Ambiance

Not dead yet.

October 15, 2016 at 12:12 am (Icepick)

I just wish I was. I’m tired of being despised. I’m tired of being deplorable. I’m tired of being blamed for all the shit that happened before I was born, and most of the shit that has happened since. I’m just fucking tired of it all. To top it off, this evening I got to see another nice story about the on-going saga of how my old company fucked a bunch of its own workers in the ass because the boss needed a SMIDGE more money. Below is what I wrote about it over on my own site. I share it here, even though I shouldn’t be here, because I’m just that goddamned angry over the whole thing and want to spread the bad feelings as widely as possible. An additional note that I didn’t mention in my post: the guy hired to screw over the Disney’s American workers and replace them with Indians is Indian himself, and one of the founders of ENRON. Yes, that ENRON. I don’t ever want to here any fucking asshole from the Democratic Party, who are supporting this kind of shit, ever again tell me about being for the little guy. (The Republican Party does too, but Trump and his supporters are finishing them off, and good riddance. One party down, one to go!) I’ll crawl back under the basket now with the other deplorables.

The Great Disney IT Worker Screw Job, cont.

More today about the Disney IT workers who lost their jobs to foreign nationals imported by Disney to take their jobs. (See the previous two posts.) Today two of the workers had their day in court. The result was predictable.

Orlando judge tosses Disney IT outsourcing lawsuit 

Walt Disney World and two outsourcing contractors have won dismissal of lawsuits filed by former IT workers.

The lawsuits, filed in January, alleged that the Disney employees were the victim of a racketeering scheme to terminate them and replace them with immigrant, outsourced workers through the federal H-1B Visa program. Adding insult to injury, the workers were also forced to train their replacements or they would lose severance benefits.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell ordered the suits dismissed Thursday.
Presnell ruled that the former Disney employees, Leo Perrero and Dena Moore, were off-base in their accusations that Disney and outsourcing firms HCL Inc. and Cognizant Technologies made false statements on certifications for the Visa program.

The H-1B program requires employers to state whether current employees would be “adversely affected” when a company hires foreign workers through the program. Perrero and Moore argued in court that their working conditions at Disney were adversely affected, because they were forced to train people who would take their jobs, for lower pay.

According to the court record, however, HCL stated that none [of] its own employees would be adversely affected.

In the judge’s dismissal of the cases, he states that HCL’s statements weren’t false, and would only have been false if HCL’s own workers were adversely affected by the Visa program.

A few things to point out. First, note what I highlighted. What Disney did is TECHNICALLY legal because they didn’t do this themselves, they hired outsourcing firms. Of course, the logic is similar to the person who hires a hitman to kill someone and then claims they had nothing to do with it, but whatevs, right?

Second, the outsourcing firms, as well as Disney, are utter scumbags, of the type that use human trafficking for personal gain. They’re ruined those IT workers (Disney will have put a flag on them, making it very hard to get hired by any company in Orlando), all so that people like Iger can get another point on their goddamned stock options. They’re no better than the people the OPD are currently looking for for the trafficking and murder of a 14 year-old girl here in town.

Third, the judge is a Bill Clinton appointee, so the “the meaning of ‘is’ is” reasoning is perfectly understandable. He’s no better than the people at Disney, HCL & Cognizant. He’s not worried about HIS job getting outsourced!

Fourth, Bill’s wife is running for President. Rather than ask her about this kind of thing, which is the only reason Trump has gotten this far, the media is going after Trump for calling some rapper most of us have never heard of a “racial slur” that every Democrat in the country has used publicly to describe Clarence Thomas for decades.

