The players:

Boss Not Boss (BNB): Not my boss, but plays one on TV. My actual boss does something or another, but I rarely ever see him these days, so my co-worker got a kinda implicit, non-pay-increase promotion to tell us what to do. He’s a nice enough guy, but he frequently has a disconnect between what he is thinking and what he thinks he’s explaining, which makes information transfer a tricky and unreliable process. This extra sucks when it comes from the guy who’s telling you what needs to be done.

The UK guys: our company is owned by a company in the UK, and despite the fact that we are their largest, most profitable company, they tend to forget we exist. A year or two ago, we took their treatment of us and turned it into paranoia: most of the people in my group were convinced that the UK was taking on all our work in preparation for calling our jobs redundant. After two years of not being laid off, though, we’ve settled into a sort of dull acceptance that they just don’t care about us a whole lot, and we pick up the dregs of whatever mind-numbing work they don’t feel like dealing with.

Each of those items is worth a story in itself, but nevermind for now. That’s the setup for last week:

Read the rest of this entry »

Republicans probably not showing up at Republican YouTube debate:

Scared, stampeding elephants at PrezVid

I forget who griped about the Democrats not wanting to debate on Fox, but someone prominent said, “If they can’t handle Fox News, how are they going to handle terrorists?” (Probably Giuliani.) I hope someone prominent asks the same about them and YouTube. (Edit: Ah, there ya go.)

Update: Hey I just realized two things! One, after hearing Senator Webb use the phrase “writ large” so much recently, I finally get to use it in a sentence; two, the demeanor of both the political parties is this deal with Democrats/Fox and YouTube/Republicans writ large.

Democrats don’t want to debate on Fox because they fear the power of the corporation. Republicans don’t want to debate in the YouTube format because they fear the power of the people.

Goes to support this post. I’m sure there’s gotta be some psychology thesis here.

I mean what the fucking fuck. Here’s a new scandal I didn’t even know about and good God how many more of these are we gonna find already?!

Crooks and Liars » Iraq Embassy Oversight Hearing: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy…

I’m watching the vid, so if you don’t want to, here’s the guy’s story: he was contracted by First Kuwait as a medical tech and told to go to Baghdad. A manager asked him to escort 51 Philipino nationals, make sure they got on the same plane…but when he got to the airport he noticed that their tickets said they were going to Dubai. He asks a manager why this is, and he’s told 1) their passports don’t allow them to go to Iraq, so they have to say that, and 2) he shouldn’t tell them they’re going to Baghdad. He learned later that they were expecting to go to work at Dubai hotels.

Rory Mayberry: “Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I’ve read the State Department Inspector General’s report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to set the record straight.”

Bush saying “I listen to my generals on the ground” is like Henry VIII saying “I promise to love you for as long as we both shall live.”

This is what happened with the Senate last night:

The Defense Appropriations bill has an amendment in the Senate for consideration, which calls for the troops to be brought home by April. (Eight months from now; hardly reckless.) The Republicans would continue filibustering the amendment, because as long as debate continues, you can’t actually have a vote on it. (The “up or down” vote that Republicans kept screaming at the Democrats to give them, back when the Dems were filibustering judiciary appointments.)

On Monday, Sen. Reid invoked cloture, which means, we’re going to have a vote on whether to end the filibuster and actually vote on the thing. For some reason you wait 24 hours after invoking cloture, so that’s why they started with that on Tuesday. The rules say that after it starts, there’s up to 30 hours of continuous debate to try to resolve the issue, during which no other matters can be brought to the Senate floor. In the current Senate, you need 60 votes for cloture. For the past few decades, there’s been a gentleman’s agreement that, if there aren’t 60 votes to end it, then everyone pretty assumes nothing’s going to change, and they go home. This time, Reid said screw that, if you guys wanna debate, then we’ll damn well debate, and they were there all night.

Didn’t get anywhere, and in fact I’m not sure the political reason for doing it got anywhere—part of the intention was to bring public attention to the fact that Republicans are filibustering, but as TPM points out, for some reason “filibustering” only applies to Democrats. But in total, this is what happened: the Republicans filibustered the amendment, and Reid told them they’ll have to work for it. Wednesday, they vote on ending debate and moving to a vote, but the vote doesn’t pass. The Republicans’ filibuster successfully stops the measure from being voted on.

Got that? The bill wasn’t voted against; the vote to end the Republicans’ filibuster on the amendment wasn’t successful. In fact, a simple majority of Senators voted to end the filibuster, so one can presume that the amendment itself, which only requires a simple majority to pass, would be successful if it were brought to a vote. So what’s the Fox News website say about it?

Crooks and Liars » FOX NEWS twists the Senate Iraq vote

For extra fun, they way they phrase it makes it looks like a majority of Senators voted against the bill, doesn’t it?

