The guys on the lo-cal news this morning are wearing pink (the kinda cute female talking head with the really good porn star name — who they dumped the pleasant but goonie-faced broad for when they went to hi-def because I guess they figured it was too early in the morning to look at her in HD — isn’t wearing pink, though, so maybe she didn’t get the memo). Is this some sort of pink holiday that I’m unaware of? Not that I have any pink apparel, assuming you discount the socks and underwear that snuck in the wash with my red sweatpants. I think they’re long gone, though (as are the sweats, ‘cuz my wife kept making fun of them – actually, the real reason is I think they finally disintegrated; had them for a few decades). There was some sort of red holiday the other day, too. Something to do with the heart association, I think, where I was supposed to wear red and have my picture taken at work, for which I would receive a stupid pin.
Of course, I neither wore red (my eyes were a bit red) nor deigned to have my picture taken, but had a pin foisted upon me nonetheless (where it will sit on my desk until such time as it falls behind something and is forever lost. I’m really not much for group participation, which is why I’ve opted out of the “dollars for denim” scheme (it started out as “jingle for jeans”) somebody or other came up with, where you pay $10 a month for the privilege of wearing dungarees on Friday. I prefer to keep my charitable donations to myself, and my dungarees are working clothes, not suitable for the office.
It never ceases to amaze me how much time and effort people put in to all this bullshit. Every pissant holiday and cause, somebody’s coming around with their hands out for money. Donations, raffle tickets, overpriced candy bars, popcorn & cookies – you name it. Frankly, I have shit to do at work, and would just as soon be left the f*ck alone to do it.
We also have “walkers” where I work. One woman in particular (not sure where she works; not in my office) appears to get paid to walk briskly about the building (around the building in warm weather), huffing and puffing, swinging her arms dramatically with her headphones on and a stupid f*cking look on her face. I really shouldn’t care, but for some reason the sight of her bugs me, and whenever I see her, I have to resist the urge to punch her in the face. Now, if somebody wants to sell tickets for a buck a whack, that I might go for. Not that she’s huge or anything, but for all the f*cking walking she does, she ought to pretty skinny, but it appears that in between laps around the building, she’s eating donuts or something.
Speaking of the lo-cal news, I think they’ve reviewed their demographics, and have now decided to be the “news for morons” leader in the area. First, the weather dork tells us that the weather satellite is “a big fancy camera in space that takes pictures of clouds” then the financial planner dude’s tip is that “retiring early will affect your social security,” in an interview regarding a guilty plea in a murder case, the DA says that “if the evidence hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have plead guilty,” the porn star chick informs us that “potholes can damage your car,” and then, not to be outdone, the weather dork comes back with, “the satellite picture shows clouds, and the radar image shows rain and snow – which we call ‘pre-cip-i-tation.’ ” Can you say that? Sure. I knew you could.
WTF, did I go to bed in NY last night, and wake up in Mississippi?
Speaking of news, I guess Lara Logan got pretty brutally attacked over there by the freedom lovers trying to bring democracy (or at least martial law – and thank goodness for the military, who, along with a group of women, managed to save her before she was ripped to pieces) to Egypt. CBS News has issued a statement saying that they’ll make no more statements, and they hope everyone will respect her privacy. Which of course everybody should, but you can rest assured CBS wouldn’t respect anybody else’s privacy, and would have people camped out on her doorstep ready to shout questions and ask her how it made her feel to get brutally attacked, with teevee doctors speculating over what her injuries and prognosis might be, and in general making her life even more miserable than it no doubt is at the moment until she agreed to do an “exclusive” on one of the idiot morning shows.
It’s supposed to be warm today, even warmer tomorrow, and even, even warmer on Friday (colder for the weekend, or course). That’s all I need is a little glimpse of spring to cheer me up and recharge my batteries. And give me a chance to fix my busted tire chain (had to pull them both off until I figure something out – much smoother ride, I must say, but it could make moving snow a little tougher).
Oh well, I think I hear the sound of Granny draining the coffee pot (and not making more; see how she is?), so I guess I’d better get to work on fixing another one.
32 days, 13 hours ’til spring!
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin…
Wisconsin Republicans have called a halt to a marathon public hearing on their plan to strip almost all public workers of their collective bargaining rights.
The hearing in front of the Legislature’s finance committee began around midmorning on Tuesday. Hundreds of public workers lined up to speak in hopes of delaying the committee’s vote on the measure.
The hearing dragged on and on. Dozens of University of Wisconsin-Madison students and teaching assistants put down sleeping bags and blankets and slept in the state Capitol’s rotunda.
Republican House member Robin Vos finally ended the hearing at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning. Democrats said they would continue to listen to workers who still wanted to speak.
The committee is expected to return later in the day to vote.
Not that it will have any affect on the vote, I’m sure.
The population of South Dakota is 812,383. New York State has with a population of 18,976,457. Yet Senators Johnson and Thune have the same voting weight as Schumer and Gillibrand. Washington DC has a population of 599,657. They have no representation at all.
This is an odd definition of a democracy or a republic.
On the bright side, if we could get less than 5% of NYS residents to move to SD, we could so totally take them over.
North Dakota: 636,677
Montana: 646,844
Wyoming: 509,294
Idaho: 1,429,096
Wisconsin: 5,536,201
Oklahoma: 3,547,884
Maine: 1,321,505
14 senators represent these 18+ million people.
2 senators represent 36,132,147 in California.
Madison school district officials have canceled school Wednesday.
“Due to substantial concerns of excessive staff absences, the Madison School District is forced to close all of our schools to students on Wednesday, February 16, 2011,” according to an e-mail from the Madison School District sent at 11 p.m. Tuesday. “We regret having to make this decision, but with the significant percentage of staff members reporting absences for Wednesday we can not assure the safety of all students.”
According to the district, as of Tuesday night 40 percent of the 2,600 members of the teacher bargaining unit called in sick.
“It is expected that this number will continue to increase through Wednesday morning,” the e-mail said. “At this ratio we have serious concerns about our ability to maintain safe and secure school environments.”
Officials said despite a substantial number of substitute teachers, there are not enough available teachers to come close to filling the need for Wednesday.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_acba30f4-398a-11e0-b927-001cc4c03286.html
I’m sure the National Guard will make excellent replacement teachers.
This is a “State” hospital that Andy Cuomo wants to starve of all state funding.
😮 😮 I was just helping out on the Oncology floor today — all the faces in the video are very familiar! Good, well intentioned compassionate people practicing Slash/Burn/Poison medicine because it’s all they know — I would hope that part of the research being done at the new Cancer Center includes Integrative Medicine, but I won’t hold my breath. Need to learn more about what their plans are.
Stan the Man’s ‘greatest day’
:yippee: :banana: :pup: