Staff in the public sector are generally covered by civil service laws and regulations of some sort. So firing someone often requires compiling a written record of the problem(s), creation of a plan giving them a chance to correct the problem(s), documenting the success or failure of the plan, etc. Things often have to be going on for a long time before the manager decides to take on that burden.
I worked for a giant telecom that had similar internal rules about process. Same problem -- things could be glossed over for a long time before the manager decides to go to the effort.
If you consider his whole history, he's an amazing guy. Influential enough in small college sports when he was young that he was mentioned in a Sports Illustrated story. Army helicopter pilot, and finished Army Ranger school. Rhodes scholar. Umpteen nominations and awards for songwriting and singing (he always seemed surprised about the latter, acknowledging he didn't have a great voice). Nominated for an Oscar for best original score. A Golden Globe Best Actor award. Openly anti-war during a period when country music was all about ultra-patriotism.
ETA: Rex beat me to the sentiment, but I'll leave my comment any way.
Another Nick Carter character, a spy/assassin acknowledged to be based in part on this Nick Carter detective, appeared in the 1960s. Something more than 250 novels were published in that series. The spy books were a house brand with the writing hired out among many people. None of the published volumes included an author's name.
My father was a field auditor and safety inspector for an insurance company for many years, traveling across Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. He bought Nick Carter spy books for mindless reading while he was on the road. There was a whole shelf full of them down in the basement.
Yeah, even when I was young and flexible, I hated having to plan every move to get into the right place. Put this arm in first, straight. Slide in four inches. Then that arm, up and around the pipe. Slide a little farther then twist so you can get your head past the garbage disposal. Then back to the first arm and unfold it. Slide a little farther. All while you're bent backwards over the edge of the cabinet sill...
The strike effects will be complicated. West Coast ports are still open, which includes two of the three largest container ports in the US. Bulk cargo -- grain, oil and petroleum products, chemicals -- are still being loaded and unloaded at Gulf ports because the dock workers for those materials are not union members. There may be odd regional patterns, and those are likely to change if the strike turns out to be a long one. Eg, if the Class I long-haul railroads have a lot of unused capacity and how quickly that can be available.
ThTh1: For those who are neither wealthy nor have a well to do sponsoring organization, the Electoral Studies article is available at Sci-Hub.
ThTh2: The article -- a couple of links away -- does not include data as far back as the massive heat/humidity dome centered over Chicago during the summer of 1995. Hundreds of deaths were attributed to that single event. The US record for wet-bulb temperature was set in Wisconsin during that.
Like Jaybird, I live along the Colorado Front Range urban corridor (opposite end, though). With the West Coast ports open, I suspect neither of us will notice the longshoremen's strike. Nor will anyone living farther west than us. Just for what it's worth.
Clinton won the national popular vote by almost 3M votes. Biden by 7M. I'm putting a marker down for Harris to win by 10M. The abortion vote is being underweighted. Much of my adult life I've regularly had lunch in Great Plains rural towns of a certain size. Every one of them has an unofficial "old widows club" -- women whose husbands have died, who don't want to leave the area where they've lived their lives, who've moved to town and look out for each other. My HOA has a happy hour in the common area on Wednesdays if the weather is nice enough. That group has become similar to those old widows clubs. I go now and then because it's entertaining to see them decide whether to continue their usual displeasure with old men, or try to accommodate me. I went yesterday. With the election coming up, every single one of them is incensed about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. They are going to take it out on every Republican on the ballot from Trump down.
Early on during the years where I made an annual week-long trip to my Mom's south of Omaha to do all the handyman chores, staying awake on the part of the return drive on I-76, straight into the July/August sun, was hard. Then I started listening to the audio book version of Salem's Lot, four hours per year, and had no problem staying awake. Also no problem picking it up a year later and remembering exactly where in the story I had been.
Overheard granddaughter #1 (fifth grade) telling granddaughter #2 (second grade) the other day: "You can't watch the first Harry Potter movie, you haven't read the book!"
If it were my decision, I wouldn't let them have Stephen King for some years. I was a college student when I read Salem's Lot. Finished it in bed at 2:00 am. Would have had to go across the room to turn off the light, then walk back to bed in the dark. Left the light on and slept with my head under the pillow.
But it’s the Israelis by their own policies insisting on living in the same country with Palestinians...