TPM:

As weak as the Lugar/Warner amendment is, it’s still too tough for the White House.

Good. I was worried that they’d get a bill together with the thin whitewash of actually-listening-to-the-people respectability while not actually doing anything, Democrats would complain, Republicans would say but this is what you want, Democrats would say no it isn’t, and then we’d spin off into yet another couple months of debate. But the President is apparently not even willing to give the Republicans that much comfort, and come on how fucking blind do you have to be to see he’s not worth toadying for.

Man do I hope he keeps pissing on their collective foot long enough for them to realize that impeachment isn’t about being vindictive, it’s about upholding the laws and values of these United States. As Benen says in that post:

It’s time for a gut-check among congressional Republicans — are you anything more than the president’s ATM?

Unfortunately, this guy (never saw him before but this post has some good points) sounds on the money:

It is only when the battle becomes clearly a battle, not between parties, but between branches of government, that the Republicans will stand up and remove a president that they really have no use for. They won’t remove him for torture, or illegal spying, or kidnapping, or voter fraud, but they’ll consider it for usurping the powers of Congress. And if the president is going to stay the course in Iraq, they may well compel him to turn over the documents that will seal his fate.

It sucks that it would take “I’m going to disregard your power” to shake the Republicans up, rather than “the majority of the country says we’re going the wrong way”, but I’ll take it, at this point. As I’ve read in a few places, if Bush gets away with all this crap, it’s going to set a terrible precedent for presidents for decades to come.

I finally, finally, finally got Feel Good, Inc. out of my head, and then this parody shows up.

It starts off fairly generic/easy/hammy as parodies go, but when Cheney comes in…whoof. Creepy. But then there’s not a lot you gotta do to make Cheney creepy.

I had to read and reread this, and recheck the URL to be sure the USA Today site wasn’t spoofed.

“Let me cut the ribbon … and then why don’t you all yell simultaneously — really loudly — and that way you might get noticed. I’ll listen, internalize, play like I’m going to answer the question and then smile at you and just say God, thanks, thanks for such a solid, sound question,” Bush said at the end of his remarks.

Exhibit A: I’m telling you this.

Work is “teh sukc”, as the kids say. The whole week’s been a reminder of how little they regard me and how little they need me. There were times in my job here where I said “if I left, it’d be a real problem for them,” but not now. I’m pretty sure they’d barely notice, as far as work scheduling goes. I’m a problem solver by nature, and work’s just giving me nothing. And even my fallback position, “invent projects for myself and improve things on my own,” is getting nowhere, because each time I try to get something done I get resistance from other people, and I have no authority to actually tell people to do things. So I’m feeling pretty goddamn useless right about now.

So, blah, I’m now in a position where I’m wholly working for the money, which I used to say I wouldn’t do, but here I am. And the way I feel now, I have no interest or ability to try to explain to someone else (e.g., interviewer) why I’m worth hiring, so I’m pretty much stuck. And it’s dragging me down something awful.

But, aside from wallowing, I wanted to post about this because I’ve learned something over the years that may help others who got depression. When I mentioned it to my therapist, she took a note to pass it on to other people, so I figure maybe I thought up something good.

Anyway, it’s this: don’t let depression depress you. I used to feel bad about being depressed, or I’d figure there’s more going on that’s making me depressed that I don’t even know about and go looking for other things that could be wrong (and usually make things worse), or feel generally inferior for being depressed. Or I’d realize I wasn’t doing anything to improve my situation, and “if you’re so depressed, why don’t you do something to fix it?” but I’m just in no state to do so, but given I’m generally a troubleshooter I’d feel like a failure for not fixing my problem. Which would be additionally depressing.

But now, I mean—I really feel like shit. My limbs are weak, I don’t even feel like sitting up, I honestly wanna find a dark corner and curl up on the floor. But at the same time, I’m like, so the fuck what. It’s just a mood, it’ll pass. No, I’m not being productive about myself right now, but screw it, I’m just not in a mood to do it. Eventually, my core goofiness will kick back in and I’ll work something out and be fine, but for now, I just gotta accept it and ride it out.

At that point, depression gets relegated to the level of, say, you wake up and your knee really hurts. You limp around for the whole day, and it’s painful and annoying and makes everything you do more difficult, but eventually it’ll pass and you’ll be fine. That’s kind of how I approach my depression these days: I woke up with a hurt in my brain, but I know that in a couple days it’ll smooth out. Even when I’m in the depths of my grandest mope, coming to understand this has provided me some real perspective and comfort.

Your cousin’s driving, gets in an accident, he’s killed next to you, you’re trapped and burning in a fire that will soon kill you, and you’re saved by being covered in poop.

Augusta, GA – News – Man’s Life Saved By Sewage

Great setup on this story.

i’m sure you guys can deal