Union problems are everywhere

Source unknown:


Press Release: Union Negotiations

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action. General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't ask for much in return but to be treated like this by management is a kick in the teeth."
Mr. Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins but pointed out that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce and not by management. "Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an annual bonus of 250,000 virgins," complains Amir. "And you can be sure they'll all be pretty ones too. How can Al Qaeda afford that for members of the management but not 72 for the people who do the real work?"
Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands in which he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained, "We sympathize with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up." He defended management bonuses by claiming these were necessary to attract good, fanatical clerics. "How am I supposed to attract the best people if I can't compete with the private sector?" asked Mr. Bin-Laden.

Talks broke down this morning after management's last-ditch proposal of a virgin-sharing scheme was rejected outright after a failure to agree on orifice allocation quotas. One virgin, who refused to be named, was quoted as saying "I'll be buggered if I'm agreeing to anything like that........it's too much to swallow".

Unless some sort of agreement is reached over the weekend, suicide bombers will down explosives at midday on Monday. Most branches are supporting the strike. Only the North London branch, which has a different union, is likely to continue working. However, some members of that branch will only be using waist-down explosives in order to express solidarity with their striking brethren.

Spokespersons in the North East of England, Swindon, North Kent and the entire Australian continent stated that this would not affect their operations as "There are no virgins in their areas anyway".

Since everyone else is jumping off the cliff...

I will too:

Created by Oatmeal

Dedication

Yes, I needed a steak grilled over an open fire. No, I don't care the temperatures were sub-freezing this evening on our way to "the great storm of 2010 buy your bread and milk now."

It's been one of those weeks - I needed red meat.

And it was good too :D

In today's lesson the speed governor on a Ford F350 kicks in way earlier than on a police Crown Victoria. That is all.

A note for some coworkers...

Your failure to prepare for, or be on time for your block of instruction is neither my fault nor my crisis.

Getting pissy with me when I have to cover for you, and you don't like how I teach isn't likely to help things much.

More fun with drunks

I'm apparently operating under some kind of curse lately - it seems that I can go all night looking and not find anything even worth stopping, then right when it's time to start winding my evening down I get my drunk. Last weekend was no different. Heck, it got to the point I thought about stopping a cop car just to see if my blue lights still worked...

Anyway, I did manage to get one at the end of the evening. Young kid who managed to wreck his car on the way home - fortunately no one got hurt.

I couldn't decide if the sadder part was the fact his B.A.C. was well over his age; or the fact that it was obvious from his behavior this was far from his first drunk...

Short rant

Since I haven't pissed anyone off in a couple of days, here's one...

Apparently a number of folks out there have themselves in a bit of a kerfluffle because the new-ish Afghan constitution has an article in there about Islam being the state religion etc... Asking what we're doing sending folks to die for this, how we can support such a thing and all manner of religious hissy-fitting. What I really find ironic is a lot of these folks are the same ones who got spun up when various rulings said you couldn't post the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments in our courts and public buildings...

Well, here's my opinion in a few notes.

#1 - last I recall, being a bit involved in things at the time, we didn't send troops over to Afghanistan to magically impose a duplicate of the United States, Constitution, Republic and all. We did it because Al Qaeda and their Taliban allies/protectors had attacked this country and had refused to discontinue their terrorist acts. As a side effect of this we toppled the Taliban government, and ever since have been working to help the Afghan people become a stable society with a self-supporting, non-hostile government. Nowhere in the mission plan was "Clone the U.S. System" listed.

#2 - The American system of no state-sponsored church, and relative freedom of religion is a relatively new thing as far as societies go. For a great majority of the world their generally has been, and tends to continue to be, a form of worship which is if not directly sponsored by the government at least on the "most approved list." Most places make it work just fine too - sure, some have varying degrees of freedom of religion, but overall I think most Americans would be surprised at how well this is managed in a lot of places. Note - I am not advocating this system, and I am a big fan of the separation of church and state - but other places have chosen differently.

Which brings me to point #3, the big one. Folks - it's THEIR choice. If the overwhelming majority of the populace of Afghanistan tomorrow chose to live under Islam, or Vishnu, a monarchy run by the first guy they choose from the marketplace, or government by last week's winning lotto numbers, it's not our position to dictate otherwise. Provided that said government chooses to play nice by the accepted rules of big boy society, doesn't play "hide-the-bad-guy" too blatantly, and doesn't practice nasty habits like genocide of their own folks it's not really our choice to push otherwise.

Now trust me - the last thing I'm a fan of is militant Islam and jihadists. But that doesn't mean I condemn all Muslims out of hand. I'm not a fan of the KKK either, but I don't hate every white guy I meet; and the Inquisition did some nasty stuff throughout the years but I don't blame all Catholics. Seemingly though far too many people these days feel like singling out one religion as the bad guy in the world, and are mortified that any group of people may choose to find their solace therein, or feel it's appropriate to live under those rules.

Right now the U.S. is the big boy on the block; and with that we as a world and a society have come to expect us to play a certain role in helping guide and shape the world around us. It is a difficult role to be in, sometimes thankless, and I sincerely hope that we are able to help make the world a better place through some of our choices. But we are not Rome; we are not the British Empire of 250 years ago "Making the World England" - and in our efforts to help others we need to remember that this help does not necessarily mean turning them into ourselves.

Trying to think of a suitable punishment

For this fraud case.

Summary - guy "invents" device to help detect bombs at a distance, which turns out to be nothing more than a completely non-functional bit of parts. Sells millions of dollars worth to the Iraqi government, amongst others - and is almost certain to thus have contributed to numerous deaths of people who relied on this trash thinking it would help keep them alive.

I'm thinking being dropped off in the middle of a minefield, with only one of his own fake tools to get him to safety...

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence...

But three times...

or more.

Numerous spots starting to break a curious story about near-identical letters to the editor appearing nationwide, all with "local" addresses for a woman named Ellie Light, all in support of the current administration & published at about the same time.

One good summation here, but feel free to search for more.


Curiouser and curiouser...

Blog cleanup

Just tried to cleanup my blogroll a bit - added a few, and deleted some no-longer posting; along with just some general neatening of things I hope.

If I deleted anyone accidentally, or if you aren't linked and would like to be, just shoot me a message!