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Archive for July, 2009

Long hours

July 31st, 2009 No comments

Ooh, I like the sound of this: companies and municipal governments have been exploring the idea of the 4 day, 40-hour workweek.

Local governments in particular have had their eyes on Utah over the last year; the state redefined the workday for more than 17,000 of its employees last August. For those workplaces, there’s no longer a need to turn on the lights, elevators or computers on Fridays—nor do janitors need to clean vacant buildings. Electric bills have dropped even further during the summer, thanks to less air-conditioning: Friday’s midday hours have been replaced by cooler mornings and evenings on Monday through Thursday. As of May, the state had saved $1.8 million.


Perhaps as important, workers seem all too ready to replace “TGIF” with “TGIT”. “People just love it,” says Lori Wadsworth, a professor of public management at Brigham Young University in Provo. She helped survey those on the new Working 4 Utah schedule this May and found 82 percent would prefer to stick with it.


I would absolutely be in favor of something like this where I work. I’ve long been half-jealous of the 24-hour operations teams, who work 12-hour days, but only work 3 or 4 days a week. I would consider taking a job that did that, except you end up working either Saturdays or Sundays all the time, plus holidays if they fall on your shift. If I could show up at 7 and leave at 6, taking an hour for lunch, from Monday to Thursday, I’d be pretty excited for all the extra sleeping in I could do if I didn’t have children.

Categories: a beautiful thing Tags:

Unbelievable

July 31st, 2009 No comments

AAAAAAAAAAA! Are you kidding me?

“Congress would make it mandatory, absolutely require, that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner,” McCaughey said to Thompson.


“The bill expressly says if you get sick somewhere in that five-year period, you have to go through that session again — all to do what is in society’s best interest or your family’s best interest and cut your life short.”


Is there no shame in the modern conservative movement?

Categories: politickin', wtf Tags:

Don’t hate

July 31st, 2009 No comments
Categories: politickin', wtf Tags:

Gates vs. Crowley

July 30th, 2009 No comments

I’m sure everybody’s already heard everything they need to know about Henry Louis Gates and his run in with “the law” last week. I think most folks agree that Gates was in the wrong for basically being a dick to a guy trying to do his job, and that Officer Crowley should not have arrested him. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised about the arrest, either.


In my limited experience with police officers, I find that they’re humans. They’re good most of the time, and occasionally they are bad. But here’s the thing: they have extraordinary power over citizens, both legally and extralegally. (I don’t mean “illegal;” what I mean is that the aura of power gives them the ability to make people do things, whether they have a legal basis for asking or not. If a cop on the street tells me “Sir, please move out of the way,” I move out of the way without asking her what right she has to ask that. Most people do, I think.) When that power is abused, it needs to be punished.


I also think, and have nothing but anecdotal evidence to back this up, that whatever police say about serving the community and making the world a better place, a big part of the job that they like is the authority. They like bossing people around. When those people resist, even if they have a legal right to do so, cops feel insulted and scared. They also have no problem escalating a situation unnecessarily, which is why some states have had to enact rules preventing police officers from getting involved in lengthy car chases. It also helps explain situations like this.


I don’t think Officer Crowley is racist. In fact, I suspect Professor Gates was the reason race played any role in his arrest. If you have to break into your own home, you have to expect somebody might call the cops. In fact, you want them to call the cops. (I’ve had to break into my house a number of times after forgetting or losing my keys, and not once have the police showed up to see what’s going on. It’s not a very safe feeling.) When the cops show up, you break out the ID, answer a few questions, and wish the officers a nice day. You don’t accuse the police of being racist, and you certainly don’t get into a screaming match with them. Don’t ever give a police officer an excuse to arrest you, because that’s exactly what will happen.


I was once on my way to church, came to a red light, and was turning right. The road I was turning onto had 2 lanes of traffic. No one was in the right lane, so I pulled out into it, but I hadn’t notice that cars were parked in it a little ways down the block. So I put my turn signal on to change lanes to the left. A fellow in a dark car wasn’t in the mood to let me in, but I’m stubborn (and a little aggressive behind the wheel), so I muscled my way in. Then he flipped on his lights.


Being a good citizen, I pulled over. The officer parked and got out, and I realized he was in civilian clothes, probably on the way home from work. He walked up next to the window, which I rolled down, and said, in effect, “Sir, you can’t just pull out into traffic like that.”


I stuttered something about how I was turning into the empty right lane, didn’t notice the parked cars, was trying to make a legal lane change. He cut me off and said, “You can turn right on red, but you still have to wait for traffic to clear.”


