No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for July 30th, 2008

Saying He has Hubris May be a Compliment!

by @ 9:47. Filed under Politics - National.

The Washington Post  thinks Barack Obama may have a problem with hubris.

In a meeting yesterday with House members Obama was reported to have said:

“This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”

What wasn’t reported on were Barack’s comments following that:

Once more Barack addressed the crowd. he said, I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the Light which is Life.

Whereupon Republican skeptics told him, you are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid and is worthless.

Barack answered, Even if I do testify on my own behalf, my testimony is true and reliable and valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.

You [set yourself up to] judge according to the flesh (by what you see). [You condemn by external, human standards.] I do not [set myself up to] judge or condemn or sentence anyone.

Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true [my decision is right]; for I am not alone [in making it], but [there are two of Us] I and the Angry Michelle, Who sent Me.

In your [own] Law it is written that the testimony (evidence) of two persons is reliable and valid.

I am One [of the two] bearing testimony concerning myself; and Angry Michelle, who sent Me, she also testifies about me.

Then they said to him, Where is this Angry Michelle of Yours? Barack answered, you know my Angry Michelle as little as you know me. If you knew me, you would know my Angry Michelle.

(Read John 8:12-19 if you don’t quite get it)

Obama left hubris behind long ago. I’m beginning to think he needs an intervention of some kind to reattach him to reality.

“Recession” or “Healthy Correction”

by @ 8:46. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

As the various stock indexes dropped 20% Reuters and other news agencies were reporting that the country was in fact in a recession.

This morning, as oil has dropped nearly 20%, Reuters runs this headline and opening paragraph:

As oil nears 20 percent “bear” market, bulls unfazed

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – As the rout in oil prices nears the 20 percent mark that for stocks would signal a bear market, many analysts offer a word of caution — don’t mistake a healthy correction for the end of a multi-year bull trend.

If I read this right, news that is generally bad for the economy is a recession, news that is good for the economy is a “healthy correction.”

Uh huh

…..But if You Paid me More!

by @ 5:17. Filed under Compassionate Lieberals.

In one of my business roles I was a marketing manager.   Part of my responsibility was to develop compensation plans that motivated our sales force to sell the right quantity and mix of products.   It was always a balancing act as I had to be accountable for marketing budgets i.e. I couldn’t just spend anything I wanted, but I still needed to find the right incentive points for our sales force.  

I remember on more than one occasion, talking with a sales director about a compensation plan and being told that the sales reps wouldn’t be able to sell what we wanted them to.   During the course of those discussions, the sales director would usually get around to telling me that if I paid the sales reps more they would perform better.   My typical response was questioning whether the issue was one of motivation i.e. they won’t do it unless they get paid more or one of ability i.e. they “can’t “do it unless they got paid more.   As you can imagine our sharp sales directors quickly saw that their attempt to increase payment had come back to either paint their abilities to manage their teams in a poor light.

I tell you this story because we have some of the same coming from some elected officials in Minnesota as a solution in how to ensure that bridge inspections are done properly.   In the Star and Tribune’s article titled:

DFLers want more frequent bridge inspections

(hey, I didn’t make this a partisan issue, the paper did), Sen. Jim Carlson amongst others, has determined that one of the things that will make bridges safer is to pay the engineers more.

I’ve got to ask Sen. Carlson the same question I asked my sales director….will increasing their pay get the engineers to do better inspections? If so, maybe we have the wrong inspectors or the wrong folks managing the inspectors.

Sen. Carlson and company have some other suggestions.

First, they want to ensure that every bridge in the state is inspected each year. Let me clarify that I’m all for safety. However, no matter how many times you inspect a bridge, stuff happens. In fact, based on what we know today, the 35W bridge collapse wasn’t due to an issue of not being inspected but what was being done with the information from at least some of the inspections along the way.

The NTSB has national standards for bridge inspections. Those standards call for inspections every two years with some being inspected annually and some going as long as four years. The inspection frequency is determined based on utilization, length, age and other factors of the bridge. Doesn’t that seem to make some sense? Think about it, a new bridge that is small and has minor traffic, does it really make sense to inspect those as frequently as a bridge that the 35W bridge that has high traffic, and is known to have problems?

Perhaps the most important paradigm shifting suggestion coming from Sen. Carlson and his supporters is to:

formally include safety in the department’s statutory mission

Wow, that should certainly improve inspections! I wonder what they thought the inspections were about before; to make sure no one had stolen a bridge?

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