But we can infer a few things. Hillary has stated that she wants a borderless world, and wants the free movement of people into the United States, with no restrictions. She hasn’t said this publicly, but thanks to Wikileaks we know she has told it to various muckity-mucks who have paid her $250,000 and more for 20 minute speeches. We can believe she means it, because she’s made a shit-ton of money off of the idea. Hillary has also stated that she thinks one quarter of the US population belongs in a “basket of deplorables” – a much nastier turn of phrase than any she would apply to any terrorist who ever killed an American. Any Islamic terrorist, I mean. Between the “basket of deplorables” comment and her “why aren’t I winning by 50 points” comment, we can work out who she means, and it’s basically white men who aren’t gay, trannies, or government workers who do NOT carry guns. (She hates the military and police just as much as any Black Lives Matter fan. No, that’s not fair. She doesn’t hate them so much as she despises them.)

She hates straight white men, probably because her husband is a straight white man and has treated her worse than toilet paper for decades. (Toilet paper only gets used once and then gets disposed of. Hillary gets used over and over again, and worse than any piece of toilet paper.) At a guess she hates her dad, too. Her dad either didn’t warn her about Bill, or worse, he did warn her about Bill and was right, so she’ll blame him for her lack of judgement either way. The rest of us get to bear that burden, though.

So Hillary hates the straight white male American worker, and wants to fuck us in the ass as much as possible. Another four years of Barry is what we’re going to get, and another four years of W., and another four years of Bubba. Hillary, though, stands to get richer. Bill will get a million dollars to speak five minutes to people like Bob Iger, and who knows how much Chelsea and her toady little husband will rake in. No one in the media will care, because the media hates American workers too, especially if they’re straight white men. And they didn’t raise a ruckus when the Clintons did it while she was Secretary of State, either, or after it was revealed that she had done so.

Our days appear to be numbered. But I’m guessing before it’s all over there will be Hell to pay. And the people that voted for this will be held accountable in blood. The time for a National Razor Party fast approaches.

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This is your monthly dose of post.

March 5, 2015 at 1:39 am (Icepick)

Nothing much to say. Some things are good, some things are not so good, a lot of things are middlin’ to fair. About the only thing that’s even remotely interesting that I can think of is that I discovered last night that my wife had never heard of Willie Sutton. Huh. But that tells you how uneventful things are down here in Central Florida. (Or up here, to Annie.)

That is all. Next month Ron will hit you with an update. I’ll see y’all again in May!

ADDED: I did have one more bit. This is me telling on myself a bit. I discovered just last week that an obit really can make my day. I’m a little embarrassed by that fact, which may be a sign that I’m human after all.

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She’s just going to get more energetic ….

January 1, 2015 at 1:39 am (Icepick)

Tonight my daughter, four and a half years old, stayed up to ring in the new year for the first time in her young life. While she was dancing to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” around 11:45, it occurred to me that she’s just going to get more energetic in coming years as Kim and my energies fade. DEFINITELY should have done this whole parenting thing when we were younger!

Anyway, hope you’re all set for a better 2015 than 2014, no matter how good the last year was. ‘Night, all.

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A Christmas Tradition

December 10, 2014 at 5:21 pm (Icepick)

Full Metal Elf

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Ebola, and the stupidity of categorical statements from public officials

October 12, 2014 at 10:25 pm (Icepick)

Today the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a categorical statement about the new case of Ebola in Texas. The CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, made the following statement:

At some point, there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection. The (Ebola treatment) protocols work. … But we know that even a single lapse or breach can result in infection.

However, the CDC went on to state that they had spoken with the nurse and could NOT determine what the failure in procedures was. They do not know what, if anything, the nurse or anyone else did wrong.

While it is most likely true that this new case was a result of a failure to observe safety protocols, the CDC should not be making categorical statements. And here’s why.

Taken from the President’s remarks on September 16, 2014 [the President’s remarks are in block quotes, my responses are not]:

First and foremost, I want the American people to know that our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low.

Within three days, an asymptomatic infected person was on his way to the USA via plane.  So much for the consensus view of the experts.

We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States.

Wrong. See previous comment. The methodologies for screening were so rigorous that lying and Ibuprofen could beat them. Given how easily Duncan entered the country, the chances of this happening were not “extremely low.”

In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home.  We’re working to help flight crews identify people who are sick, and more labs across our country now have the capacity to quickly test for the virus.

