2009.04.29
Wednesday open thread
Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.
Feeling social today?
RSS feed 
Nah not really. After 2 straight 12+ hour days and working the past 17 straight (thankfully only 6 of the 17 were 12 hour days), I'm pretty much wanting to go back to bed and sleep today.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 10:32 am
Today my company announced a voluntary furlough program asking that each employee worldwide take five days off without pay between May 1 and August 31. The days don't need to be consecutive, but they are hoping to avoid layoffs and redundancies this year.
The plan is to save $6 million if everyone participates. Hopefully so. I've picked my five days.
Comment by Jack — April 29, 2009 @ 11:56 am
Speaking of social thoughts, has anyone heard about the growing fued/conflict between Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann over the waterboarding debate? Apparently, Hannity has repeated that he doesn't feel that waterboarding is torture and even said on his TV show that he's go through it to show support to the troops and families of troops while talking to Charles Grodin. Since then, Olbermann has made an offer of paying $1000 per second that Hannity undergoes the waterboarding, but I haven't heard anything beyond that. Sounds like that might have been a very empty offer by Hannity, though i wonder how solid the offer by Olbermann is as well. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing both of them do it, it would keep some hot air from warming the planet for at least a few minutes.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Oh, I forgot to add that the $1000 a second would go to a troop support fund.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
Not to pry and feel free not to share, but how exactly does that work for people on salary? Do they just pay on a prorated basis for the furlough day(s)? It is a tough economy but I hope that no one in your company loses their job. Worldwide huh? Your company must be pretty big. Good Luck to you and your fellow workers, I know I argue and shout but I mean that sincerely!
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Well he sent a chunk of change to Special Olympics over some Palin thingy I have since forgotten so I assume KeithO is serious.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
Personnaly, I liked Keith better when he stuck with sports...but I would love to see this challenege actually pan out. I'd watch.
And Jack, hopefully the furlough works to help keep the company going strong so that layoffs or other cutbacks in personnel aren't needed. Having worked a job where our hours were cut, I can sympathize with what's going on. Hopefully it's a short-term thing that won't lead to additional cost-cutting measures, and hopefully the economy will start picking up again in the near-term.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
Jack, as has been announced before we also are experiencing five furlough days here. We've had three of the five already.(I risk writing this knowing that the usual suspects will chime in that the liberal media deserves this, blah, blah, blah.)
I do so to let you know, furlough days aren't so bad.
I've been able to get quite a lot of family/personal/house/yard stuff accomplished on these days off. If you don't stop to think about missing a day's pay, they can actually be great stress relievers.
Comment by Luanne T. — April 29, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
Not I, he is balm to the soul who had to listen to the likes of Limbaugh, Savage, Boortz, Hannity, Coulter, et al go unchallenged and unanswered for too long. Go Keith go, hatred and vitriol are no longer the exclusive province of the dark knights of the right and I love it. He is my big brother come to the playground and he calls out the bullies for what they are. Which is also why he is so unpopular on the right side of the aisle. He is not everyone's cup of tea, I grant you that, but he is a long cool drink of water for many of us. He is fighting an obviously uncontrollable fire with fire, just like the professionals do.
I also love Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz for those who want names to vilify me with. Chris Matthews knows his stuff but is hard to listen too.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
Good way to look at it LuAnne. I have chosen not to use all of my vacation days and only get paid for days I work, but I would be willing to go with the furlough idea if it would help the bottom line as well. I know the American worker gets trashed as being lazy and greedy but that has not been my experience. If anyone is, they are the first out the door in a crunch so maybe a lesson is learned. Let's all hope and pray that the powerful and the brilliant get the ship moving again soon and lift all these boats.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
Sandi,
I am on salary. This is how it is calculated:
Take your annual salary and divide it by 26 (we get paid every other week) to get your regular gross paycheck amount.
Then, take your annual salary and divide it by 2,080 hours and multiply it by 8 hours. That gives you your daily pay rate.