There's (maybe) stated policies, and there's reality. I seldom comment on Israel because my view is so simple-minded. The State of Israel has one goal: a Jewish theocratic state. To that end, looking over the last 75 years, they have pursued two methods in practice: push out the non-Jews, and from time to time grab some of the bordering territory. Sometimes those two can be bloody. It's a package, take it or leave it.
The summer after I was in sixth or seventh grade, the neighborhood boys organized a near daily take-no-prisoners croquet game. By the end of the summer the court was being regularly rolled, overfed, overwatered, and cut as low we could get. Amazing what sorts of manual lawn care equipment you can find in grandfathers' sheds.
Does the Times have access to the internal bookkeeping to know that Kushner's done nothing? IIRC, the Saudis gave him $2B. $112M for $2B under management for three years is actually pretty typical for billion-dollar hedge funds.
Tropical Tidbits provides a really nice display of all the major computer model predictions. Both the GFS (US) and ECMWF (European) models have Helene still looking very well organized as it passes over Atlanta.
A friend who lives outside Asheville, NC says they have already had five inches of rain. Asheville looks like it's in one of the 12-16 inches of total precipitation bands.
The argument that got the last few votes in the state legislature here needed to do away with the death penalty was the "canary sheet": the budget analysis prepared by the legislative staff for each bill with a fiscal impact (so named because it's printed on bright yellow paper). Successfully seeking the death penalty and carrying out the execution was more expensive than life without parole; unsuccessfully seeking the death penalty was a lot more expensive than life without parole. Dropping the death penalty saved millions of dollars.
When I was a lad, my Grandparents Cain had a coal-fired furnace. When we visited in the winter, my Dad gave Grandpa a break and shoveled the coal. I lived for the day when I would be deemed big enough to do that job. What a hot sweaty task that is, especially after the first part of the new load gets to burning.
The rule does not require counties to hand-count the results for each candidate, only the total number of ballots received at the polling place.
It will be interesting to see what the Georgia courts say. My understanding is that to conform to this rule, the local officials would have to violate a state law about when ballot box seals can be broken.
Presumably the purpose of this rule is to detect large shortfalls or overages in the number of ballots. It goes almost without saying that if there are small differences, all of the experience says the humans are wrong and the machines are right.
I kept granddaughter #3 the morning after I got the shots. We made the usual trip to the park, so I spent an hour pushing swings, bouncing the teeter-totter, and spinning the rotary climber. I'm popular with the mothers at the park because I'll spin the rotary climber.
She wasn't interested in the big enclosed climbing thing. The previous visit she was, got about two-thirds of the way up, and decided she was stuck. Had to climb up to rescue her. That thing is not sized for people with adult-length legs and adult-width shoulders.
I got my flu and Covid shots about ten days ago. Kaiser was using the Pfizer vaccine the day I was there. I always feel guilty that all I get is some discomfort at the injection site.
Putting a very small device in with the explosives so they can all be triggered at once isn't a hard problem. You have to push watts into transmitting the trigger signal to cover a large area, but that's even easier.
Things equivalent to a light box go back centuries. So, more likely that he did the line drawing absent facial features once, traced it ten times, then added faces, jacket texture, and such for each. Based on my own experience, tracing that sort of line drawing goes very fast.
I seem to recall that the relationship between the state, the city, and the MTA is quite twisted, to the point where implementing something like this becomes next thing to impossible.
I recall times when I worked for the Colorado state legislature on the budget staff and having closed-door discussions with some member of the General Assembly that included things like, "Yes, ma'am. I understand that what you want to do sounds simple. But there are several statutes and a couple of things in the state constitution that are intended to make that sort of flow of funds impossible."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Of Conspiracy Theories and Helene”
Staff in the public sector are generally covered by civil service laws and regulations of some sort. So firing someone often requires compiling a written record of the problem(s), creation of a plan giving them a chance to correct the problem(s), documenting the success or failure of the plan, etc. Things often have to be going on for a long time before the manager decides to take on that burden.