I started to say “The traffic was clear in the lane I was turning into,” but realized I was disobeying one of my Prime Rules of Life: never, ever argue with a police officer. So I said, “Yes, officer.”


“You don’t get there any faster if you get into an accident, sir.”


“Yes, officer.”


“Be safe, and have a nice day.”


“Thank you, officer.”


That was the end of that. The officer got to throw his weight around a little bit, I got to make it to choir rehearsal without him calling for uniformed backup to detain and ticket me (or worse). It was win-win. You know what didn’t matter worth a lick? The fact that I’m white and he was black. Our races had absolutely no bearing on the dynamic whatsoever.


I’m not saying to acquiesce to everything cops ask. If they want to search your person, car, or home, say no. Just do it nicely.

Categories: musings, politickin' Tags:

An easy fix

July 30th, 2009 No comments

Another late start today, sorry about that. Let’s go to Andrew for an interesting statement:

Large numbers believe healthcare reform will hurt them personally, but support it for the good of the nation. Obama has tried to argue that it will help most people personally. It’s the worst sales job he’s ever done – because, I suspect, we all know it isn’t true.

The entire point of healthcare reform is that it would help most people personally. Otherwise, why bother? And more to the point, why do 72% of Americans want it done?


My view is that healthcare reform, ideally single-payer, but even in the form of a public plan to compete with existing private ones, would be beneficial to every American. A public option is going to be cheaper because it doesn’t need to spend money on marketing; this in turn can help drive down the rates offered by the private firms. Anyone who can’t get coverage through a private firm can get it through the public option. People too poor to pay for insurance get a subsidy. Everyone will see their premiums drop because of fair competition, and over the long term costs will drop even more because folks will stop going to the emergency room (the most expensive healthcare option) for head colds and arthritis.


The private firms can’t compete, you say? Cry me a river. They’ve been profiting for decades while refusing coverage to sick folks. Screw ’em.


Then we just have to do something about malpractice insurance, which has become expensive enough to drive doctors out of practice altogether.

Categories: politickin' Tags:

Trebek

July 29th, 2009 No comments

Uh…ju…hubb…ow. [INITIATING BRAIN RESET PROCEDURE]


Categories: wtf Tags:

The Shat

July 29th, 2009 No comments

Everybody’s seen this already, but I can’t not post it. That would be wrong.



And of course if you’ve never seen this, you must immediately do so.


Categories: a beautiful thing, wtf Tags:

Lettin’ ’em die

July 28th, 2009 No comments

As much as my old Libertarian soul hates the idea of embiggening the Gubmint, I find that the idea of letting the U.S. Federal Government take over Americans’ healthcare is vastly superior to a system in which the private health companies go out of their way to deny people benefits.

The This American Life crew…has a segment in this weekend’s episode on rescission of health insurance policies – insurers’ established practice of looking for ways to invalidate policies once it turns out that the insured actually needs significant medical care… The story describes a couple of particularly egregious cases, such as a woman who was denied breast cancer surgery because she had been treated for acne in the past, and a person whose policy was rescinded because his insurance agent had incorrectly entered his weight on the application form.

If the healthcare insurance providers are willing to operate under regulations that require them to pay benefits to their customers, then great. If they insist they can’t make any profit that way, then basically they’re saying “we make our profits by letting people die.” To which I respond: eff ’em. I’d much rather deal with a government bureaucracy than a private bureaucracy that stands to benefit by my death.


Andrew has more:

Everyone gets treatment in emergencies and the uninsured get treatment the rest of us pay for in higher premiums. So the basic point remains: does this form of socialized medicine make more sense than socialized medicine which brings everyone into the system, and tries to find ways to lower costs?

Categories: politickin' Tags:

Too cute for sanity

July 28th, 2009 No comments

OMG LULZ TODAY’S WIKIPEDIA FEATURED PICTURE IS THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVAH HAHAHA!!!11!!


Kyooooot

Kyooooot

Categories: a beautiful thing Tags:

Forgiven

July 28th, 2009 No comments

An “Aha Moment” on the subject of tangible forgiveness. Video’s about 2 1/2 minutes, but it’s worth it. Key description:

When I was pregnant with my twins, I had the realization of being forgiven for the abortion I had in the past and didn’t have to explain it anymore.

Whatever your feelings are about organized religion or abortion issues, the thought of unloading a heaping helping of guilt appeals to anyone, I think.

Categories: musings Tags: