Category Archives: Rants

Not merely ramblings, these are flat-out rants.

Pointless Posts, Rants, Silliness

Fiscal Policy

I lived off-campus during my senior year of college. I don’t recall whether it was me, or a friend who lived across the hall, but one of us glued a nickel to the floor in the hallway. For the next six months, every Friday and Saturday night you could hear drunks tripping as they tried to pick it up.
This random memory brought to you by Elmer’s, manufacturer of Crazy Glue and many other high quality adhesives.

What are the overdraft fees are for a bounced reality check?

Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

  • According to a statistic I heard on the radio during my drive home this evening, approximately 9,000 people per day are losing their jobs.
  • Also according to various news sources, the median pay for members of Congress is approximately $200,000 per year.
  • A couple months ago, members of Congress received a pay increase. (This was an automatic raise, not one they had to vote for.)
  • The Senate has 100 members, the House of Representatives has 435.
  • Hey! I just came up with a way to trim the Federal budget by $110,600,000!!!
Assorted Ramblings, Rants

Acronym Soup

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I need to mail a package in the next couple days. Doing some running around tomorrow morning, I’ll be passing near a Post Office, so that seems like an ideal opportunity. The only catch is, all federal offices in the DC area will be closed tomorrow in order to help reduce the number of people heading into the city on what’s projected to be the largest-ever event on the National Mall. (As Dave points out, 7,000 porta-potties at an average width of 3.5 feet works out to more than 4.5 miles.) This applies not only to the District of Columbia, but also to Fairfax County, Virginia; Prince George’s County, Maryland; and Montgomery County, Maryland.
This raises an obvious question: If I stop at the Post Office, will it be open?
Fortunately, the Post Office web site includes a “National Mail Service Updates” page. Under the heading of “Washington, DC — Inauguration Day 2009,” I found this very helpful notice:

Washington, DC– the following service changes are in effect for Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009.
All P&DCs, SCFs and BMCs in the region will be open during the Inauguration.

Well that certainly clears it up.

Assorted Ramblings, Rants

The Obama Stimulus Package

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A month or so back, some of the predictions for Tuesday’s Presidential Inauguration had as many as 5 million people crowding onto the National Mall to watch the swearing in followed by the inaugural parade. Various officials have since imposed a number of security restrictions, closed a number of bridges that empty onto the mall (starting sometime between now and Tuesday morning, it will become impossible to enter DC from Virginia, you’ll have to go into Maryland first) and so on with the final result that it won’t be possible to attend the inauguration unless you actually live along the parade route.
OK, maybe it’s not quite that severe, but the news reports in recent weeks really have been filled with a growing number of road closures and quite a few area residents have decided to avoid DC altogether until Wednesday. Now officials are concerned they may have scared people away from the area and the latest estimates for crowd size are “only” 2.5 million. (For comparison, the previous record crowd size on the National Mall was 1 million in 1976 for the Bicentennial celebration.)
One side effect of all this activity is a bit of economic stimulus for the DC-area economy. Not just the surge in hotel occupancy, sales of Obama bobblehead dolls, and various inaugural memorabilia, but also some less obvious money makers.
The Washington Post reports that local companies are benefiting from the need to construct “The Great Wall of Privies” with 7,000 porta-potties on the National Mall.
One result of all the security restrictions is that there aren’t many places to park. The Washington Nationals are offering parking spots at Nationals Park for $20/day ($35 if you leave the car overnight).
Not to be left out, The Washington Post is offering you the chance to place a personal message to President Obama in the Inauguration Day edition of the paper. (Your guess is as good as mine as to whether he’ll read them.)
Likewise, if you’re a Washington Post subscriber (and possibly if you’re not), you can also pre-order the special commemorative edition of the paper, buy a special commemorative picture book, or if you’re really into newspaper memorabilia, you can even buy a replica of the press plate for printing the commemorative edition of the paper.
And finally, in a move that seems to have folks around here evenly divided over whether to laugh or cry, the District of Calamity’s City Council decided to cash in on the influx of visitors by passing emergency legislation to allow bars to continue serving until 4:00 AM.

Fandom, Rants

Trekkies Will Buy Anything that says Star Trek…

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I forget where I first heard that rather cynical sentiment, but looking at the vast array of Officially Sanctioned Star Trek™ merchandise available in even fairly mainstream stores (e.g. Target), it’s sometimes difficult to dispute the claim, and even more maddening to find myself falling into that stereotype. (On the other hand, I’ve thus far avoided any temptation to remodel my house to look like the Enterprise™. The existing renovation project was daunting enough on its own.)
Tonight though, I ran across a particularly egregious example of that apparent belief: Think Geek is selling a light switchplate for $17.99 that you can make yourself for less than $5.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Think Geek and do shop there on occasion. (After all, who doesn’t need an Annoyatron or two from time to time?) I’m also well aware that when you buy from a boutique like that which caters to a particular audience (in this case, geeks like me), you’re going to pay a little more than if you bought the same product elsewhere. The two-to-three hundred percent mark up just seems a bit outrageous is all.
I’ll admit to being curious how many people will buy this product, but I won’t be one of them. (I bought mine 15 years ago and paid considerably less.)
(More on this at the Blah, Blah, Blog.)

Pointless Posts, Rants

Is It Over Yet?

