Ben Dover. Now paging, Ben Dover.

The assault on the working class has gone into full swing. I said this before and you may have thought I was engaging in hyperbole. I'm not. Anybody who works for a living, you're about to be screwed. But before we get to all of that, just a few things about our wonderful Senate Bill 5.

Veterans, you're about to be screwed if you want to become a teacher, or go into public service when you leave the Armed Services. SB5 removes a clause that for both salary and retirement, you can have 5 years of your service transfer. Not anymore. Thanks for your service, go to the bottom of the scale. Yep, the party that so recently endorsed the state going into more debt by taking out a large bond issue to give guard members a $2000 bonus for serving in the wars, now is screwing you over. Doesn't it feel good?

Getting closer to the issue, to pass SB 5 (and the Wisconsin bill), Senate rules and laws may have been violated (that's what the line about "Supporters said they don't care how it happened, are just glad it passed and is on track to go up for a full Senate vote," is talking about). See, we have laws and rules about these things. Like when Senate Committees are set (rule, beginning of session, ie. first day, to which the Senate President pretty much responded later, "I'm the Senate President and I make the rules."). About open meetings and hearings (none were held on the committee replacements, which may violate Ohio's open meeting laws on both 24 hours notice and records keeping). There's a couple others, but those are the biggies. (There's a similar problem with what the Wisconsin Senate did as well).

Breaking rules and laws to get this legislation through. Proud yet of what you've wrought, TPers? (I'll note that Senator Seitz was going to vote no because he hadn't read the bill yet and that was a "tea party lesson" he learned).

Now lets get closer to how everybody who works is about to be screwed. While this is going on, there's a lot of talk about the national budget cutting, but very little is being said about what is exactly being cut (except for "discretionary spending" and the defunding of NPR, Planned Parenthood, and some of the other big name things). What you may not have heard was that OSHA, EPA, National Labor Relations Board, and the EEOC's call center among others (including many inspectors offices) were on the list to be zeroed out or have severe cuts. While you may not think the EPA would be protecting you as an employee, you'd be wrong. Many EPA regulations overlap OSHA's responsibilities, but the EPA has stronger enforcement. And if you don't see how defunding OSHA, EEOC's call center, and the NLRB affects you as an employee, you really aren't paying attention (do I really need to walk this argument through here?).

No unions, and no seniority. So the career staff most likely to be able to help you, as someone who wants to go to the government for redress of wrongs, more than likely won't be there for you. And those employees that would normally go to the wall to help you, fighting the political appointees over them, no longer would have job protection for doing that (needless to say, they're also the employees that have the greatest knowledge of how things are supposed to work and are paid the most). Know what it's like being an older person trying to find a job ("older" here is defined as 35+)?

So, removing regulations that protect you, removing inspectors in charge of regulation enforcement, and removing the agencies that you can go to for redress. Begin to see it? That's before we get to the prospect of firing career employees and rigging the hiring process to install ideological/political activists in their place (see previous administrations Justice Department hiring scandals) and instilling the culture of "yes men" (toward the political appointees) in the older career employees.

Having fun yet?

As you may or may not know, unions led the way for workers' rights (starting with the 8 hour workday, 5 day work week, retirement, paid holidays and vacation, higher pay scales, etc). One of the arguments going on right now is "Why should union workers have these things when those in the private sectors don't?" You hear that a lot. It's a crab's mentality, and unfortunately we've seen too much of this. Understand from the union side, we wonder why you don't have these things which won't don't consider "extravagant" but "basic". And we've been willing to fight for you (who aren't in a union) to have them. Without unions and the union's activities and power, how long do you believe you'll have what you have even now? You know all that talk about "being competitive" and we have to do this to be "competitive"? Remember how these same people defended off-shoring jobs to countries that have pay rates expressed in "dollars per day" (typical amounts can be counted to using both hands and if your lucky, maybe a foot or two) and have lax environmental and work place safety rules (as in, employees get sick and die from their working conditions) so our companies would be "competitive"? What else do you think they'll do to get us all "competitive"? You may remember my comment earlier about, "You'll take what you're offered and you'll like it." It's not just going to be public sector employees (heck, with this economy, it's pretty much there already).