I worked for a giant telecom that had similar internal rules about process. Same problem -- things could be glossed over for a long time before the manager decides to go to the effort.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Sink”
If you consider his whole history, he's an amazing guy. Influential enough in small college sports when he was young that he was mentioned in a Sports Illustrated story. Army helicopter pilot, and finished Army Ranger school. Rhodes scholar. Umpteen nominations and awards for songwriting and singing (he always seemed surprised about the latter, acknowledging he didn't have a great voice). Nominated for an Oscar for best original score. A Golden Globe Best Actor award. Openly anti-war during a period when country music was all about ultra-patriotism.
ETA: Rex beat me to the sentiment, but I'll leave my comment any way.
"
I didn’t know that he sang an awesome cover of “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Does it count as a cover given that he wrote it? And that he released his version before Janis recorded the version that hit it big?
On “The Days of Real Sport”
Another Nick Carter character, a spy/assassin acknowledged to be based in part on this Nick Carter detective, appeared in the 1960s. Something more than 250 novels were published in that series. The spy books were a house brand with the writing hired out among many people. None of the published volumes included an author's name.
My father was a field auditor and safety inspector for an insurance company for many years, traveling across Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota. He bought Nick Carter spy books for mindless reading while he was on the road. There was a whole shelf full of them down in the basement.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Sink”
Yeah, even when I was young and flexible, I hated having to plan every move to get into the right place. Put this arm in first, straight. Slide in four inches. Then that arm, up and around the pipe. Slide a little farther then twist so you can get your head past the garbage disposal. Then back to the first arm and unfold it. Slide a little farther. All while you're bent backwards over the edge of the cabinet sill...
On “Port Strikes and Tariff Wars”
The strike effects will be complicated. West Coast ports are still open, which includes two of the three largest container ports in the US. Bulk cargo -- grain, oil and petroleum products, chemicals -- are still being loaded and unloaded at Gulf ports because the dock workers for those materials are not union members. There may be odd regional patterns, and those are likely to change if the strike turns out to be a long one. Eg, if the Class I long-haul railroads have a lot of unused capacity and how quickly that can be available.
On “Throughput: Migrant Stats Edition”
ThTh1: For those who are neither wealthy nor have a well to do sponsoring organization, the Electoral Studies article is available at Sci-Hub.
ThTh2: The article -- a couple of links away -- does not include data as far back as the massive heat/humidity dome centered over Chicago during the summer of 1995. Hundreds of deaths were attributed to that single event. The US record for wet-bulb temperature was set in Wisconsin during that.
On “Let’s face it: We knew that Harris would win back in August”
Like Jaybird, I live along the Colorado Front Range urban corridor (opposite end, though). With the West Coast ports open, I suspect neither of us will notice the longshoremen's strike. Nor will anyone living farther west than us. Just for what it's worth.
Clinton won the national popular vote by almost 3M votes. Biden by 7M. I'm putting a marker down for Harris to win by 10M. The abortion vote is being underweighted. Much of my adult life I've regularly had lunch in Great Plains rural towns of a certain size. Every one of them has an unofficial "old widows club" -- women whose husbands have died, who don't want to leave the area where they've lived their lives, who've moved to town and look out for each other. My HOA has a happy hour in the common area on Wednesdays if the weather is nice enough. That group has become similar to those old widows clubs. I go now and then because it's entertaining to see them decide whether to continue their usual displeasure with old men, or try to accommodate me. I went yesterday. With the election coming up, every single one of them is incensed about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. They are going to take it out on every Republican on the ballot from Trump down.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024”
Early on during the years where I made an annual week-long trip to my Mom's south of Omaha to do all the handyman chores, staying awake on the part of the return drive on I-76, straight into the July/August sun, was hard. Then I started listening to the audio book version of Salem's Lot, four hours per year, and had no problem staying awake. Also no problem picking it up a year later and remembering exactly where in the story I had been.
"
Overheard granddaughter #1 (fifth grade) telling granddaughter #2 (second grade) the other day: "You can't watch the first Harry Potter movie, you haven't read the book!"
If it were my decision, I wouldn't let them have Stephen King for some years. I was a college student when I read Salem's Lot. Finished it in bed at 2:00 am. Would have had to go across the room to turn off the light, then walk back to bed in the dark. Left the light on and slept with my head under the pillow.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/23/2024”
But it’s the Israelis by their own policies insisting on living in the same country with Palestinians...