You would then take your gross paycheck amount and subtract your daily pay rate from it. You would obviously adjust the calculations if you took more than one of the five days in the same pay period.
We did have some labor cuts late last year, but it was small. They are hoping that everyone will participate in this furlough program and that will help to save 75-100 jobs. I'm hoping that everyone will join in.
Anyways, I do know you are sincere. We have differences of opinion on a daily basis, but I don't take it personally.
Thanks for the input, Luanne. I'm honestly not worried about losing a week's pay. In fact, I'd be fine just giving up a week's pay and continuing to work if it would help the company get into a better financial situation. However, they have encouraged us not to work on our days off.
The company is strong financially, it's just that our spending is not in line with the revenue that was projected, apparently.
Hopefully this economy will turn around soon.
Comment by Jack — April 29, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
I just don't listen to any of the on-air pundit types. I was actually very susprised that when talking to my dad, he stopped listening to conservative talk radio a while back and hasn't gone back to it since. He bought Limbaugh's books, watched his TV show, and was a daily listener since it came on the air in Norfolk in the late 80's. He said the recent turn toward doom and gloom negativity drove him away, and he won't be back. That's the same reason I don't bother either, I have too many other good things to do. I'd rather go outside and work in the yard while listening to a CD/MP3 collection and save my TV time for educational shows off History or Discovery (or sports during football/hockey season). I find my blood pressure and stress levels are far lower if I avoid news and commentary shows like the plague. THat's my balm to the soul: pruning the azaleas and hollies in the yard while listening to the soothing music of Disturbed or Slipknot (seriously, I can meditate to metal...don't know why either).
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 12:49 pm
I bet Olberman would pay a lot more than $1000/minute if he got to hold the hose. Auctioning off that job would probably bring in LOTS of money for troop family support groups.
Comment by Kristen — April 29, 2009 @ 12:49 pm
Oh, Sandi, when you guessed about the size of my company...
It is based out of California and we have more than 3,500 employees. Company was founded in 1987 and has more than 100,000 customers worldwide.
Our 2008 revenue was $735 million, which was a 16.5% grown over 2007.
I work for a wholly owned subsidiary, and we are comprised of about 250 of the employees of the entire company.
Comment by Jack — April 29, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
It would Kristen. From what I've read, the average session lasts 20 minutes, so assuming Sean could man-up for the whole time, that would be $1.2 million. For the record, I would not want to undergo this. I nearly drowned as a kid, and while I moved on from that and became a decent swimmer and was within a few course hours of getting certified as a lifeguard, drowning is still a paralyzing fear of mine.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
Thanks Jack, I appreciate the schooling. Live long and prosper!
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
I think if Hannity really supports this troops the way he says he does, 20 minutes of his time and a little discomfort is the least he can do to generate that sort of money to fund support activities.
Comment by Kristen — April 29, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
I agree. I caught some of his rantings on air once, and he called it something along the lines of 'dripping a little water on your face'. The actual technique is both far more complex and far more impacting that a simople dripping of water...so his downplaying the technique means he is uninformed, stupid, or supremely arrogant regarding the whole waterboarding concept. I might vote for all 3.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 1:11 pm
One minute, waterboarding is torture and the next minute, it is some discomfort. I doubt Hannity has any information that anyone wants. Terrorists on the other hand......
Comment by Henry — April 29, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
Pol Pot was a big fan of waterboarding. Nuff said.
Comment by Kristen — April 29, 2009 @ 1:21 pm
Good point Henry...Hannity is pretty much information free. Maybe we'd get his ATM password out of him.
Comment by Kristen — April 29, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
I guess its ok to shoot 3 teenage muslim boys in the head to save one life that may or may not have been in danger but can't turn some guy upside down and pour water in his nose to save the lives of thousands
Comment by wayne p. — April 29, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
Water boarding is torture in both minutes. PERIOD. The difference is that the person saying it IS torture is challenging the person who says it IS NOT to live up to the offer the 'dripping a little water' person made. Hannity has nothing that anyone wants and he will be under no duress or threat and will in fact be treated with kid gloves that he will use to prove his point anyway, so the whole exercise would be pointless, but HE MADE THE OFFER, why not turn it into a charity event?