Oh, you think they're rational? In Florida the same party is going to expand their managed care pilot program for Medicaid statewide even though both the patients and doctors call the plan a failure. This is the party that keeps hammering "privatization" of government work as a way to control costs and get better service, when after over two decades worth of experimentation shows the exact opposite (do I need to provide links for the IRS collections and customer service, Medicare Advantage and Part D, or the "private contractors" fighting our wars, or the arguments in Ohio about how the privatization of the growth development commission only removes transparency into the agency?). Do they sound rational about this?

Oh, and as a bonus, they weaken the unions and their support of Democratic candidates (unions don't only support Democrats, in case you don't believe me), all while the Citizens United decision fills Republican coffers (to be fair, not all corporations support Republicans). The Supreme Court has previously ruled that money = speech. Guess who is going to be doing most of the speaking from now on? I hope the Koch brothers can sing, 'cause I like a little entertainment in my political theater.

Now, it's not all doom and gloom. All these moves have energized the labor and liberal base. Many union workers are now rethinking their voting and political giving habits (here's the little secret, while union organizations are mostly oriented to the Democratic Party, most union members give to and vote for Republicans, see kerfluffle over the 1969 Democratic Convention and the fall out over Democratic support of Affirmative Action ). This may be a Machiavellian "Do your evil first" philosophy of the conservatives, hoping all the hupla dies down in two years, or that they'll bring in something to redeem themselves down the road, but I don't think it's going to happen. These changes are going to have lasting and continuing effects and ramifications. They're gifts that will keep giving going forward. Unless something very radical happens, I expect the Conservative sweep we saw in the last election cycle to be very short lived and will possibly lead to a few decades of Democratic control of legislatures.

Well deserved rest

Welcome home, Discovery. Thanks.

Memo to Guys

Subject: Urinal Etiquette

In a restroom with three urinals, the middle station should be your last choice. No, I don't care that the one on the right is the little boy's urinal. Use it, if you can't aim down, see a doctor. Middle urinal = last one to be taken. If you need companionship that badly, I suggest a dating site.

Also, please flush when you're done. I'm tired of having to take a pee only to be distracted by the thought, "Wow, that guy has some serious liver problems." I don't mind if you flush while going, or to start going, but add another when you're finished doing your business. Think of the next guy, will ya?

Do not look at me like I strangled your puppy when I flush because you decided to not wait until your call was done, or worse, took the call while voiding. It's not my fault you exposed the people on the other side of the line to your bad habits. I understand that we all get those calls at the last minute, but if that call goes over 15 minutes, I think it was probably planned. If you can't wait an extra 15 minutes, you're doing this wrong.

Finally, wash your hands. No. Really. And use soap. They provide it. If I need to explain aerosols, I will. Bear Grylls may have a habit of distilling his own urine for consumption, but we have bottled water available in the break room. You don't have to. Plus, Bear has other issues.

We could talk about how many shakes, but take whatever you need. Do it right the first time.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Likee-poo knows there can be only one

Buried under work.

Jim Hines is wondering about what is a troll and what isn't. Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, NPR is upping their comment moderation which now includes having to contribute comments to the site a few times without wanting to burn the house down (link grokked from Tobias Buckell). The wild, wild west internet is over. Time to start building churches and roads.

Linkee-poo wakes up, gets out of bed, drags a comb across its head

Radio Daze, an article on a service to talk radio of providing interesting callers. Ah, you always wondered who those people were who call into those radio shows only to be denigrated or make everybody sniffly nosed, or shaking with rage. They may be an actor hired for the part. Whose shows do they call? Well, I'l leave that to your imagination. (Grokked from Jay Lake).

A local newspaper with Michael Moore's appearance at the Madison rally. So this thing has been going on now, what, three weeks with tens of thousands in attendance every day (including last week's snowstorm). This is a movement. The Labor Beast has been finally stirred to motion. Hopefully it won't catch a bad case of the "we're screwed anyways" and keep rolling. Here's the text of Michael's speech. (Grokked from Catherine Schaff-Stump)

Linkee-poo celebrates having a laptop

I'm wasting too much time, must either write or study.

Here's some interesting charts from the Tor's Best of the Decade poll. Hey, "Best EVAR!" anthologists, pay attention. You know those arguments about why you didn't include stories by or about women because you said there weren't any? Yeah, you just got pwned.