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I’m getting ready for bed a little later than I should. Very late considering that I was up around 6:20 AM so I could stop to vote on my to work.
It occurs to me though, I don’t know who won the election.
I’ve been pretty deliberately taking it easy this evening. Reading a book, watching a movie, and just generally avoiding any sort of media outlet. After all the political ads the past few weeks, and all the pundits punditing, I’m very happy to take a break from it.
I’ll hear the election results in the car on the way to work tomorrow. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy the silence. There’s only six weeks or so left until they start the next round of campaigns.

Rants, Video

Third Party Candidates

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Paris Hilton has released a second campaign video for her (fake) presidential bid, with an endorsement from former President Jed Bartlet. Truthfully, I’m somewhat impressed by Ms. Hilton’s approach to the campaign season. Many celebrities openly endorse one candidate or another without laying out their reasons. Apparently they’d just have us vote one way or the other because someone famous said we should. Ms. Hilton is instead using her tongue-in-cheek presidential bid to bring up real issues that the real campaigns are ignoring.
Bearing that in mind, this seems like a good time to round up all the third-party candidates. Now if I could just get them to agree on a debate format….

Paris Hilton’s initial campaign video

Paris Hilton’s second campaign video

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Zaphod Beeblebrox’s Campaign Video

The Palin Presidential Campaign Announcement

Rants, Silliness

Vote Naked!

Rather than tell you why their candidates are the best (or perhaps work to make sure their candidates really are the best), the political parties in Pennsylvania are more concerned about the clothes people will wear to the polls. Because after all, people’s clothing is more likely to influence your vote than anything the candidates have to say. (Then again, given how little of substance the candidates have had to say, the party leaders may have a point there…)
The solution is simple: Show up at the polls naked!
Oh sure, a few folks will look at you as though you’re not too bright, but you’ll still look smarter than any of the party leaders!

Assorted Ramblings, Rants

Every Time Someone Says "Maverick", You Take a Drink

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Well that wasn’t what I expected. I missed last week’s Presidential debate, but tonight’s debate between Vice-Presidential candidates was interesting.
I particularly liked how well the candidates spoke of not only their opponent, but also of their opponent’s primaries. (And that was interesting too. This is the first time I’ve heard someone refer to the Presidential candidates as “primaries” relative to the veeps.) I don’t think anyone pulled their punches, but it was a very civil debate. One such nice touch, almost lost amidst the applause, was when the two candidates came out and Sarah Palin asked Joseph Biden, “Can I call you Joe?”
A pleasant surprise: Based on debates I’ve watched in the past, I fully expected the initial question to be ignored so the candidates could thank the moderator, the presidential debate commission, their families, the American People, God Almighty and anyone else they could think of for allowing them to appear there instead of actually answering the first question. Instead, both of these candidates were brief with their thank yous and actually spent some time giving meaningful answers.
I liked this debate format. I know there’s some controversy surrounding the choice of moderator, but I liked how the candidates were given a choice of responding to an immediate question or responding instead to previous comments. It gave the entire proceedings more the air of a conversation rather than an argument. (I’m quite tired of the endless arguing, hearing a conversation was nice!!!) Having questions that were directed at each candidate, more along the lines of “Tell us about yourself” instead of another point to debate was also a nice touch. (The sort of stuff we want to know about who the candidates instead of about their policies.)
Also surprising: I hadn’t expected to hear a Republican candidate use the word “blunders” (plural!) in reference to the current administration’s actions in Iraq. That earns Governor Palin a nod of respect that she’s willing to publicly think for herself rather than toe the party line.

More memorable points:

Both candidates agreeing about gay marriage. Not whether it should be allowed, but rather the point that a lot of people seem to be overlooking: instead of fighting over the meaning of the word “marriage,” folks should instead be discussing the civil rights of committed couples.
Senator Biden’s tears. When Biden spoke of knowing what it was like to be the only parent, “to not know if your child was going to make it” there were tears in his eyes. Instead of making him look weak, to me he looked stronger. (Joseph Biden’s first wife and year-old daughter died in a traffic accident in 1972. His two sons were critically injured but survived.)
Exxon Mobil’s Windfall profits. It seems that the Obama-Biden ticket is deadset on taxing Big Oil’s “windfall profits.” This makes me nervous. How will they tax non-US companies? And is it really fair to tax them because of the dollar amount? Sure, Exxon Mobil has profits in recent years that are larger than those of any other company in history.
People love to go on about that. But those are only record profits when you measure them in dollars. If you instead measure them as a percentage of revenue (the “margin”), they’re relatively small, something like 20%. By comparison, companies in the software industry tend to have profits in excess of 30%.
The difference is that our lifestyle is built on cheap oil, not cheap software. so “Big Oil” is an easy target. Beyond that, I’m just not comfortable with the government deciding how much profit is “acceptable” and how much is “too much” based on the passions of the moment.
Overall, I think Senator Biden “won” versus Governor Palin. I’m looking forward to visiting FactCheck.org to see who was right, but there were several times where Biden corrected Palin along the lines of, “I know which vote you’re talking about and here’s the background of why I [or Obama] voted that way” or “I know which vote you’re talking about and here’s the details you’ve left out.”
All in all, I found the debate informative. I’ve not made up my mind yet, but it was all useful input.
One question though, did anyone count how many times the two candidates used the word “maverick”?