kaizen
what's been floating my boat lately:
  • getting work done.

    • "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-

    ARCHIVES HERE

    11/7/22 (21:29)

  • Mid-terms tomorrow. Usually this is bad news for the incumbent party and I think that trend will hold. I think Stacey Abrams will lose and cry about it again. I think Dr. Oz will win because he's going up against someone who is mentally challenged at this point. I think Hershel Walker will barely win.
  • Abrams just doesn't have a wide appeal in GA. She plays well to the NPR types and progressives and would probably win in CA or NY, but she's running in GA and I'm just guessing that the politics there are different.
  • Oz/Fetterman is closer. Fetterman had probably the worst debate performance I've ever seen and he's clearly mentally compromised. PA voters have to choose between a rubber stamp for the Dems or Dr. Oz. I can understand a rubber stamp vote, but I don't know that it will be persuasive enough for the marginal voter so I had Oz there.
  • Walker/Warnock is a tough one. Warnock won in the runoff last time around so I'm tempted to pick him here. Walker has had a slew of personal issues come up and isn't the brightest guy, but the low expectations helped him in the debate, where, from what I saw, he did well enough. Warnock is playing to the middle by running ads bragging he he's worked with Republicans like Ted Cruz on legislation...basically showing that he's willing to work with the other side as long as it helps GA. Hopefully he's rewarded for this, but I would bet on Walker if I were a betting man.
  • Reps will win the House no problem. I think they'll narrowly win the Senate as well.
  • Dems got abortion on the ballot in only 5 states and one of them is CA so they dropped the ball there.
  • There's been an Atlantic article going around from Emily Oster (who I respect). I've yet to read it, but heard the pundits on both sides talking about it. Basically she's calling for a COVID amnesty...I think it's specifically for the people who over-reacted to it and encouraged masking while hiking outside or the officials who closed schools and parks at all costs, etc. Most of the people I listen to have basically had the response of "go fuck yourself" to the amnesty idea because they're very hot about the COVID lockdowns and response from the tight asses who seemed to win the argument (especially in places like CA and NY). And while I agree with this sentiment and have been a long-time under-reactor to the COVID hysteria, I think we do need to exhibit some grace in society. Let's say that my position of continuing to work and not wanting to close schools or have mandatory n95 masks, etc. was the right position in hindsight (I would argue it was). Let's say the Great Barrington Declaration was the right response all along (I would argue it was). As much as we might be tempted to spike the football when that was proven correct, or when someone like a Fauci theoretically admits they overreacted, we can't do that. We must accept "victory" in our correct position with grace. You have to be gracious in your victories. You have to encourage others to admit they were wrong instead of punishing them. If you punish someone for admitting they got something wrong then you create a disincentive for future admissions.
  • One thing I'd do if I were president is practice this type of thinking vigorously. It's kinda like that scene from 8 Mile where Eminem lays out all the ways in which he knows his opposition will attack him and he silences his adversary in the process. Be gracious, be honest, be the first to admit your own shortcomings. I think people will respect that in the long run. Battling the media the entire time is the tough part.
  • I do a fair amount of work for a self storage company that has a bunch of facilities in the bay area. Our job today entailed opening a chain link fence because a deer got stuck between the storage building and the fence and died there. It had been there at least two weeks, but not long enough to have decomposed yet. The smell was pretty thick and the maggots were plentiful. Didn't bother me too much thankfully. We also didn't have to take care of the body so we didn't have the worst job. The funny thing about it was that it was on the storage facility's property, but the only way to get there was through the neighboring property, which was an army base. So the storage company had to coordinate with the army base to provide escorted access. Then they wanted to get animal control there as well, but the schedules didn't work out so the storage guys used a shovel to put the body in a garbage bin. When they did that the remaining guts and maggots stayed behind and I guess I'd say that was the climax of the job. After they got the body out we put the fence back together and got out of there.
  • Pretty messed up way to die...must have been stuck between the building and the fence for a while and just starved to death. This is the kind of thing that motivates me to appreciate what I have each day. I hate the little annoyances in life probably more than most people and I wish I didn't, but I also think about how fortunate we are to have what we have. I think about how fragile life is and try not to take for granted that we have a society that eliminates many of the more grizzly ways of dying. To the extent that I complain about all the ways in which we are screwing things up, I do so because I'm so disappointed in how we are treating what the former generations gave us. I'm disappointed because I know that things could be even better if we just employed some common sense and stuck to some core principles.
  • The worst smell I've ever experienced is a two way tie: lower freeborn hall grease trap being emptied at like 3am while I was a DJ at KDVS and a refrigerator full of rotting meat that was just left on the sidewalk in Oakland. The deer was bad and it's probably the most maggots I've seen in one place, but the smell wasn't the worst ever.

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