John Scalzi takes on the myth that BNAs (big name authors) spend their time keeping all of us newbies out of the business by squashing us like little bugs. Or is that squishing. Or squamous. I keep forgetting. Anyway, yeah, that. "Humans see assholes as damage and route around them."

Here's a popcorn recipe I've been using after attempting to use a microwave popper. Driest. Popcorn. Evar. However, with this recipe the popcorn is pretty good. I keep the lid on while the popcorn is popping though.

Something Finally Goes Mostly Right

This morning's mail brought the new 65W power adapter for the ol' lappy (yes, my laptop is about 12 years old now, it's a Macintosh, in case you needed to ask). And it works. Not only does it work to power the lappy, it's recharging the battery. About half a month ago, the old power charger (obviously started to fail and) stopped charging up the battery.

I worked through that issue with Dan (waves at Dan) and we both thought it might be the charging circuit, which is on a daughter card. Dan gave me some good leads on finding both parts and instructions on how to replace. BTW, if you don't have friends that can help you with these kinds of things, you are missing out. Just saying. Oh, and the old power charger had failed before. Dan's pretty handy with soldering iron and helped me get it working then. He also mentioned that it was a temporary fix and I should start looking for a replacement part (color me chagrined for being too cheap to buy it then).

Then, as you all know, last week the power adapter failed completely. The remaining 4% of battery charge drained out before I could finish ordering the replacement (had to use the iMac). So, since then, no laptop. Bette normally uses the iMac, so I limped along using the iPod Touch, which did pretty well (although no writing occurred then).

So with no laptop, the equation of what to replace it with switched from a laptop replacement to a new laptop. But now we have the laptop, and the new iPad 2 was launched this week. I still feel the need to have a computer's functionality, which you don't get with a tablet. This ol' lappy is showing it's age, though (can't run the latest software, is pretty slow, and 60gigs of hard drive space is very limiting). Decisions, decisions. So right now it'll come down to just how large our tax liability from last year is.

A second linkee-poo (cause I didn't want to hold them until Monday)

Cubelet Engineering Prototypes. Get my geek on. (Grokked from John)

Some more info graphics. These are about the recent decline in the jobless rate (not much, but, hey, most people were expecting a .1% uptick instead). Yeah, John Boehner, it's all about you giving those tax cuts. Not. (Look at the bottom graph when job growth went into the positive). (Grokked from Dan)

Linkee-poo wants to be sedated

Just a note to all my friends, without happing my laptop function, my reading of blogs, etc, has gone way down (as has my own writing). There's been plenty you've written about that I've wanted to comment on, many of you have been ill and I wish you better health, some of you have been doing interesting things with models (physical and business) and travel, and some of you have written exceptionally poignant and witty things. I just haven't had the opportunity to tell you this. Very busy with life, the jobs, classes, etc and my evening "catch up time" is lacking because of the laptop loss. On the plus side, I'm getting really good at Angry Birds on my Touch.

Of interest to writers, the Journal of Universal Rejection. Bwahahaha!

Then I get to have the, "Holy crap, I wrote about something like that already…" moment when Tobias Buckell mentions that Japan offers to help California pay for high speed rail. Granted, we'll buy Japanese trains with that deal. But, shit. I really hope if California goes for that, the result isn't what's in my book, because that would be bad (for those of you who are first readers you know what I'm referring to, everybody else, sorry, I have to be cryptic here).

It's weird when one part of my life overlaps and intrudes on another part. That's an article on how "Storytelling is the Future of the Web" told from the perspective of designer/media marketing. There's some pretty profound stuff in there (for both sides of the story). First is, hopefully, a little more explanation of what brand is and how it (should) function. Also, there's some pretty good charts in there (the carts are very basic in their design, which is disappointing, but the data is very important). Those charts basically overturn the cultural zeitgeist that we're becoming a nation of schizophrenic multi-taskers unable to focus for anything more than a few seconds (book lengths are getting longer, so are movies and TV shows). Now, while some of the conclusions are a bit misleading in the wording they use, it's still pretty good to know. People pay attention to stories. Give them a good one, and they'll stay with it. But, now you've got your chocolate in my peanut butter.

Of a related note, books are doing surprising well. Yes, from all the doom and gloom you've heard, the number of book titles seems healthy, as do their sales numbers, as well as their profits. Armageddon avoided.

I love me some old school letterheads. Yes, I do. And even more letterhead. I'm in geek heaven.

