I succesfully auditioned to be the keyboard player for a local production of the....

...

...

ROCKY HORROR SHOW!!!!!



Should I put it in my sigline?

I'm going to vent two of my favourite obsessions. I work as a systems analyst so I spend a lot of time in meetings.

The purpose of many meetings is to pick the attendees of the meeting after the meeting where something actually gets accomplished.

In my line of work those end up being huddles in the hall or around somebody's desk or even in the washroom or else somebody calls a special meeting later in the week with the correct attendees. Given that it's often the same people attending these over and over, it often begs the question of having the original meeting in the first place. Where I work these are often "scheduled but cancelled by default" which works for me. Nevertheless, I could certainly see valid work happening in the carpool line.

The other was generated by a DU thread a few years ago showing a picture of a White House meeting.

I can't find the exact picture, but this one is similar.



Contrast this with Ford meeting with Cheney and Rumsfeld in 1975



Any meeting I attend, you're expected to have a copy of the agenda, the previous minutes and your papers for your contribution to the meeting.

Granted, I tend to go to "working meetings" so YMMV and people also have their Blackberries, cell phones, pagers, laptops, ipods, remotes for the overhead projector, keyboards for the main display computer so the conference room table ends up pretty crowded and messy - but something actually gets accomplished because everybody has everything they need at hand.

Nevertheless, somebody occasionally comes up with:

A messy desk is the sign of a messy mind.

Hence:

An empty desk....

Bear with me, I know this sounds like complete, utter madness.

I know I've been making a total nuisance of myself all over the place talking about this but even I wasn't expecting this.

Let me say this one last time and I'll try to shut up about it.

THEY WANT TO LOSE THIS ELECTION.

They have won beyond their wildest dreams. They won the moment the airplanes were hijacked.

Everything, absolutely everything since then has been gravy.

They got to do everything they wanted a hundred times over. They've looted everything, broken everything, stolen everthing. I won't even bother listing it all. You know what it is.

Everything is gone. The mortgage crisis was the last thing. 700 billions dollars will be looted and given to the Chinese who have successfully declared economic warfare on the United States.

Now they want to lose this election so the Democratic Party, like it always does every time this happens, slowly puts the pieces back together, fixes the infrastructure (hiring Republican contractors), rebuilds the economy and puts America back on its feet. The moment a dime is spent on a social program, the moment there's a spare nickel to steal, the Republican party will be on the war path, literally the warpath to do it all over again.

There is no need for a McCain campaign so he might as well stop right now. There is no need for a debate, so why bother.

They can put their feet up, smoke their Cuban cigars, eat their fancy French cuisine and watch the fun.

The solutions to the UI infections are causing GI problems, which then make the UI infections worse. It's been an endless circle. I feel like I'm in a House episode.

On top of that, she had a bad reaction to one of the medications that caused tachycardia. We had one of those "crash cart" scenes with people running around and bringing in more and more equipment and hooking up a million wires and everybody pointing at half-a-dozen different displays and I'm squished up against wall going .

She came in by ambulance. She's had an X-ray and an endoscope, been seen by at least five different doctors, had enough blood taken to keep a vampire happy, two IV's simultaneously, stool and urine samples. She's been there two days already and will be there at least two more days to get all the results sorted out.

You know what's really scaring me - the bill so far.

$2.95 - coffee
$8.00 - pop
$4.50 - milkshakes
$6.95 - sandwich combo
$0.35 - pay phone
$3.50 - parking
$4.95 - donuts

...oh, I forgot....

Uplift to semi-privite room - $24.00 per day, repayable by Blue Cross, and the room's not available yet and probably won't be the way things are going.
Ambulance - $119.00 (or something in that ball park - I don't get the bill), repayable by Blue Cross. I probably could have driven her but I thought the ambulance would be safer in case things got crazier on the way. They hung around for about half an hour making sure our paperwork at the hospital was sorted out and we were good to go.

