Author: Glenn Hauman

Lisa Sullivan is fond of this show, but I don’t think it compares to the classics.

The answer is at Daily Kos || Bush lightbulb joke

Of course, a Bush bulb won’t actually be replaced until it criticizes the administration…

Found on Daily Kos

Armed with little more than an electronic dictionary and text-analysis software, Claire Whelan, a graduate student in computer science at Dublin City University in Ireland, has managed to decrypt words that had been blotted out from declassified documents to protect intelligence sources.

Hey, guess what– the press has a whole lot of documents that they might be able to read now.

All bets are off for a lot of government secrets… I wonder about that 9/11 report that went out a while back.

Brad Templeton:

I have finally realized why this White House is so concerned over the Iraqi Prison abuse scandal: They fear they have been caught doing something really serious — lying about sex.

His observations over at Making Light: Arkhangel grieves for lost honor are brilliant, and codify something that’s been nagging at me for a while:

It was apparent a long time ago (as I’m sure most of you know perfectly well) that Rumsfeld, along with a number of other Prominent Individuals, is a CEO of a type now not uncommon: he has no leadership ability (which used to be recognized as a component of “management”), no inspirational qualities, and lacks a basic understanding of how the “business” he’s been put in charge of actually operates.

Instead, he decides what the company is supposed to return on its investment (or achieve in the short term), demands “plans” to achieve this, and hands off those plans to people who are expected to implement them successfully with whatever resources they can scare up. Anyone who stands in the way of the CEO’s imperial will by pointing out that for the plan to work will require airborne squadrons of hypersonic pigs is told to make it work anyway, under whatever threat happens to be available. The CEO -does no work,- including making actual operating decisions. He makes a demand and collects a bonus. If the plan fails, or for that matter the company, that’s someone else’s fault. Probably government regulators’.

For some decades it has been considered, and often taught, that “management” is a “skill” independent of the business it is applied to; running an airline is no different from running a pizza parlor, and being too deep in the details the pizza business (never mind -liking- it) might get in the way of your getting the airline job. And the business of America is ROI and P/E; it has nothing whatsoever to do with making a product or delivering a service.

And really, how can you not love a post entitled “RUMSFELD JUMPS SHARK: Shark Denied Counsel”?

The Media Revolt Mainfesto by Orcinus. Read it. Now.

Over on Peter’s blog, topic titled PeterDavid.net: Bush vs. Kerry someone in the comments thread has mentioned Hitler.

My question: as a moderator, should I shut down the comment thread now that Godwin’s Law has been violated?

Yahoo! News – Yankees Balk at ‘Spider-Man’ Ads on Bases

Seriously– is there a possibility that this film won’t get enough advertising mindspace? That people won’t go out to see it in droves? This over-hype is rude, and worse, makes people think the movie is going to be worse than it is because they have to sell it so hard.

I blame the drug culture. During the Sixties a lot of people came to believe that they could get the real truth by intuiting vibes and reading auras, and that nit-picky left-brain attention to fact and detail is useless, if not harmful. Some of those people are still around today, and they seem to have had kids.

Posted on May 4, 2004Author Glenn HaumanCategories Uncategorized

Yahoo! News – Airlines Balk at Paying More for Security

Man, it must suck when you don’t spend a thousand dollars a plane to secure cockpit doors and suddenly you find yourself in financial tough times, even after you get billions in government loans and breaks.

And they’re being hindered by a price war! Heavens, the free market is just too fierce!