the leader of the free world. Yet bizarrely, your humble 25-year-old author, from the middle of nowhere, has more international experience. You probably do too. Let’s have a quick mental exercise: Have you been to more than 3 countries? Yes? Well then, you’re more worldly than Sarah Palin. How sad is that?

No, I’m not kidding. Canada, Mexico, and a brief trip Kuwait last year. That’s it.

Of course all that could be a bunch of pretty circumstantial snippets stated to make her look bad, which is partially why I’m very reluctant to dismiss someone for mere lack of “experience.” The truth is that “experience” is useful to the electorate only insofar as it helps us judge the abilities of our candidates. This isn’t a resume contest, we’re choosing real people for these offices. Real people aren’t wholly encapsulated and defined by a list of the previous jobs.

Skills come from many different places, not simply elected positions. I have no doubt being a working mother of five has made Sarah Palin and superb household administrator and role-model. Unfortunately, she’s not running to be time-manager-in-chief. This is the big leagues and the future of civilization hangs in the balance. This is a serious time and a serious job, and it requires serious people to govern effectively.

Much can, has, will, and should be said about Barack Obama’s thin resume. However, there is no doubt now that he is a serious man. He’s spent the fatter half of 2 years talking, campaigning, proposing, and debating the issues that this country faces. It could even reasonably be said that he has spent his entire post-collegent life studying or serving big ideas.

There is absolutely no evidence that Sarah Palin has had a serious thought about issues of national or international scale in her entire life. For evidence I submit her first (and only) interview concerning foreign policy. God told George W. Bush to invade Iraq as revenge for 9/11. What’s the Bush Doctorine? Georgia should join NATO so we can declare war on Russia!

The thought of putting someone like that next in line for the presidency scares the hell out of me.

She even had the gall to suggest that she knows foreign policy because, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”

That’s so stupid I’m speechless. Except to say this: I can see the moon from my bedroom window, but that doesn’t make me a rocket scientist.

Of course, none of this is to say that she wouldn’t be a good president. I have no idea, and neither do you, and neither does anybody else. We don’t know because she hasn’t given one single pre-screened interview and zero press conferences. She has been a nominee for national office for three full weeks and hasn’t said anything that wasn’t written by somebody else or put on a teleprompter.

I’ll say it again: She could still be a good vice-president. But no one without a personal relationship with her can credibly make that judgment yet, including John McCain. That doesn’t sit well with me at all.

We need to know more, a LOT more.

I’ve waited more than 2 weeks, done my research, and prudently reserved judgment until I could clearly form an opinion. Now the time has come for me to share my careful insight of Sarah Palin…

…but you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow because I’m too lazy to proofread what I wrote tonight. No worries though, I wouldn’t just leave you hanging like that. I’ll give you my gist, wrapped up in a metaphor, and served with a side of deep-fried mockery:

“I can see the moon from my bedroom window, but that doesn’t make me a rocket scientist.”

wait, bad example. Hmmm…I might need some more editing.

It was a semi-productive weekend in the TOG household, with painting, yard work, and partying all being accomplished. Therefore, in honor of my general good mood and national holiday, I shall cast off my normal nay-saying ways and make a few constructive suggestions to the Labor Unions of America. (and really, anybody else who works for a living.)

I’ve ranted extensively on the subject already. So today, on this our most Laborious of all days, I humbly offer suggestions to the workers of this country. Do with them what you will.

• It’s NOT always about the money.
  Numerous scientific studies have shown that once an individual earns enough to cover their most basic needs, (e.g. health, food, shelter) additional cash contributes to only minor improvements in overall happiness. That isn’t to say the the working man should take one for the team. Au contraire, it means that to maximize happiness you should concentrate on the things that might actually make you happy, like generous sick-leave / personal time, flexible work schedules, better food in the cafeteria, or not having to answer to eight different bosses.