At this rate I'll be bankrupt.

Yes, I'm kidding. By some wierd coincidence, I watched Sicko the day before all this happened, which brought it all home. The Canadian part was filmed in Ontario, which has shorter wait times than where I am (Alberta). We sat in Emergency for four hours before being seen, but the nurses were aware of the situation and were going around taking everybody's (OK, not mine) blood pressure and temperature every hour and if anything had changed, she'd have gotten bumped up the list. The problem was we were in the receiving hospital for one of the rougher parts of town AND the landing site for the air ambulance (which landed twice, shaking the building) AND the regional hub for outlying hospital for patients with cases too complicated for them to handle. I was seeing ambulances from places half-way across the province and multiple patients for two car accidents. I hit the pop machine later in the evening and the waiting room was deserted. There was no lineup for X-ray or diagnostic imaging, lots of beds in Endo, lab results were coming back right away, I was getting absolutely NO sleep 'cause of the nurses in and out checking on stuff, every time I'm in there they've got all new gadgets, replacing all the all new gadgets from the last time, you can't put your feet down 'cause somebody's mopping or swapping out the garbage and sharps collectors...


and it's... All. Fucking. Free.

They've been together for 15 years and finally tied the knot. There were about 20 witnesses.

Yes, everyone was nude, including the minister.

The Republicans got elected by appealing to politically and economically naive voters. These voters voted Republican for simplistic reasons (eg. "the Democrats will teach homosexuality in kindergaten", or "I want a God-fearing man in the White House") because they did not understand or believe what the Republicans were planning on doing next:

• Implementing a hugely expensive war on the wrong country for reasons that have since been proven to be lies
  
• Sending their sons and daughters off to this war and keeping them there with "stop loss" regulations
  
• Allowing private companies to make huge profits off this war
  
• massive election fraud
  
• driving up the price of oil, triggering hyperinflation
  
• devaluing US currency (a whole post in itself - if the Chinese called in their markers, the US would be bankrupt tomorrow)
  
• Destroying the public school system (No Child Left Behind) in favour of private and/or religious schools (vouchers)
  
• Deregulating industry and banking with a series of bills with titles implying the exact opposite causing...
  
  
  
  • jobs and entire industries (eg. manufacturing, electronics, call centre, IT) to go offshore
    
  • infrastructure (eg. bridges) to crumble
    
  • the banking industry to promote sub-prime, zero-down and other questionable mortgages to people who had no business having them
    
  • worthless mortgages (buried inside groupings of better-looking paper) being dumped on the stock market and snapped up by unwary banks, pension and retirement funds and individual investors
    
  • builders creating whole neighbourhoods of McMansions, no affordable or low-income housing
    
  • a housing price bubble/mania resembling the Dutch Tulip Mania
    
  
  

It's all going to come crashing down. They're just timing it so it happens after Bush leaves office. Then everything will get blamed on Obama. That's right, he will have been in office for 30 seconds and an economic "perfect storm" that has been brewing all the way back to Raygun will be blamed on him.

Get ready for:

• people stuck with houses for which they cannot pay mortgage, heat, light, power, taxes
  
• personal bankruptsies as their credit finally runs out triggering...
  
• business bankruptsies as people can no longer afford to shop triggering...
  
• bank failures - already happening but few people are noticing
  
• rising interest rates
  
• rising inflation
  
• rising unemployment
  

The Republicans, with access to all the billions they were allowed to hide off-shore, will buy up all the failed businesses, deadbeat banks, empty houses, dirt-cheap stock and anything else they can lay their hands on.

Of course, Obama and the Democratic Congress will spend billions and years fixing it all up. They will revitalize socialize programs, fix up the schools, the roads and the rest of the infrastructure like the good little Keynesians they are (Republicans are Straussian supply-siders or outright Fascists). They'll put a health care plan in place, fix up the hospitals, revitalize Social Security, refit the military and do a hundred other things to get the United States back on its feet economically and socially. But they'll have to buy everything from all those businesses the Republicans just finished buying up.

