This is what we know. There's this Virginia eighth-grade teacher....handling this civics honors class....who we shall leave as nameless.....who gave his eight-grade group this project. The emphasis of the project? They had to watch one of the recent debates with the four remaining Republican candidates....doing what you'd amount to as research. You had to list out the positions of your guy, which you were assigned. I won't use the word "weakness" but I would imagine the teacher tried to make them find this and write it out.
At the end, the teacher wanted the kids to find a point on the internet, where they could email to the candidate or the Democratic party. But they didn't really have to send it to the Obama team.
I sat and pondered over this. Naturally, a bunch of parents from this district are upset about what occurred. But I thought it over and considered several facts.
First, any idiot adult who takes political research from a 14-year old kid.....is an absolute idiot. If the Democrats are relying on 14-year old kids to deliver the 'bad news'.....it says some pretty comical stuff.
Second, if you asked any eighth-grade kid to explain politics to you.....they'd basically look at you and freeze. If you asked about the infield-fly rule, out-of-bounds, the chief characters of Gilligan's Island, the words to a recent rap song, or the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos.....they'd do a pretty good job. Beyond that.....you've got mostly a bunch kids with no real knowledge base.
Third, this civics honors stuff? It's what kids now toss onto their resume to a fancy-pants college.....in hopes of convincing them that they have the right stuff to attend some $30k a year university, and that they've washed old folk's necks, trimmed grass on library lawns, ran a homeless shelter for eight hours, and rebuilt a 1934 Ford sedan. When I was a kid....we didn't have this honors crap, and you mostly just tried to stay out of trouble, graduate, and get a job with the paper mill.
Fourth, and final....an eighth-grade kid....analyzing Ron Paul? Can you imagine this poor kid....sitting in the living room after watching the whole episode.....shocked at how different Ron Paul is from the group, and trying to get Grandma to comment. Grandma say: ".....he's nuts". The kid turns to Uncle Karl, who flips out from his Vietnam drug episodes one night a week, and he talks for an hour about the brilliant Ron Paul, but he makes just as much nonsense as Ron Paul.
So finally, you turn to your dad....your pillar of inspiration. Dad is a bit stoic in nature, and has simply a one-liner....."If Ron Paul was selling tractor tires, I'd buy two", and leaves it at that. You can imagine the kid trying to write this commentary up for a stupid honors class....and the best that he can offer the Obama team on the weakness stuff....is your dad's commentary about buying two tractor tires from Ron Paul. You can imagine $100k being spent now by the President's team....on some stupid tractor tire video advertisement....how the President is a better salesman of tractor tires, than contender Ron Paul.
Sadly, the nation has slipped and fallen, and just can't get up.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Government Logic
When I came to the Pentagon two years ago....we had this nifty Xerox copier/scanner. This $15k machine is a beast and proudly works like a champ. In an average week, I need to PDF around twenty documents, which flow up and down various channels, and it merely takes 90 seconds to put in my email address, hit scan, and it copies it into PDF format....then ships it out to my email box.
In a matter of days....this enormous "power" will go away. My agency (to remain unnamed) has come to this conclusion....that I cannot be trusted with PDF-power. So when I scan....it'll go into a magic digital folder, where only appointed and special people....will read the document, and determine if I'm protecting it to the degree required. Classified information? No.....in two years, I have not touched a single classified document. Everything is just plain unclassified.
How much time has been added to a process? Well....I would be guessing that if I scanned three documents in the morning....provided the one and only person in my group is around.....I might see the documents by 1PM. If the one and only person is not around......it might be tomorrow....or even next week.
How do you get to be the person with power to release scanned PDF documents? I'm curious about this....but it's best not to ask.
It's kinda like Superman and his X-Ray vision.....with folks feeling uneasy about what he could see or not see. So there's a special person who previews what Superman could see....if he had full-power, but he doesn't.
The sad thing here.....I'd be better off taking documents for PDF production home, and doing them on my cheapo Canon printer/scanner, and then emailing them to work. Or, I could walk over to the Air Force area of the Pentagon and ask someone to scan the document for me, and just email it to me. The Army guys would do the same....as would the Navy.
Luckily, my organization hasn't analyzed if I flush once, or twice when I do my bathroom business. If they knew I tended to flush twice....they'd have to remove my flushing powers, and regulate someone to be "the flusher". Maybe it's true....I just can't be trusted.