A primer on internet tracking from the marketing standpoint.

Hey look, real voter fraud happening right there! Oh, wait, it's another Republican. Nothing to see here, citizen. Move along.

Rabbit hole, down we go (Ohio SB 5)

For our own version of the "Screw the Workers" bill (otherwise known locally as SB 5), it passed last night, after having to remove two republicans from the committee in charge of the bill. Seems it was too radical even in it's amended state for some conservatives (the bill wouldn't have been voted out of committee without the last minute substitutions and reshuffling the committee assignments). Are all my conservative friends proud of the party they helped make the majority yet?

And with all the kerfluffle about SB 5 and the WI bill, conservatives continue to advance their radical social agenda of out lawing abortion, removing rights, dismantling regulations, and generally acting like the entrenched ideologues they are. When do we get to something that will actually help employment? Eh, probably not until summer. Of course, their argument will be that once they remove wage guarantees (like minimum wage), regulations meant to keep workers from dying or being maimed on the job, regulations to ensure those who live around industries won't die a premature death, and reduce benefits to meaningless lip service, well then, we'll all be able to get back to work. I wonder when anybody will point out that many of those regulations keep people off the public doles and out of disability? Probably not until it's a problem, again.

But, it's not all bad news. I just found out last night that another of the staunch libertarians I know switched their party alliance to the Democratic Party (and sent them money). So, while we may have to wade through a few years of this muck, I see a swing away from the conservatives in the coming elections. (I did explain that our side wasn't all that much better, but while we may not do anything to help, we also aren't intent on harming).

From AOL news, "Under SB 5, elected officials at the state and local levels would be given the authority to resolve contract disputes with public employees." Yeah. Negotiations work so much better when the one side has sole authority to resolve conflicts. You know the whole argument about how Unions can campaign to have their chosen officials elected (mostly Democrats) and those are the people they negotiate with, so they're stacking the deck? Yeah, what this says is the people the Unions negotiate with have the final word on any disagreement.

Let me be more crass, that provision is the, "You'll take what we offer and you'll like it" segment of the bill. Again, "binding arbitration" (the previous way disputes were settled) wasn't the Union's idea, it was the elected officials choice. They forced that on the Unions after the cost of defending themselves in court got to high. Well, guess what, those independent arbiters would find for the Unions is the majority of cases (just like how, even with the Labor Relations Board stacked with conservatives, Unions continue to win the majority of their appeals, which is why the current Congress is trying to zero out its budget). Or I can phase it this way, even with the deck stacked against the Unions, they still continued to win their arguments when they're presented to third parties.

Even if you're not in a union, that clause should strike fear into your heart. Don't like how negotiations with your boss are going? Tough. You know those posters in the break room that specify your rights under employment law? Yeah, kiss those goodbye.

And as a final note, in that AOL new article, you'll see that the final bill was some 599 pages long. It was passed out of committee, through the rules committee, and passed the Senate all in a matter of a few hours. So much for the "have you read the bill" crowd.

Again, thanks TP for helping to bring this about.

Linkee-poo is training for the marathon

Of interest to me as a designer. You just don't know how often we get into a project and need high-rez photography only to find that there isn't any. In fact, not even any low-res to place in the layout. Fear no more, place kitten is here. I find this hilarious. I wonder how many times I'll see kittens printed in the oddest places. (Grokked from John)

Advice for the young designer. I've basically given the same advice myself. Also, yes, #2, as #10 states, is the greatest competitive advantage of any career. This list also goes well as "Advice for Young Writers."

In relation to the Tolkein button thing, it was easy to believe the Tolkein Estate was behind it because they do things like this. While I'm sure they're going after this on a defamation of their trademark route… really, we have to do this? I mean, if they really wanted to, half of epic fantasy could be pulled from the shelves as bad pastiches of Tolkein's works. Probably more than half.

And interesting article about a debate on women in fantasy. There's a few undercurrents going on in there, the conservative attack (and possible motives) against fantasy (it's a long, ongoing attack, of which the last major flare up was over Harry Potter), the weak defense put up (see also the comment thread on Jim's post linked to downstream as a connection here), and the fact that the major participants in the fight miss the target entirely because of their own blinders of their privilege. I'll also point to my own transgressions in having not taken on the challenge of writing a strong female lead (a challenge to my own blinders of privilege) and that my personal library has woefully few female authors. (Grokked from Cat Rambo)

Charts help explain things a little better. Here's one (with some commentary) on US expenditures on infrastructure as a percentage of GDP. Remember the phrase, "Build it, and they will come"? Yeah. Don't, and they don't come. Note the difference between this and libertarian ideology that the market will provide. No, there's no evidence they will. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell).