That's why they're running the stupidest, most idiotic campaign you can possibly imagine.

They tried running Dubya and that didn't work - they couldn't believe the American public would let them get away with it for as long as they did. Now they're desperate - they don't want to get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. So they're going to let Obama take the blame for everything, then fix everything up.

Then in four years, or however long it takes things to get put back together, the Republicans will run on the platform "the Democrats want to teach homosexuality in kindergarten" and it all starts again.

Source: CBC

A 40-year-old man is in custody in Manitoba after a young man was stabbed — and, witnesses said, decapitated — aboard a Greyhound bus travelling through the province overnight.

...

"While we were watching the door, he calmly walks up to the front with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," said Caton.



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/20...

---

The local CBC radio station has been interviewing people who were on the bus and people now afraid to board buses.

I know it's not the first time I've posted this but election time is getting closer.

I'm quite frankly concerned that you do NOT have your shit together in terms of getting your candidate elected. And if you don't start really, really soon, it's gonna be too late.

I've worked on election campaigns and for Elections Canada and I know what it takes to get a candidate elected - and very little of it has to do with the candidate.

Granted, Obama is a great candidate but that's useless unless you can actually get him elected. That means getting ballots into ballot boxes (or the mechanical or electronic equivalent) and having them counted and having the results matter.

The one big thing a great candidate will get you is great and committed volunteers. You're going to be needing them. Lots of them. You're going to be needing them for long haul so treat them nice. Get them top of the line tools to use; good computers, and phones. If you are volunteering, we need to hear from you loud and clear that it's a positive experience so others will want to join in.

You're going to need paid staff as well such as professional fundraisers, lawyers and campaign managers. Up here an election can be called almost literally at the drop of a hat. A friend of mine is a professional campaign manager. As soon as the writ is announced, his phone starts ringing off the hook 'cause everybody knows he's the best.

You need to know who your voters are. That's a long and arduous process. You've got to track them down wherever they are following changes in phone numbers and addresses. Ideally, you should be starting nearly a year in advance unless you've got one hell of a lot of volunteers. Once you've got this list, everything else follows. Guard it with your life.

You need to know that your voters can actually vote. You need voter registration drives. You need to tell us about your successfully voter registration drives and encourage others to do the same. As we found out in the last election, there is a concerted effort going on to disenfranchise voters. You need to find out if your people have been disenfranchised. If they have been, you need to get them un-disenfranchised (is that even a word?). This can be a long and arduous process so you need to start NOW! Get out your phone list and get on the phone. Tell us how it's going.

You need to make sure that your votes are actually counted. If you've got Diebold machines - scream bloody murder. Tell us so we can scream bloody murder. If you've got some other wierdass system (eg. connect the arrows), do the same. If the person in charge of elections is in bed (perhaps even literally) with the Republican candidate - tell the world.

You need to line up your people for election day. Make sure they get to vote (perhaps by absentee if it can be trusted). Keep harassing everybody on your voter list to actually get out and vote and don't leave them alone until they do. Send a driver for them. Hell, send a taxi for them. Fuck it - go for the limousine if that's what it's gonna take (assuming that's legal).

On election day, nothing is more important than the scrutineers. I've been one and seen the damndest things, including my opposite number going behind the curtain (figuratively) to see how people were voting. He would say anything, even completely fantasy, delusion or barefaced lies to get a vote counted his way. You need to line up your scrutineers and get them trained. You need to tell us how it's going.

What's really concerning is not what I'm hearing, that Obama is great, but what I'm NOT hearing - the "chatter" associated with a great campaign getting off the ground.

Get to it. For everybody's sake.

Source: The Local

Sweden's chief heraldists remain dissatisfied with a decision by the Nordic Battlegroup to remove a lion's penis depicted on its coat of arms.

...

But staff at the National Archives are hopeful that the Nordic Battlegroup will reconsider its position and re-erect the lion's member on its insignia.

...

With civilian women often falling victim to sexual abuse in the war zones of the world, the Commander said he did not consider the male appendage an appropriate symbol for his troops to wear into battle.

But heraldic artist Vladimir A Sagerlund was dismayed at what he viewed as an alarming lack of historical awareness. In former times, he said, coats of arms containing lions without genitalia were given to those who betrayed the Swedish Crown.

Read more: http://www.thelocal.se/10064/20080221 /

---

You cannot make this stuff up.

As soon as JFK gets mentioned, all the wackos come out of the woodwork.

Has it occured to anybody that maybe we're never going to get a coherent narrative about the JFK story because there isn't a coherent narrative? A bunch of stupid and crazy people were running around doing stupid and crazy things. You cannot build a coherent narrative out of that.

Typical example. Conspiracy theorists try to make a big thing out of the tramps hanging around the rail yard. I just did a google on "jfk tramps" and came up with 16,800 hits. I used to live near a rail yard. You know what? There were tramps hanging around it. They get into empty cars to sleep out of the elements. They're such a huge problem the CNR put big fucking barbed wire fences up to keep them out and they still hang around. That's what tramps do. Why?? Because they're stupid!!! They get pulled in and their explanation for what they're doing is basically "I was hanging around the train yard because I was hanging around the train yard." You cannot get a coherent narrative for their activities because they are incapable of coming up with a coherent narrative.

This is one of my big complaints about the Reid technique. It's a methodology used by police to interrogate suspects until they brainwash them into coming out with a nice, neat little story the police can write into their report and close the case. Most of the time it's complete bullshit - a false confession.

I've worked with city police in a variety of scenarios. The best ones say that for the majority of cases the "coherent narrative" is "shit happens". Otherwise they'll go bugfuck insane. Which, by the way, describes many conspiracy theorists.

Full disclosure:

• I am Canadian and living and working in Canada.
  
• I have worked for Elections Canada in the past in a variety of positions.
  
• I have worked on many election campaigns (some successful, some not) at a variety of levels.
  
• I am a card-carrying member of a political Party (that reminds me, I need to renew).
  
• I am not currently working on a election campaign, but intend to work in the upcoming Canadian Federal election for a political Party.
  

Be that as it may, the rules are the same no matter where.

1. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to run.
   
2. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to take office.
   
3. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to win.
   
4. Set up your infrastructure.
   
5. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to get and keep supporters.
   
6. Make sure that it is possible for your supporters to vote.
   
7. Make sure that it is possible for those votes to be tallied, authenticated, audited and the correct results published.
   
8. Make sure that your candidate can actually take office once the results are published.
   
9. Find out who your supporters are
   
10. Get more supporters
    
11. Make sure that your supporters vote.
    
12. Make sure those votes are counted, authenticated, tallied, are auditable and audited if necessary.
    
13. Make sure the correct results are published and acknowledged by the Powers That Be.
    
14. Have your candidate take office.
    

Some of this may seem obvious. They're not. I've seen more bone-headed mistakes than I can describe here. I've seen blatant violations that would make your head spin.

START NOW!@!@! Yes, I'm going to be doing a lot of yelling. Get over it.

1. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to run.
   
   There's no point in me running for President of the United States - I'm a Canadian citizen. If you can't afford the startup fee or don't know where to pay it or don't know what forms to fill out and can't or won't hire anybody who does have that knowledge - give up now.
   
   
2. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to take office.
   
   If you are a member of an opposition Party and it is Constitutionally impossible for members of that Party to rule, then you need to doing something about the Constitution.
   
   
3. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to win.
   
   Gerrymandering comes to mind, but there are other examples.
   
