kaizen
what's
been floating my boat lately:
"How fortunate for governments
that the people they administer don't think."
-Hitler-
"Only two things are
infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the
former."
-Albert Einstein-
5/16/22 (22:02)
Long day. 13 hours
working and driving. Back hurts.
We bit off a lot
and we're absolutely drowning in work. One guy taking a week off next week.
Another guy took a week off a couple weeks ago. Then the usual missed days
here and there because of immigration, family issues, etc. Missed days
aside, we just have too much work right now. Luckily I picked up some temporary
help - a nephew of two of my current guys. So, we're at 6 guys plus me
and still just treading water.
Truck is in the
shop at the worst possible time, but it was due for a couple things and
I don't have the time to do it myself so I'm hoping this new place can
take care of things before it leaves me stranded at an even worse time.
Edwin finally got
his papers...he's been a refugee from Guatemala for 3 years and he finally
got the papers. Long process. Good news for him. Now hopefully I can get
him to paint a room without destroying a paint brush or dripping everywhere...
Lots of things
happened in the last month or so...
Will Smith slapped
Chris Rock. At first I thought it was a publicity stunt/joke, but then
I saw the video and it appeared to be genuine. The people sticking up for
him are truly lost. I heard some defending him on the grounds that it was
great to see a man stand up for a black woman. I mean, we're really losing
our minds at this point. And just imagine reactions if the races were different.
God, we're living in such fraught and idiotic times. Depressing. That's
all the energy I have for that one right now.
Roe vs. Wade appears
to be going down. The leaking of the draft is a big deal and I think it
should lead to professional consequences (accountability being a top priority).
I don't know how much I buy that it is putting lives at risk or any of
that. I am pretty much a judicial realist at this point. I think that judges
essentially have an opinion and then rationalize towards that. In that
way I think they are as human as any of us, only more well-equiped to rationalize
things, seeing as they are all of greater intelligence than the average
person. I've joked before about...from 11/21/06: "i've also thought quite
a bit about the abortion issue lately. i think it comes down to this: when
do i believe life begins? well, i've looked back at my old ap biology textbook
and found a clear definition of life, a definition that includes all lifeforms.
comparing this with fetal progression charts i've come to the conclusion
that human life occurs 392 hours after conception. so, my stated opinion
is that abortion should be legal before this scientifically proven timeframe.
after this time we must consider the child a human being, and thus abortion
would be considered murder. i am a reasonable person, though. i understand
that the woman is also a human with her own will, needs, wants, and rights.
thus i have developed a secondary solution for the time frame between the
392 hour non-human window and birth. henceforth we shall treat these baby
humans as renters, and the women as landlords. thus, the government will
pay the women a small rent on behalf of the child during this window. this,
of course, will be worked off by the child at a later date. further, if
the woman wishes to abort her child past the 392 hour window she must give
her renter one month notice. this notice must be filed in duplicate to
HUD (the department of housing and urban development) as well as a new
agency which will be created to link vacant landlords with renters looking
for a place to live. in other words, potential surrogates with unwanted
babies. if, after one month, the renter has not found a new landlord, the
woman is allowed to evict the squatter at her discretion.
and with that post
i bury all thoughts of ever holding public office."
In all seriousness,
I think neither side is even remotely capable of steelmanning the other
side on this issue. It's amazing how these issues (abortion, gun rights,
etc.) turn off peoples' brains so thoroughly. If the pro-choice side had
adopted a more moderate stance (like that of many European nations) earlier
then maybe that would have softened opposition a bit. Instead they took
the same hard line as some 2A types take on guns. Of course each party
is beholden to the nuts at the extremes and I think it's to each parties
detriment.
The things we can't
say anymore is just so strange. You can say that all lives are precious
and should be respected. However, if
you say that all lives matter you can get fired from your job. 10 years
ago such a thing would be impossible to imagine. To imagine a distinction
between "all lives are precious" and "all lives matter" and to imagine
the consequences for getting that distinction wrong would have been absurd.
It still is, we just accept it now.
Back to abortion...it's
funny to listen to both the left and right on this and see that each side
is employing the racism attack to demonize the other. The right says points
out that fact that the Planned Parenthood founder (Margaret Sanger) was
a eugenicist and they claim this means that abortion is about aborting
unfit babies, which would include black babies. Then the left will say
that white supremacists wanted to stop black babies from being born and
encouraged white women to "open their loins" and procreate to further the
race. I don't think any of them really care about the history of abortion.
I think one side wants and the other doesn't. From there they will find
whatever facts help their side or hurt the other and deploy those accordingly.
Some great 1-2
year stretches in movie/music history - Julie Andrews in Sound of Music
and Mary Poppins in back to back years. Black Sabbath first two albums
in 1970. Led Zeppelin I and II in 1969. Beatles with Help!, Rubber Soul,
Revolver in 1965-1966. Victor Fleming with Gone With The Wind and Wizard
of Oz in 1939.
Evolution is beautiful,
but not pretty.
Speaking of film
history...There was an antitrust case in 1948 (US vs. Paramount) that was
essentially about vertical integration. The film studios wanted to be able
to produce and distribute films as they desired. So, MGM would produce
a film and then release it in MGM theaters only. Fox did the same, etc.
This is why you might still see "Fox" theaters like the famous one in Westwood.
The US won the case and so you had theaters that were separated from the
film studios. MGM movies could play alongside Warner Brothers, etc. What's
funny about this is that it seems to have been completely forgotten. Netflix,
Apple, Amazon, etc. all do this today and I've literally never heard a
single person bring up this case or how it might be applied to the streaming
dispersion we see today.
Copyright
1998,
1999,
2000,
2001,
2002,
2003,
2004,
2005,
2006,
2007,
2008,
2009,
2010,
2011,
2012,
2013,
2014,
2015,
2016,
2017,
2018,
2019,
2020,
& 2021 by me.
everything
on here is my opinion, so don't sue me.