Thursday, March 19, 2009

Dougloid Booted Off Of A.Net. Life Goes On

I've been permanently banned from posting on airliners.net for the silliest of reasons.

Here's the commo I received, and my response to it.

----- Original Message -----
From: VC-10
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 1:14 PM
Subject: Dougloid - A.net Account Terminated

Dear Dougloid.

I write to inform you your a.net account has been permanently closed. The reason for this is your very long history of posting flamebait/disrespecting posts. We had tried discussing this with you but your latest response to us was -

I will take it in good grace and I shall leave the arena bloody but unbowed. Sometimes you just have to stand up to people even though you know it's going to have a cost.

This demonstrates you have no intention of changing your post style to comply with a.net rules

I suspended you in 2006 and your response then was

Hey, no problem....I can't promise I'll wash my mouth out with soap-only my mom gets to do that-but I shall mind my Ps and Qs henceforth.

Here we a 2 and a half years later and the moderators are still having to tidy up after you. Well we are not going to do it any longer.

Rgds
Paul
VC-10
Head Moderator

Here's my response.

You know what? I couldn't give a damn. I've got work to do here.
If you people are so scared of whiners that you won't back me when I take some Hitler/SS fanboy like Caltech to task because you're afraid that some Germans might be offended then you're running a pretty piss poor shop.
Fact is, what I told him-specifically, historical matters that were the objective of the Nazi state-is probably something that no present day German could be offended by because they are matters of fact-people DID get turned into lampshades and bars of soap, courtesy of the SS.
Somewhere or other you people decided that it was your personal mission to ride herd on me and get my ass booted off and you succeeded. Whatever.

Have a nice life.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

In the Name of God, Go.


CNN informs us this morning that AIG-you know, the "insurance" company that did such a good job with credit default swaps that they had to run whining and sniveling to the taxpayers for relief from the consequences of their greed and stupidity to the tune of $170 billion because they were "too big to fail"-where was I?

Oh, I remember. AIG, which managed to lose another $62 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, is now prepared to hand out $165 million in bonuses to their employees.

Barney Frank thinks we can't violate legal obligations to pay. What in the hell is the US Attorney's office doing? Tell the bastards to sue if they want their bonuses.

Wait a minute. In my world, you get a bonus if you exceed expectations and produce more than you're expected to.

Apparently, in AIGworld, you get rewarded for f**king up, and you get more the worse you f**k up.

Lose money? Get a check. Fail to perform? Get a check. Lose billions? Get a check.

This has simply got to stop.

You know what I think? Here's my recommendation.

Break that bastard up.

Take it over, sort out the business units, sell off the ones that make money, scrap the ones that do not, and get these shameless sons of bitches the hell out on the street where they belong.

I'm in mind of the words of Cromwell to the rump Parliament all those years ago: "In the name of God, go. You have sat here too long for the good you have done. Go, I say, and let us have done with you."

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Stephen Harper on Who To Blame For the Recession


Here's what he said.

"We are in a global recession principally-and we have to face this-because a lot of people on Wall Street, because of a lot of people in the private sector more generally-homeowners or consumers-pushed or bought into a very unconservative idea:that they could live beyond their means.
Regulators may have failed to prevent it, but in the end, it was a failure of the private sector to live according to the values we conservatives know to be true."

He goes on to say that Canadians showed more restraint-although I've been watching Property Virgins and The Property Shop and Buy Me for the last year or so and I see nothing but a real estate bubble in Toronto and Montreal that has not yet burst and one that did blow up with the decline in housing prices in Alberta-that damned petrodollar, y'know-but nevermind.

The human drive to live without working for it is alive worldwide, and perhaps the inherently risk-averse nature of Canadian lending practices served as a useful check on the excesses that people would have otherwise indulged in. It's no sign of moral superiority, however, that people restrain you from your natural tendency toward wretched excess.

And be it remembered, part of the reason Canada did so well and now is suffering such high unemployment is that there was a knock-on effect as the Europeans say, the money tide washed north along with the flood of bootleg handguns, and now that tide is receding.

We're joined at the hip like tenants in the same apartment building and that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

The point is well taken about living beyond your means though, and there is much wailing, piteous yowyowing and various and sundry other kvetching noises here. The gnashing of teeth is becoming tiresome background noise in these parts.

Having said all that, it occurred to me that perhaps the problem lies, not in the fundamental belief that one could prosper without working for it-as speculators do-but in the belief that what was good for Wall Street and Citigroup was good for Joe and Jane Doaks-every man a speculator-and the money vault being unaccountably unlocked and unguarded.

That, I think, should be the fundamental inquiry: not whether average folk had more temptation placed within easy reach than a person could ordinarily resist, or that they had the understandable urge to live as large as they could grab, or that they saw housing prices escalating 20 per cent every year and thought the party could last forever-but why and how that notion was allowed to exist.

The breakdown of lending standards was a necessary precondition to the orgy that followed, methinks.

Ultimately, value has to come from somewhere, and it is only grown through productivity. The rest of us are merely moving stones around the board of the greatest game of Go ever invented.

It's no mystery that Yahweh says to Adam 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

There's much sage thought on the human condition in that Book.

Photo courtesy of the Department of Culture-bes' li'l ole political advocacy group in the North, because they've got soul power, doncha see?

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Get the resemblance?




See the likenesses?

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Thank you, Mister Atkins.

Jake's home from foreign shores and we're all glad to have him back, like Job, in the bosom of his family.

Thinking about this reminded me of Kipling's musings on the life of a soldier man. Not much has changed from the Widow's day.









I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:


O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit
.


Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;


While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.


For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!