This one appears to be true. Thank God some of it was.

We’re working with hospitals to make sure that they are prepared, and to ensure that our doctors, our nurses and our medical staff are trained, are ready, and are able to deal with a possible case safely.

So prepared that they got an Ebola victim and sent him home with anti-biotics. And so prepared that according to the CDC itself the medical staff at the hospital in Texas were too poorly trained to implement the procedures correctly.

Three out of four sentences wrong, although at least the President’s speech writers stuck in a slight qualifier in the first sentence.

This is why the CDC should not have made such categorical statements today regarding the new case in Texas. By doing so they look arrogant, and look especially stupid in light of the President’s comments from September 16th, which were no doubt made after the relevant people from the CDC had made their views known to the President and his staff. As it is, they look like the jerk-off NASA administrators who said that the chance of a shuttle failure resulting in catastrophic loss of life & equipment were one in millions or less. It erodes their credibility, and does not reassure the public.

NOTE: I am not implying the President or his advisers were lying on September 16th or today. Perhaps they are, but that isn’t proven and I will give them the benefit of the doubt. But the remarks from September 16th have serious credibility issues, and today’s comments left them no wiggle room should the new statement be incorrect. And even if their belief is correct, today’s statement projects arrogance, which is off-putting to say the least.

Instead, the CDC should have released a statement worded something like this:

We’re confident that our safety protocols are effective and believe that one or more of these protocols were likely breached resulting in this additional case. We are working with the infected nurse and her coworkers to determine exactly what happened. We will work diligently to insure no further breaches of established best practices, or if we need to revise our protocols.

That would have been reassuring without projecting know-it-all arrogance.

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So what’s going on?

September 29, 2014 at 10:48 pm (Icepick)

After the crumby neighbors finally got kicked out, the new owners have been tearing out that interior of that house and remodeling it. There’s also been outside work on the septic system and removing an old dead oak tree, but that’s there.

Here? I’ve been doing some major pruning, battling fleas, chasing my daughter around and trying to figure out how to schedule our lives to accommodate her growing educational needs.(We are homeschooling.)

And trying to stay dry. Today the lake at the end of the street reached a level I’ve never seen before, not even after the three hurricanes in 2004 or the weird July of 2008. Close to overflowing the bank on the far side. Hopefully the pumping station will lower the level overnight.

But that can only happen if the rain stops! Today we tied a record: 22 days in September with rain. The old record has stood since 1892(!) and it will be broken tomorrow, quite possibly before the sun comes up.

We’ve also been sweating like fiends as the AC in the main part of the house stopped working a couple of months ago. We’ve got a couple of wall units, one for the bedroom wing and one for the main living areas, and it has not been pleasant since the one stopped working. I tried a few things to fix it, but so far nothing has worked. I’ve got a couple of other things to try, but it is murder getting it in and out of the wall, and frankly I haven’t had the energy to try again. (Needless to say we don’t have the money to buy a new one.)

I’ve also found a chess club I can play at. I can play online any time, but I grew up actually moving pieces with my hands, and that’s still what I find most satisfying. (I also visualize future moves better with a 3-D representation in front of me, rather than one that’s 2-D.) That’s made me rather happy in recent weeks, even if it is a 45 minute drive one way. (The old club from the Orlando area is all but completely defunct now.)

Kim continues to work. She’s a bit bummed now as a combination of events have resulted in all of her friends in the office being elsewhere now – the last of them transferred to the Philly office for a year just last Friday. Hopefully that won’t be too hard. She’s also has another organization she participates in, but that’s rapping up at the end of the year. Kim is clearly ready for something <i>new</i> for her energies. (I mean away from the home. Besides, health and financial issues mean no more children.)

The little one continues to grow in all ways. Although we miss having a baby or a toddler, she’s more interesting and more entertaining now. Also more trouble, but even that’s funny sometimes. The enthusiasm of youth! Nothing like having an entire universe in front of you and having pretty much all of it be new. I could go into particulars, but I won’t.

So, what about the rest of ya?

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