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 1:32 pm
We'll let you know when it happens wayne p. #22
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
There is exactly zero chance Hannity lets himself be waterboarded.
It does look like momentum is growing for an investigation into the Bush torture memos and what role the office of legal counsel played in rationalizing away what Bush/Cheney sought to authorize. An editorial in the NYTs this weekend picturesquely describes the legal sandbagging and contorted opinion-rendering of Jay Bybee (now a federal judge) who signed the memos as being "perverted lawyering" and fingers Bybee as being "pornographically amoral"
Comment by Kristen — April 29, 2009 @ 1:41 pm
"why not turn it into a charity event?"
Kinda hard to take that whole torture thing seriously if you are going to suggest this.
Maybe we should make him listen to his own show.
Comment by Henry — April 29, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
wikipedia on waterboarding: It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, ultimately, death.[4] Adverse physical consequences can start manifesting months after the event; psychological effects can last for years.[14]
I think even if Hannity agreed there would be someone somewhere that would not allow it because of the risk.
Comment by HCS — April 29, 2009 @ 1:46 pm
most likely HCS. He opened the can, stirred it around, and will still be able to talk the talk without having to ever walk it. He would make a damn good lawyer with that strategy...ask a question you absolutely know the answer to and just see if the witness speaks it or not. If they do, you win, if they don;t, you can nail them on it. Either way, you win and don't get dirty. I fully think he said this knowing he'd never have to go through with it, but he can talk it up saying 'hey, i made the offer...but so and so won't let me do it, blah blah and so on.'
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
One "event" has nothing to do with the other and YOU were not taking the whole torture thing seriously in the first place, neither was Hannity. Water Boarding of prisoners of unknown guilt is TORTURE, faux water boarding a fool who pooped off before he engaged his pea brain is an event. If listening to your own twisted logic was painful, it would stop.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 29, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
so I am curious as to why some folks don't consider waterboarding torture...I suppose I can see the pro-torture angle in the case that you can in fact get reliable info that would save lives. But it seems some of the arguments here are centered around whether or not waterboarding is torture. I ask, why isn't it?
Comment by HCS — April 29, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
Based on what I've read, I would consider it to be a form of torture. While it's nothing quite like having fingernails ripped out one by one, or fingers crushed in a vice, or being strapped to a torture rack and slowly having your arms and legs stretched to the point that they tear ligaments and come out of their sockets and/or break due to the strain, it still results in physical and mental damage to the people who undergo it, and that's enough for me. I think the people seriously dismissing waterboarding as simple 'water dripping' or minor discomfort don;t have a clue what they are talking about, and that they would sing a far different tune if they actually went through the whole, unaltered expeerience.
Comment by Other John — April 29, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
Before Bush, waterboarding was widely accepted as torture, and in fact the US has staged prosecutions for it. Yet another stain left by the Bush administration is that we find debate in the public forum on issues like this that had already been decided and are forced to revisit positions that were long since decided upon.
I'm afraid that what's going to come out of the investigations on this is going to be uglier and filthier than we yet have any notion of. I've come to the conclusion that, although Obama wants all attention and energy addressed to the future and would prefer to ignore the (recent) past, borh moral and legal imperatives require him to pursue this line of investigation.
Comment by Kristen — April 29, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
When our commander-in-chief said he was "enchanted" with our military he must have been referring to how impressed his is in their ability to raid Iraqi villages in the middle of the night and killing innocent men, women and children
Comment by wayne p. — April 29, 2009 @ 9:53 pm
wayne p., did you and I listen to the same statement. In the statement I heard, Mr. Obama said, "enchanted is not the word I would use." Are we both talking about the news conference that was held tonight?
Comment by allen bunch — April 29, 2009 @ 10:37 pm