   Most of this is covered below, but there is one interesting example that happened locally. The Province of Alberta, Canada used to have "winner take all" elections for the head of the political Party. Politicking and back-room stuff would go on all damn night until somebody got a clear majority. Then they brought a new system in, Preferential voting, which I STILL don't understand, where you voted for a second choice. If no clear winner showed up, then they started tallying the second choices and if THAT guy got a clear majority, he was in.
   
   And that's exactly what happened. There were two main candidates, one heavy-duty right-wing, one heavy-duty populist. Their supporters absolutely HATED each other so they all put "whatever" for their second choice. The votes were tallied. The right wing guy got a lot of votes, but not a majority. The populist got lots of votes, but not a majority. So, they went to the second choices. It turned out that everybody who voted for "whatever" picked the SAME "whatever". When they announced the results you could hear everybody simultaneously bellow "WHO?!?!?!?" and run to find out who the fuck they'd voted for.
   
   So, if you're supporting a second tier candidate, it might be to your advantage to work to get whatever system it takes to get your guy elected in place.
   
   
4. Set up your infrastructure.
   
   Now that you've actually got a hope in hell, you're going to be needing a shitload of volunteers. Do everything within the rules to treat them nice. Feed them, give them swag, talk nice to them, give them a nice place to work with functioning equipment. You need a BIG office with lots of room, proper heat, light and power. You need a bazillion phone lines and good quality, comfortable to use phones. You need comfortable desks and chairs. People are going to be siting there for hours at a time. Make the best coffee in town. Have the best food - fruit, veggies, pizza - whatever it takes. Lots of clean bathrooms. Acres of secure parking. Shuttle service. Security at the door. Sexual harassment policies. Bullying policies. But THE number one is facetime with the candidate. One handshake is worth hundreds of hours on the phone. Which reminds me, make sure the people on the phone can do their job. They need scripts, policy papers, cheat sheets, a backup person to call if they get in over their heads or abused and training, training, training. Make sure they take care of their voices. Make sure they got sharp pencils and something to scribble notes on. Make sure they've got up-to-the-minute phone lists. Get the computer system from hell and top-notch people to keep it running and secure. Get everything into the database and back it up 14 ways from Sunday. Make sure what is in the database is ACCURATE!! If your people need special paperwork such as security clearances, make it happen. Make sure they've got valid drivers licenses. Make they they DON'T have a criminal record if that's going to be a problem. Make sure they're YOUR people and not spies.
   
   
5. Make sure that it is possible for your candidate to get and keep supporters.
   
   If the rules prevent you from campaigning, or you can't get access to the media, or your supporters get jailed or shot or there's no enforced libel laws (think Swift boating) then you can't get supporters so you need to fix that first. If your candidate has the propensity for shooting off his mouth at EXACTLY the wrong time, or there's so many skeletons in the closet you can't close the door - maybe you've got the wrong candidate.
   
   
6. Make sure that it is possible for your supporters to vote.
   
   Make sure they've got the right paperwork, that they turn that paperwork in, that the paperwork gets processed, that they get proof that they can vote, that there's a way for them to get to the polling place (start getting your driver volunteers NOW), that they have the proper papers at the polling place and those papers are accepted, that the polling place actually exists and somebody is actually there, that if machines are used they work (more about that later) and there's a backup plan if they don't, that there's a methodology for absentee voting.
   
   
7. Make sure that it is possible for those votes to be tallied, authenticated, audited and the correct results published.
   
   Find out what the election laws are for polling places, make sure it actually works and that you've got the people lined up to make sure it works (they're called scrutineers here). Hire lots of lawyers. Think Black Box Voting. Make sure there is a paper trail and that there is a way for the auditors to confirm that paper trail. Confirm that there is actually going to BE auditors. If not, get your volunteers to start lobbying or protesting.
   
   
8. Make sure that your candidate can actually take office once the results are published.
   
   If the government sets it up to declare martial law, get your volunteers to start lobbying or protesting.
   