My friend Jim has a few things to say about DADT, ROTC, racism and Irony at Columbia. What he said.

Some truth about this public pension plans and "tax payer money." Don't miss reading all the way down where they talk about the "state making up for deficits in the plan." Gee, politicians (and business executives) not fully living up to their side of the bargain by skipping payments, delaying payments, etc? Why, I'm shocked, shocked to hear…

And why should we let public opinion get in the way here. I mean, who are the legislatures going to listen to anyway? They have their business interests to look out for (you may remember that WI was on the track to a surplus until the new governor passed tax reductions for high-income people and large businesses).

Just as a general comment, in my own little slice of the world, while I haven't heard the word, "Bright-sized" used yet, I have heard the words, "Brain drain" used to describe the aftermath if Ohio passes SB 5 (Ohio's version of the Wisconsin proposal to remove collective bargaining fiasco).

And Fox News gets caught fabricating reality again. Yeah. I've been to Madison. I don't remember any palm trees there either. But at least our friends to the North have won a victory to keep lying out of their media. Hence, Fox News will not be going to Canada.

Finally, as another general thought for my TP/conservative friends, you all talked about revolution and how mad you were, etc. You may remember when I said, I understand, been that way myself, wish you had come in the fight over 8 years ago. Also, please understand when you talk about revolution, I don't think you quite understood the language you used. Labor wasn't just "given" the rights that the neo-conservatives now want to take away. We fought for them. And I don't mean, "we fought at the polls, won elections, etc", I mean armed struggle. Don't believe me? Research "labor unrest" at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. You'll note the word "Massacre" comes up frequently. This is were the Pinkertons made their reputation, hiring out as a private army in the employ of the business owners. When mine owners would roll in gatling guns on rail cars and fire into their workers' town (which was wholly owned by the mine owners, who also owned the store and paid their workers in script which was only accepted at the mine store). When steel plant owners locked out and shot their workers who protested. And the Labor who became the Unions responded back, also with fire power. You want a revolution? Understand there was already one fought and won by the unionists/labor. Do you think they'll just roll over this time? This isn't a threat, this is me observing that history is about to go into repeat mode.

So far the protests have been peaceful and orderly. However, Wisconsin has installed concrete barriers around their capitol. Ohio State Troopers prevented all the protestors who wanted into the state house from getting in, citing "security concerns."

Sure, there will be a brain drain at first. The flight of the best to places that still hold on to the idea that labor is something worth while. As those pockets of sanity decrease, and the result of these actions become clearer, the powder keg will erupt. It may take a year, or ten, but it'll come. Again, you don't really understand the fire you're playing with. You may have marches on Washington, but realize the protests at Madison and Columbus have numbered in the thousands (for Madison, tens of thousands) for over a week.

think I can, think I can, oops, no I can't

This weekend the little laptop that could, couldn't. She's been slowly failing over the last month. This last insult I believe I can fix (and was an old problem I was just ignoring because I'm a cheap bastard). The wall wart finally gave up the ghost. Since the recharge circuit was gone (three weeks ago), and the battery was on it's last legs, it was a short illness.

However, with a $10 investment, a new wall wart is on its way to me and hopefully will get me back to limping along. Once that's here, if it works, I'll do a new backup (current one it two weeks old), and then try surgery to see if the charging problem is a loose daughter card (heck, even this problem maybe a loose daughter card - yes, my laptop is old enough that we're talking about daughter cards here).

I was really hoping to either finish the book rewrite or have taxes finished before I thought about replacing the laptop. And at this point, without having iPad V2.0 available, it'll probably be another laptop to replace it. Fortunately for me, Apple just refreshed their powerbook line and reduced the price of the low-end 15" powerbook.

But, until that new wall wart arrives and works (crosses fingers, raps wood, throws salt over my shoulder) things will be a little slow here. While I typically post during the day, a lot of the writing gets done at the night side. On the plus side, it may mean more posts that are linkee-poos.