• There is no enemy.
  Negotiations aren’t a war. No one is evil, no one is out to get you. The person sitting across the table is just doing their job. In fact, everybody at the entire company is just doing their job. Specifically, they’re attempting to make money for the owners of the company; which coincidentally, is your job too! They may be doing it poorly, or the job itself might be disadvantageous to your interests, but you’re simply not important enough to warrant actual screwing.

  In fact, there are only two reasonable assumptions for why you don’t get your way. The first is that your demands don’t align with the companies best interest. The other is succinctly state via Hanlon’s Razor

  Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

  Dumb people are everywhere. If you’re lucky enough to not be among them, it is your duty to use your superior intellect and communication skills to convince others that you know the best course of action. If you can’t do that, you need to reassess your assumption that you aren’t dumb.

• Seniority is WAY overrated.
  There is absolutely nothing inherent about working somewhere or doing something for a long time that makes you better. It is true that, in general, the longer you do something, the more productive and skilled you will become at it. However, those extra skills don’t come evenly or automatically. 10-years of experience doesn’t always beat 5-years of experience, which doesn’t always beat the 13-year child-prodigy. People are different and should be judged by the quality of their work, not the length of their tenure. This may not seem fair, but unless you work for your 7th-grade gym teacher, trying hard isn’t all that matters.

  This is a huge source of the downfall of the American labor union. Decades of ‘First-in, last-out’ rules and strict tenure-based pay rates have removed the incentive to be productive and innovate, and reward workers for complacency. It works out great for the old-timers in the short term, but eventually the piper comes calling; the company becomes old, bloated devoid of talent, loses 10 billion dollars and everybody loses their job. The scientific term for this phenomenon is known as Flintus Michiganas.

  The solution is pretty simple. Reward good workers for being good workers, not for being old. Raises should be merit and responsibility based. If workers get paid for being better, they will get better. It’s the most fundamental law of economics and human behavior: “People respond to incentives.”

• Real power is knowing when to leave something on the table.
  Back in the 1970’s, during the hey-day of the Detroit-made American car, a reporter was interviewing a local union boss after the signing of a new big lucrative contract. The reporter asked him about his negotiating strategy, and about what the union would be demanding from the company next time. The union boss gave a single word answer, “More.”

  As history would have it, the company was Chrysler, and the contract they signed was a big part of the reason they went effectively bankrupt in 1979 and needed 1.2 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees to stay solvent. Along with the federal bail-out and restructuring outstanding debt, nearly half of all employees were laid off, including 43,600 dues-paying union workers.

  This is a frequent pitfall for blue-collar workers, ESPECAILLY union-represented blue-collar workers. By squeezing every last dime from every last contract, company financials can get spread dangerously thin. It’s a scenario that has repeated itself in every major unionized industry in this country (auto, steel, coal, aircraft, construction, etc.) Whenever companies operate on the edge of profitability, any shift in the economic climate means layoffs. Layoffs breed discontent and low morale, which brings lower productivity and output, which means less money and more layoffs. It’s a vicious circle.

  There are other more immediate and tangible disadvantages to scraping the bottom of the company coffers. The company will demand a lot more accountability from each employee. This means strict clock-in/clock-out times and heavily regulated breaks periods. Be prepared to be treated like livestock. If you’re late 3 times, you’re fired no questions asked. How often do you use the bathroom, and for how long? The company wants to know and will track it. Your afternoon break will occur from 2:05 to 2:13, no exceptions. Why are you talking to Jill from accounting? You’re not allowed on that floor during work hours. (No hyperbole here, these examples are all taken from current IAW contracts.)

  There is only so much money the company is willing to devote to labor. If they give it up somewhere, they’re gonna take it back else ware. If you’re willing to take slightly less money, you can get much more flexibility and job security. It will make you happier and more content, PLUS you get to look magnanimous. Personally, I’m willing to give up the $1/hour to not be treated like cattle.

From my viewpoint, the bottom line is this: You are going to spend a plurality of you life working somewhere. Why make it harder, more stressful, more soul-crushing than it needs to be? For what, a few dollars to buy a bigger car/house/TV or some cheap crap you don’t need? Your labor should be worth more to you than that.