   
9. Find out who your supporters are
   
   This is THE most important pre-campaign activity for your volunteers. Get them on the phones asking people who they're voting for. If they're voting for you, FOR FUCK SAKES WRITE IT DOWN AND KEEP TRACK OF THIS PERSON. If they're not, still keep track of it for later. This is the stage where you eliminate bad phone numbers so you're not phoning them later. Get addresses NOW instead of on voting day.
   
   
10. Get more supporters
    
    Do whatever it takes; campaigning, signs, blogs, banging on doors, leaflets, pamphlets, word of mouth, radio and press interviews, Town Hall meetings, running naked down the street...hey, who knows, it might work. Just DON'T PISS OFF PEOPLE WHO AREN'T ALREADY PISSED OFF AT YOU.
    
    
11. Make sure that your supporters vote.
    
    Keep in contact with them. Make sure they're still happy. Find out if they've got any questions. Make sure they've still got their paperwork. Make sure they know where to vote and have a way to get there and a backup plan if that falls through.
    
    Take your list of your voters and get them to the polling station. Tick them off when you're SURE they've voted. Otherwise, keep at them until they'll vote just to shut you up. Drive them there if you have to. Where possible, help them with the voting process eg. disabled. Do NOT break the law.
    
    
12. Make sure those votes are counted, authenticated, tallied, are auditable and audited if necessary.
    
    Have your scrutineers, lawyers, whatever else in place and have them actually do their jobs. Make sure all paperwork is completed perfectly. Make sure everybody is wearing whatever ID is needed to identify themselves as valid Party workers. Keep an eye on the other team's workers and make sure they're not up to something and report them if they are. I worked on election where my opposite number WAS STANDING BEHIND THE POLLING BOOTH WATCHING PEOPLE VOTE. I damn near had to throw a tantrum to get the election officials to get him out of there. Check the washrooms for pamphlets. Check the parking lots. Check for signage too close to a polling station. Scrutinize every damn ballot and challenge ANYTHING WHATSOEVER that could be a bad ballot. Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear war. Make sure all procedures are followed for securing the ballots, the tallies and all other paperwork.
    
    
13. Make sure the correct results are published and acknowledged by the Powers That Be.
    
    You are supposed to get your own personal copy of the final count. Make sure that's what actually gets on record and is published by the press.
    
    
14. Have your candidate take office.
    
    Make sure he doesn't get shot.
    
    If there's anything that needs to be done during the actual ceremony, eg. swearing on books, make sure it happens and is documented. Make sure the documentation is signed by the right people and that THAT is documented.
    

Good luck, you're going to need it.

The main issue in Canadian health care right now is wait times both for simple appointments and surgeries. The problem is the population is growing faster than they can churn doctors out of schools or import them and train them up to our standards.

Be that as it may, the last time I had a medical emergency (I collapsed at work), it was ruinously expensive:



Ambulance - $0
Emergency room visit - $0
Cardiologist - $0
Hookup to fancy machinery - $0
Follow up visit to special clinic - $0
Follow up hookup to machinery - $0
Vending machine - $5.00



Full disclosure, I do have Blue Cross 1/2 pay with my employer.

She's the one who gets to handle the real doozies. For confidentiality reasons I can't tell any of her stories, but many are on the order of 45 minutes worth of "you have to give me a credit on my bill because I'm too fucking stupid to breathe" or "your phone is making the food in my refrigerator turn bad and I'm calling the Illuminati". They will, of course, also want a credit for the 45 minute call. And all the porn they downloaded.

She's relieved when she actually gets someone with a coherent problem.

I'm a white guy in an otherwise all-black reggae band playing a country bar. Think the country bar scene in The Blues Brothers and you're pretty close to the truth except no chicken wire.

They're hating teh reggae and calling something else, so I do "We will rock you" not having yet heard about Freddy Mercury but knocked it off when somebody threw a chair throught the front window.

It kinda went downhill from there.