Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

WASHINGTONâ€”African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation’s broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, “It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can’t catch a break.”

Do better

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

By rights I should be torn about who to support in today’s election. I’m a Jesse Ventura politically; socially liberal, fiscally conservative, uncomfortable-looking in a suit. I should want the Democrats to win to help people who need it and to stop laws trying to govern my morality. I should want the Republicans to win to keep budgets in check and, ironically, to stop laws trying to govern my morality. And yet I can’t conceive of supporting the Republicans, because they’ve demonstrated over many years far more interest in managing my bedroom than managing the government checkbook. I now know that both parties would take my money, but at least the Democrats will claim to try to help people with it; the Republicans will just give it to their friends.

So to win people like me over the Republicans needed to do two things. First, they had to show that they are what they’ve traditionally claimed to be. Second, they had to show that Democrats are what they’ve traditionally been stereotyped to be. I’m not sure how they could achieve the former – fool me once shame on you, fool me a couple of trillion times and I won’t be fooled again – but it’s what I want to see. I want to know what YOU are going to do, how YOU will fix problems (even if that’s by getting out of the way), how YOU will make me safer/richer/happier (again, even if that’s just the two words ‘limited government’). And then you can spend a little time attacking Obama as a Democrat, without being particularly negative, on issues like balanced budgets, abortion (yes, even for a liberal like me), experience (overrated, but still an issue), and standing up to the power structures in the country (what used to be a strength for McCain, and seems a weakness for Obama).

Instead what I’ve seen from the Republican side is:

And the list goes on. I understand the desire to belittle your opponent – the left certainly likes to make cheap and sometimes cruel jokes about Republicans – but I want more. If the media doesn’t want to play (I think most of the apparent bias of US media is because they’re useless, not because they’re partisan, but there’s certainly something there) then go to the people direct, or repeat yourself until they have to report on it, or shout louder, or tweak your message. Don’t lower yourself or demean yourself or stand around whining. Do better, because democracy deserves better.

That was easy

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

We have quite strong* finance rules in the UK that mean you need to prove who you are when opening accounts, or making changes to certain old accounts. Thus when I asked Equitable Life to change my address they sent me a form asking for my passport, one of my children, etc. Being fundamentally lazy I couldn’t be bothered, and ignored repeated follow-ups asking for at least a toe-nail clipping or a smidgin of sputum.

Unfortunately it turns out that I did need to change my address, so that I could move my money from them to a pension company that can count**. My new company gave me a phone number and my policy number, and after a 2 minute phone call my details are updated. I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing.

*by which I mean difficult, rather than effective

**Equitable Life essentially went bankrupt by promising guaranteed returns they had no ability to match, ending more than two centuries of sensible yet effective money management.

Snowed

Posted on April 14, 2008 by Paul — 1 Comment ↓

Figuratively, not literally – I’m trying to lay a kitchen floor before the gas man cometh tomorrow, we’re getting a dog tomorrow so have enjoyed a trip to the pet shop working out why there are more varieties of dog food than human food, and we’re two weeks away from shipping at work. So now it’s time for bed, and the sleep of the harried just.

Evil Eye

Posted on December 21, 2007 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Not sure how much I’ll be blogging over the holidays, so I hope you have whatever you would consider a great Christmas/festival of your choice. And in the meantime I leave you with this, which might just be the most awesome thing that has ever existed.