Update: one of the smart guys in the unit said yesterday that there is some plan underway to invent a print-server operation....where the old method could just continue on. The problem is....they haven't been able to make such a thing to work yet. It's like standing in the midst of WWII, knowing the Nazis are working on a nuke bomb, and you are begging for Einstein to just come through and invent this damn nuke bomb to save America.
In a matter of days....this enormous "power" will go away. My agency (to remain unnamed) has come to this conclusion....that I cannot be trusted with PDF-power. So when I scan....it'll go into a magic digital folder, where only appointed and special people....will read the document, and determine if I'm protecting it to the degree required. Classified information? No.....in two years, I have not touched a single classified document. Everything is just plain unclassified.
How much time has been added to a process? Well....I would be guessing that if I scanned three documents in the morning....provided the one and only person in my group is around.....I might see the documents by 1PM. If the one and only person is not around......it might be tomorrow....or even next week.
How do you get to be the person with power to release scanned PDF documents? I'm curious about this....but it's best not to ask.
It's kinda like Superman and his X-Ray vision.....with folks feeling uneasy about what he could see or not see. So there's a special person who previews what Superman could see....if he had full-power, but he doesn't.
The sad thing here.....I'd be better off taking documents for PDF production home, and doing them on my cheapo Canon printer/scanner, and then emailing them to work. Or, I could walk over to the Air Force area of the Pentagon and ask someone to scan the document for me, and just email it to me. The Army guys would do the same....as would the Navy.
Luckily, my organization hasn't analyzed if I flush once, or twice when I do my bathroom business. If they knew I tended to flush twice....they'd have to remove my flushing powers, and regulate someone to be "the flusher". Maybe it's true....I just can't be trusted.
Update: one of the smart guys in the unit said yesterday that there is some plan underway to invent a print-server operation....where the old method could just continue on. The problem is....they haven't been able to make such a thing to work yet. It's like standing in the midst of WWII, knowing the Nazis are working on a nuke bomb, and you are begging for Einstein to just come through and invent this damn nuke bomb to save America.
Trying to Make Sense Out of Nonsense
So you add this up.
Keystone XL oil folks wanted this extra-long pipeline, which would go from Canada....down to the Gulf coast region. It had to pass through Nebraska.....which has a God-blessed aquifer. To be honest....this magnificent aquifer crosses over into eight states, but Nebraska is the only state that treats the aquifer like a national park....to be preserved for eternity.
Based on some reservations.....the Nebraska guys weren't happy with the oil pipeline. Why they weren't happy with the other couple dozen pipelines that already exist.....no one has ever explained in a public forum.
The President said he just wouldn't make this decision to approve the Keystone deal....until after the election. Naturally, this made environmentalists happy, but the odds are.....he'll approve the rest of the deal after the November election....which doesn't explain why any environmentalist would be happy with the President.....and this hasn't been explained a public forum either.
The shipment of Canadian oil via trains? Well....yeah. Canadian is crossing the plains of Nebraska today....on Canadian-owned trains, and no one really cares. There could be an accident and tons of crude could seep down into the God-blessed aquifer, but no one has appeared on any public forum to explain why this is ok, but a pipeline is not.
The President, by news accounts late yesterday, will approve the building of a pipeline from Oklahoma, down to the Gulf....in support of the Keystone folks. They can start on this ASAP. The President's team hints that they can fast-track this paperwork.....building half-a-pipeline.....with full approval of the paperwork within weeks. Why build only half-a-pipeline? Well....no one has appeared in any public forum to explain why half is better nothing.
How many pipelines have required Presidential approval in the history of America? Well....no one has appeared in any public forum to explain why this is the first episode.
What hinders Keystone on this exceptional half-a-pipeline deal? Well.....they haven't even submitted the request yet. If you can't get the oil through Nebraska....then there's no reason to submit any paperwork. Naturally, no one has appeared in a public forum to explain why no paperwork has been submitted.
Who will buy Keystone oil....if it was delivered down to the Gulf? Well....Keystone won't really talk about that. They'd like to hint that America will buy the oil....but the truth is that the highest bidder gets it. So if it's China, or Ireland, or France....you might not be as happy about this whole mess. Of course, no one has appeared in a public forum to explain why this all might be for nothing....with oil shipped out to a non-US company.
The jobs tied to this mess? One group proudly says 100k jobs are tied to the pipeline construction and oil operation. A university crew says 5k jobs. A public forum might put this into proper prospective, but thankfully, we won't be having any public forums on this.
In the end...you would have been better off predicting the 2013 NCAA football champs than guessing if the Keystone pipeline ever gets built.
Keystone XL oil folks wanted this extra-long pipeline, which would go from Canada....down to the Gulf coast region. It had to pass through Nebraska.....which has a God-blessed aquifer. To be honest....this magnificent aquifer crosses over into eight states, but Nebraska is the only state that treats the aquifer like a national park....to be preserved for eternity.
Based on some reservations.....the Nebraska guys weren't happy with the oil pipeline. Why they weren't happy with the other couple dozen pipelines that already exist.....no one has ever explained in a public forum.
The President said he just wouldn't make this decision to approve the Keystone deal....until after the election. Naturally, this made environmentalists happy, but the odds are.....he'll approve the rest of the deal after the November election....which doesn't explain why any environmentalist would be happy with the President.....and this hasn't been explained a public forum either.
The shipment of Canadian oil via trains? Well....yeah. Canadian is crossing the plains of Nebraska today....on Canadian-owned trains, and no one really cares. There could be an accident and tons of crude could seep down into the God-blessed aquifer, but no one has appeared on any public forum to explain why this is ok, but a pipeline is not.
The President, by news accounts late yesterday, will approve the building of a pipeline from Oklahoma, down to the Gulf....in support of the Keystone folks. They can start on this ASAP. The President's team hints that they can fast-track this paperwork.....building half-a-pipeline.....with full approval of the paperwork within weeks. Why build only half-a-pipeline? Well....no one has appeared in any public forum to explain why half is better nothing.
How many pipelines have required Presidential approval in the history of America? Well....no one has appeared in any public forum to explain why this is the first episode.
What hinders Keystone on this exceptional half-a-pipeline deal? Well.....they haven't even submitted the request yet. If you can't get the oil through Nebraska....then there's no reason to submit any paperwork. Naturally, no one has appeared in a public forum to explain why no paperwork has been submitted.
Who will buy Keystone oil....if it was delivered down to the Gulf? Well....Keystone won't really talk about that. They'd like to hint that America will buy the oil....but the truth is that the highest bidder gets it. So if it's China, or Ireland, or France....you might not be as happy about this whole mess. Of course, no one has appeared in a public forum to explain why this all might be for nothing....with oil shipped out to a non-US company.
The jobs tied to this mess? One group proudly says 100k jobs are tied to the pipeline construction and oil operation. A university crew says 5k jobs. A public forum might put this into proper prospective, but thankfully, we won't be having any public forums on this.
In the end...you would have been better off predicting the 2013 NCAA football champs than guessing if the Keystone pipeline ever gets built.
The Wrong Priority
You can usually tell when a city council has peaked out and has a full-time job to do a part-time function. This week....the LA city council moves to a resolution which will condemn (as much as a city council can do) various types of speech that might be uttered over airways within their city. The goal? They've decided that radio hosts are using racist and sexist comments during their conversations on the air.
They will cite various examples....the Rush Limbaugh issue.....the comments made about Whitney Houston after her death....etc.
You've got two issues here if you sit long enough to think about it.
First, there's the radio crowd which is desperate enough to say just about anything....to get you peppered up and locked onto listening to their product. While getting their crowd locked into place....they naturally anchor the anti-crowd into place and they start voicing complaints.
Second, there's the city council crowd.....which are desperate to lock their crowd into place....so they tend to pick the anti-position, and then yank on the political cord for a while.
The sad thing here is that you've got just as many potholes on the streets of LA....as you had last year. You've got just as much crime, as you had last year. You've got just as many distressed businesses this year.....as you had last year. With all the various problems....you'd think that the city council would prioritize things. But in this whacked up world.....containing "slut" speech is more important than creating 100 new jobs.
They will cite various examples....the Rush Limbaugh issue.....the comments made about Whitney Houston after her death....etc.
You've got two issues here if you sit long enough to think about it.
First, there's the radio crowd which is desperate enough to say just about anything....to get you peppered up and locked onto listening to their product. While getting their crowd locked into place....they naturally anchor the anti-crowd into place and they start voicing complaints.
Second, there's the city council crowd.....which are desperate to lock their crowd into place....so they tend to pick the anti-position, and then yank on the political cord for a while.
The sad thing here is that you've got just as many potholes on the streets of LA....as you had last year. You've got just as much crime, as you had last year. You've got just as many distressed businesses this year.....as you had last year. With all the various problems....you'd think that the city council would prioritize things. But in this whacked up world.....containing "slut" speech is more important than creating 100 new jobs.
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