So I guess President Obama won’t be wanting me to work in his administration. Not that I’ve heard back from him since I filled out his ‘long form’ application. Apparently there’s an even longer form required for aspiring Obamites, who are expected to provide an unprecedented amount of information.
In 63 questions over seven pages, prospective White House employees are being asked — in addition to questions about finances, gun ownership and, possibly, flossing habits — to list “all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet,†everything they’ve written, “including, but not limited to, any posts or comments on blogs or other websites,†links to their Facebook or MySpace pages and any potentially embarrassing “electronic communication, including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message.â€
Oy. Why not add Google image searches and web browsing history to the list, too?
Well, sorry ‘O’ but I don’t think I’d be willing to do all that. It’s not like I’ve been palin’ around with terrorists or have some wacko former preacher of mine on videotape screaming ‘God damn America,’ (sometimes it pays to be a godless heathen) but you can kiss my ass if you think I’m going to list every ‘potentially embarrassing’ freakin’ e-mail and text message I’ve ever written.
I pretty much only have one online ‘persona,’ and I’m pretty sure all you’d have to do is spend a couple minutes poking around this blog to find some disqualifying thought crime. Lots of them, no doubt (I do have a tendency to say ‘fuck’ on occasion, which ought to do it right there). Hell, my baby photo alone is probably enough to keep me out of your inner circle.
I guess I’m not too surprised, what with Obama ‘caving’ on FISA and Teleco immunity (although, in retrospect, it doesn’t look so much like caving on principles as much as clarifying them).
Too bad, too, since the NY State Comptroller is predicting a loss of as many as 225,000 private sector jobs here (175,000 in NY City, but we’ve lost so many jobs upstate over the years that I don’t know where another 50,000 will come from), which translates into a huge loss of tax revenue, which aint good for those of us in the public sector. So I coulda used that job as your Telecom Czar there, Barack, and I dare day I’d have been a good fit, too.
Except I reckon I’m way too Liberal for you.
It seems like that’s the way most jobs go anymore. Personality tests and credit checks usually disqualify me. And what’s scary is that since the Obama administration is taking these measures a lot of employers will think it’s a great idea and start using the same approach to hiring. Thought crimes indeed. I can see why he’s being ultra careful about his staff and all because of the nastiness that the right wing spin machine has been responsible for for the past 30 years. Buying into it isn’t going to stop it though. It just takes us where these control freaks want to go, a closed society where everyone is afraid to say what they think for fear of not being able to get a job. This, along with all the cameras everywhere you go makes “1984” more real than fiction.
So PJ, I know there’s probably no way for you to lie about the MS blog but what about us? If we’re using a handle how can anyone find our comments by googling? Or are there more sophisticated ways of finding one’s comments online?
That’s a pretty cute baby picture, BTW. :rofl2:
PJ, you were a very cute baby. Of course I think your parents were very remiss in allowing you to smoke, but I’m sure the beer was helpful in seeing that you slept well.
As for Obama, around here I don’t remember anyone thinking he was a true liberal, but then neither was FDR, the scourge of the wingnuts, a liberal when he began, either. But, I like his stimulus plan that will build infrastructure and windfarms while it creates jobs. Most of all I’m convinced that his picks for the Supreme Court won’t be Alito-like (I believe he voted against both Alito and Roberts).
The WPA provided a lot of jobs in the 30’s. My mother, who couldn’t get a job as a teacher, ran and ed program and my father taught English to foreign-born as part of that program. My father-in-law built roads in Montana as part of the CCC . So maybe we’ll all meet digging holes for windmills. If not, I’m told selling apples on street corners was quite fashionable.
Brother can you spare a dime!
Gotta work (while I still have a job)!
Hey, KP, go ahead and google ‘Kristapea’ and you’ll see all kinds of stuff. Of course, linking that to your ‘real’ self is a different matter, but then there’s enough information around where somebody could probably figure it out if they were truly motivated. And that’s without using government surveillance techniques to track you down by IP address, intercepting your e-mails, etc.
It’s a brave new world out there.
Yeah, the infrastructure rebuilding proposal is a good one, if it actually happens. Problem is, these things usually just turn out to be a big money grab for the politicians and their friends. Hopefully that can be limited as much as possible. It would be nice to put people back to work rebuilding all the things that 36 years of Republican (and Republican-lite) rule have torn down or allowed to fall apart.
Yeah, I knew a lot would come up as Kristapea and I wish now that I had come up with a more obscure handle :smack: But I’m not gonna hide or be ashamed of what I have said here and anywhere else. The right to express oneself freely is the first amendment to our tattered Constitution and I think we need to fight back on this back door attempt to squelch free speech. I’m an artist, dammit! It’s my job to express myself! :fustrate:
PJ, the President-elect has received an estimated 10,000 applications a day for ~9,000 jobs. I’m not even gonna try although I live in the neighborhood.
36 years ago Richard Nixon was re-elected. Shouldn’t the GOP-controled economy span be 40 years. However, real Democrats controlled Congress until 1980 when they rolled over for Reagan after a disastrous Carter Presidency.
Something that bothers me about the transition is the rumour the out-going regime will not be held accountable for their actions by the Obama administration. That doesn’t send a very good message to the world. We don’t need a McCarthy-style witch-hunt but we do need to demonstrate a sense of accountability especially when it is our form of government, the backbone of all societies, that has been assaulted. Otherwise we remain a land of lawless, warring factions, just like Iraq.
The United States was a nation ruled by law until the Goldwaterian-Reaganites (read neo-cons) took control. 1980 was the year real conservatism died in the United States. The GOP sold its soul to the radical right religions that year and took all of us down with them.
The real crime this week is the Thnaksgiving Day football offerings. If Arizona at Philadelphia is the best the NFL can do then let’s hear it for tryptophan. Pleasant dreams.
I don’t really expect to hear from them, though I thought maybe my experience at Joe Biden’s law school alma mater might flag my application. That and perhaps the work I did in conjunction with the DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crimes. But, after being forced to live in DC for one summer a couple years back, I really have no desire to live there ever again (unless I can make telecom policy).
I’ll have a little of this on the side with the turkey
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html?source=rss
Wow, that’s pretty cool-looking.
He could’a been a contenda
:turkey:
Romance and Cigarettes :rofl2:
That squid is pretty cool but I wouldn’t want to encounter it in person. :omg:
puppies :pup: :pup: :pup: :pup: :pup: :pup:
U.S. health officials have found trace amounts of the chemical melamine in one sample of infant formula sold in the United States, a Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
“There’s no basis for concern because we’re talking about trace levels that are so low … that there’s absolutely no risk,” FDA spokeswoman Judy Leon said.
snip
But Leon said that was not the case with the U.S. infant formula, which in September was determined not to be made with any Chinese ingredients.
The new results “are most likely a result of the manufacturing process or what comes into contact with formula in cans. It’s not adulteration and it’s not contamination,” she said.
Leon declined to name the manufacturer of the sample found to contain melamine. U.S.-approved makers include Abbott Nutrition, Bristol-Myers Squibb unit MeadJohnson Nutritionals and Nestle USA.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4AO9FZ20081126?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
U.S. President George W. Bush, who quit drinking at 40, was apparently drinking a Peruvian cocktail during a meeting on Saturday.
Pisco Sour is a cocktail containing Pisco (a Peruvian brandy), lemon juice, egg whites, simple syrup, and regional bitters.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/25/bush-drinking-again-downs_n_146453.html
:alc: :alc:
I always knew they musta started you early.