There's (maybe) stated policies, and there's reality. I seldom comment on Israel because my view is so simple-minded. The State of Israel has one goal: a Jewish theocratic state. To that end, looking over the last 75 years, they have pursued two methods in practice: push out the non-Jews, and from time to time grab some of the bordering territory. Sometimes those two can be bloody. It's a package, take it or leave it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024”
At this point, how much resource does a Gaza front require? A bit of infantry to keep things bottled up, some artillery, some spotting drones?
On “If Croquet was Played like Golf”
The summer after I was in sixth or seventh grade, the neighborhood boys organized a near daily take-no-prisoners croquet game. By the end of the summer the court was being regularly rolled, overfed, overwatered, and cut as low we could get. Amazing what sorts of manual lawn care equipment you can find in grandfathers' sheds.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/23/2024”
Does the Times have access to the internal bookkeeping to know that Kushner's done nothing? IIRC, the Saudis gave him $2B. $112M for $2B under management for three years is actually pretty typical for billion-dollar hedge funds.
On “Livestream: Hurricane Helene”
Tropical Tidbits provides a really nice display of all the major computer model predictions. Both the GFS (US) and ECMWF (European) models have Helene still looking very well organized as it passes over Atlanta.
A friend who lives outside Asheville, NC says they have already had five inches of rain. Asheville looks like it's in one of the 12-16 inches of total precipitation bands.
On “Missouri Conducts Controversial Execution of Marcellus Williams”
The argument that got the last few votes in the state legislature here needed to do away with the death penalty was the "canary sheet": the budget analysis prepared by the legislative staff for each bill with a fiscal impact (so named because it's printed on bright yellow paper). Successfully seeking the death penalty and carrying out the execution was more expensive than life without parole; unsuccessfully seeking the death penalty was a lot more expensive than life without parole. Dropping the death penalty saved millions of dollars.
On “Movie of a Man and a Furnace”
When I was a lad, my Grandparents Cain had a coal-fired furnace. When we visited in the winter, my Dad gave Grandpa a break and shoveled the coal. I lived for the day when I would be deemed big enough to do that job. What a hot sweaty task that is, especially after the first part of the new load gets to burning.
On “The Election Year Changeups”
The rule does not require counties to hand-count the results for each candidate, only the total number of ballots received at the polling place.
It will be interesting to see what the Georgia courts say. My understanding is that to conform to this rule, the local officials would have to violate a state law about when ballot box seals can be broken.
Presumably the purpose of this rule is to detect large shortfalls or overages in the number of ballots. It goes almost without saying that if there are small differences, all of the experience says the humans are wrong and the machines are right.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Return to the Office”
I kept granddaughter #3 the morning after I got the shots. We made the usual trip to the park, so I spent an hour pushing swings, bouncing the teeter-totter, and spinning the rotary climber. I'm popular with the mothers at the park because I'll spin the rotary climber.
She wasn't interested in the big enclosed climbing thing. The previous visit she was, got about two-thirds of the way up, and decided she was stuck. Had to climb up to rescue her. That thing is not sized for people with adult-length legs and adult-width shoulders.
"
I got my flu and Covid shots about ten days ago. Kaiser was using the Pfizer vaccine the day I was there. I always feel guilty that all I get is some discomfort at the injection site.
On “How Israel Got Hezbollah’s Pager Number”
Just melting down.
"
Putting a very small device in with the explosives so they can all be triggered at once isn't a hard problem. You have to push watts into transmitting the trigger signal to cover a large area, but that's even easier.
On “From The Financial Times: From Taipei to Budapest: the mysterious trail of exploding pagers”
I have to admit that I'm somewhat surprised Iran isn't stamping out thousands of cheap communications widgets for its various proxies.
On “Clare Briggs: Movie of a Man with a Mosquito Bite on his Ankle”
Things equivalent to a light box go back centuries. So, more likely that he did the line drawing absent facial features once, traced it ten times, then added faces, jacket texture, and such for each. Based on my own experience, tracing that sort of line drawing goes very fast.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024”
I seem to recall that the relationship between the state, the city, and the MTA is quite twisted, to the point where implementing something like this becomes next thing to impossible.
I recall times when I worked for the Colorado state legislature on the budget staff and having closed-door discussions with some member of the General Assembly that included things like, "Yes, ma'am. I understand that what you want to do sounds simple. But there are several statutes and a couple of things in the state constitution that are intended to make that sort of flow of funds impossible."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.