Eff you, it's my blog

OMG, it's food porn!

2013-06-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, we finally have some food porn. Took me a while, and, to tell the truth, I damn near forgot to start taking pictures for the post, so the step-by-step is not as illustrative as some cooking shows might be. On the other hand, none o those cooking shows have me, so I guess it balances out.

Today we make calzones, a fine Italian dish that is often abused. Calzones usually involve a cheese-meat-vegetable mixture of some sort wrapped in a pizza-dough crust. Many people put marinara sauce (spaghetti sauce) inside the calzones, which is barbaric. You can drench the calzone with sauce after cooking, or dip each piece in sauce as you eat it if you like, but the sauce stays on the outside. That said, we begin.

First, of course, you must make dough for the crust. You will need one package of yeast, one teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of olive oil, a cup of warm water and 2-1/2 cups of flour.

Yeah, not everything is in the picture. Did I mention I almost forgot to take pictures? You don't like it, refer to the title of the blog. And Clapper, blow me. (Sorry, I could not resist the urge to throw in a gratuitous insult to the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who apparently is reading everyone's blog, among other things.)

Mix the yeast with the water in a bowl, and add the oil, sugar and salt. My recipe says "small bowl," but it never talks about moving it to a large bowl to blend in the flour, so I start this mixture in a large bowl. Anyway, get it all mixed in nicely, with the yeast and everything dissolved, then stir in one cup of flour. Get it smooth, all lumps stirred out, etc., then gradually stir in the remaining 1-1/2 cups until the dough is smooth and workable (meaning it doesn't stick to your hands every time you touch it). You might have to add a small amount of water to blend in all of the flour. I find that the second cup of flour stirs in well, but the final half cup should be spread on a cutting board or other smooth surface and kneaded into the dough. This is fine, since you have to knead the dough for about five minutes until it is nice and elastic. At that point, you put the dough back in the large bowl, pour a tablespoon of olive oil over it, flip it rub it around the bowl to coat the entire surface of the dough with olive oil, then set it aside to rise. Looks like this at that point:

Unimpressive, I know.

Now we make the filling. You will need 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese, 1-1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese, about a cup of diced pepperoni, a tablespoon of basil and, if you like, a half cup of mushrooms, onions, or something like that. I chose not to add any of those things today.

Anyway, mix all those things together while the dough is rising, then cover and refrigerate. Looks like this:

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour for the dough to rise. You want it to double in size. So go drink a beer or two, mow the front yard, play with the kids, whatever. At some point, the dough will now look like this:

Yeah, it's a lot bigger. Punch that sucker down and divide it into four pieces. In turn (not all at once unless you have a really big rolling board), roll each part into a circle on a floured surface:

I think a marble rolling pin is best, but use wood if you think you must. (By the way, this is probably a good time to start preheating the oven to 375.) After each piece is rolled out to the desired size (don't ask me what the desired size is -- how big do you want the damn thing to be? Actually, I recommend about 8 inches in diameter, because you don't have enough filling to make four calzones bigger than that.), put one-fourth of the filling onto the crust.

You will do this four times, folding the crust over and pressing the edges together. Put the assembled calzones on a greased cookie sheet or, as I did, a greased pizza pan.

Beat one egg in a small bowl. Get a basting brush.

Use the basting brush to slather the calzone crusts with the beaten egg. Makes them brown nicely.

OK. I assume you took my earlier advice and preheated the oven to 375 degrees. If not, turn it on now. I'll wait. Drink a beer while the oven preheats. Seriously, do you people not listen to me? Once the oven is ready, pop those suckers in for about 30 minutes. When done, they should look like this:

For sauce, you can either pour marinara sauce over your calzone, or you can put some in a bowl to dip each piece as you cut up your calzone and shove it in that gaping maw you call a mouth.

By making four calzones, it is simpler, but they are large. You can cut them in half, and a single serving then looks like this:

Drizzle sauce and add the vegetable of your choice as a side (unless you shove vegetables inside during the making) and you get this:

Anyway, don't bug me now. I'm eating. Bon appetit.

I think I know how temp agencies will survive Obamacare, and you won't like it

2013-06-15T20:43:00.001-07:00

We have discussed repeatedly at this site whether the mandates imposed by Obamacare on firms that employ more than 50 full-time employees are going to fuck temp agencies and, by extension, temps, such as here and here and here. The thinking at the time was that temp agencies would have to either have to limit temps to 29 hours a week -- not a viable option, really -- or turn us into Form 1099 independent contractors -- a pain in the ass for temps and a legally dubious move on the part of temp agencies, given the IRS rules on 1099 contractors. Turns out there is a cheaper, viable solution that I think temp agencies will employ. Problem, of course, is it sucks for temps. But then, Obamacare sucks all around, so why should this be different. Let's face it, life in Temp Town sucks, so why should this be any different?

In any event, I believe my fears regarding the demise of the temp industry were misplaced. There is, within this clusterfuck of a law, a way for employers to offer their employees a cheap, qualifying plan that allows them to avoid the penalties they might otherwise incur for not offering their employees suitable health insurance. It is, of course, a plan that no one would actually want in a free-market kind of atmosphere, but let's not get carried away here. We now live in the world of government-mandated health insurance, so it should come as no surprise to learn that the temp employer's saviour is neither insurance nor likely to foster good health.

Behold, I give you the "skinny plan." Trust me, this is not insurance you would buy in the real world:

ObamaCare's individual mandate is supposed to nudge healthy workers to buy comprehensive coverage, either out of a sense of propriety or thrift — not wanting to throw away money to pay a tax penalty.

But a new, low-priced health plan developed by insurers to cover run-of-the-mill medical costs — but not hospitalization or surgery — would let workers dodge the penalty and leave them with a clear conscience.

What most young, single people want in the way of health insurance is catastrophic coverage: low-cost, high-deductible insurance that leaves routine health care costs to the insured -- doctor visits, routine prescription costs that fall below the deductible amount -- while covering big costs, like hospitalization or major injuries that send the insured to the emergency room. For most people, this makes sense. It's like owning a car: you don't want your insurance to cover your oil changes and tire rotations, but you sure as hell want your insurance to pony up for accident damage.

Well, these skinny plans do the opposite. They're like buying auto insurance that covers inspection costs, oil changes and tire rotations, but is nowhere to be found when an accident happens. All the plans do is "help defray the cost of up to six visits to the doctor, x-rays, generic drugs and preventative care, the Wall Street Journal reported." This is, to use a term of art, fucking worthless as health insurance goes. But Obamacare has essentially outlawed buying the kind of catastrophic insurance that everybody except old people want, so this is probably what Temp Town is going to get.

In any event, these skinny plans are likely to cost only about $50 per month, so temp agencies probably will go with this. It makes sense for them, even if the coverage is worthless to temps. Seriously, if you don't get hurt or really sick, do you spend $600 a year on routine health care, like normal doctor visits and prescriptions? Most people don't. And this is just individual coverage, people. Your family is fucked. If you are healthy, it makes more sense to eat the penalty for not buying insurance -- it's only $95 or 1% of income in 2014, $325 or 2% of income in 2015, and $695 or 2.5% of wages in 2016 and thereafter. Of course, the IRS can only collect the penalty by withholding your tax refund, so, if you do your withholding so you have no refund, then you pay no penalty.

In the end, the skinny plans are not like insurance at all. They're like a pre-paid maintenance plan. Insurance is designed to cover extraordinary costs from unusual events, like when you get hit by a bus and have lots of hospital expenses. The skinny plans don't cover that, but they'll pay for lots of doctor visits. Let's face it, most people don't go to the doctor every other month. So who the fuck wants to pay for coverage that only covers that crap? Stupid.

On the up side, skinny coverage gives temp agencies a way to stay in business. So smile -- you get to keep clicking. Which, I guess, is kind of like telling galley slaves they can keep pulling that oar. Sorry, kids, that's the best I've got.

Government spies wish they were this hip

2013-06-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, people, the government isn't trying to spy on you, they just want to "tap it:"

Hat tip to Hot Air

Yo, Clapper, you getting all this?

2013-06-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the Department of Homeland Security National Operations Center has a desktop reference manual to let its agents know what search terms to look for as they monitor the citizenry's Facebook postings, emails and what not. A site called Activist Post has put up a lot of information that apparently was reported in The Huffington Post, to which I decline to link. Not clear to me whether HuffPo obtained the release of the information, but they reported on it. In any event, there is now online a version of the DHS Analyst's Desktop Binder. This binder, it would appear, included a list of search terms the DHS uses in its online spying activities. While I suppose this will make me a rising star on the DHS "watch this guy " list, here are ALL of the terms in the Analyst's Desktop Binder:

Domestic Security

Assassination
Attack
Domestic security
Drill
Exercise
Cops
Law enforcement
Authorities
Disaster assistance
Disaster management
DNDO (Domestic Nuclear
Detection Office)
National preparedness
Mitigation
Prevention
Response
Recovery
Dirty bomb
Domestic nuclear detection
Emergency management
Emergency response
First responder
Homeland security
Maritime domain awareness
(MDA)
National preparedness
initiative
Militia
Shooting
Shots fired
Evacuation
Deaths
Hostage
Explosion (explosive)
Police
Disaster medical assistance
team (DMAT)
Organized crime

Gangs
National security
State of emergency
Security
Breach
Threat
Standoff
SWAT
Screening
Lockdown
Bomb (squad or threat)
Crash
Looting
Riot
Emergency Landing
Pipe bomb
Incident
Facility

HAZMAT & Nuclear

Hazmat
Nuclear
Chemical spill
Suspicious package/device
Toxic
National laboratory
Nuclear facility
Nuclear threat
Cloud
Plume
Radiation
Radioactive
Leak
Biological infection (or
event)
Chemical
Chemical burn
Biological
Epidemic
Hazardous
Hazardous material incident
Industrial spill
Infection
Powder (white)

Gas
Spillover
Anthrax
Blister agent
Chemical agent
Exposure
Burn
Nerve agent
Ricin
Sarin
North Korea

Health Concern + H1N1

Outbreak
Contamination
Exposure
Virus
Evacuation
Bacteria
Recall
Ebola
Food Poisoning
Foot and Mouth (FMD)
H5N1
Avian
Flu
Strain
Quarantine
H1N1
Vaccine

Salmonella
Small Pox
Plague
Human to human
Human to Animal
Influenza
Center for Disease Control
(CDC)
Drug Administration (FDA)
Public Health
Toxic
Agro Terror
Tuberculosis (TB)
Tamiflu
Norvo Virus
Epidemic

Agriculture
Listeria
Symptoms
Mutation
Resistant
Antiviral
Wave
Pandemic
Infection
Water/air borne
Sick
Swine
Pork World Health Organization
(WHO) (and components)
Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
E. Coli

Infrastructure Security

Infrastructure security
Airport
CIKR (Critical Infrastructure
& Key Resources)
AMTRAK
Collapse
Computer infrastructure
Communications
infrastructure
Telecommunications
Critical infrastructure
National infrastructure
Metro
WMATA

Airplane (and derivatives)
Chemical fire
Subway
BART
MARTA
Port Authority
NBIC (National
Biosurveillance Integration
Center)
Transportation security
Grid
Power
Smart
Body scanner

Electric
Failure or outage
Black out
Brown out
Port
Dock
Bridge
Cancelled
Delays
Service disruption
Power lines

Southwest Border Violence

Drug cartel
Violence
Gang
Drug
Narcotics
Cocaine
Marijuana
Heroin
Border
Mexico
Cartel
Southwest
Juarez
Sinaloa
Tijuana
Torreon
Yuma
Tucson
Decapitated
U.S. Consulate
Consular
El Paso
Fort Hancock
San Diego
Ciudad Juarez
Nogales
Sonora
Colombia
Mara salvatrucha
MS13 or MS-13
Drug war
Mexican army
Methamphetamine
Cartel de Golfo
Gulf Cartel
La Familia
Reynosa
Nuevo Leon
Narcos
Narco banners (Spanish
equivalents)
Los Zetas
Shootout
Execution
Gunfight
Trafficking
Kidnap
Calderon
Reyosa
Bust
Tamaulipas
Meth Lab
Drug trade
Illegal immigrants
Smuggling (smugglers)
Matamoros
Michoacana
Guzman
Arellano-Felix
Beltran-Leyva
Barrio Azteca
Artistic Assassins
Mexicles
New Federation

Terrorism

Terrorism
Al Qaeda (all spellings)
Terror
Attack
Iraq
Afghanistan
Iran
Pakistan
Agro
Environmental terrorist
Eco terrorism
Conventional weapon
Target
Weapons grade
Dirty bomb
Enriched
Nuclear
Chemical weapon
Biological weapon
Ammonium nitrate
Improvised explosive device
IED (Improvised Explosive
Device)
Abu Sayyaf
Hamas
FARC (Armed Revolutionary
Forces Colombia)
IRA (Irish Republican Army)
ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
Basque Separatists
Hezbollah
Tamil Tigers
PLF (Palestine Liberation
Front)
PLO (Palestine Liberation
Organization
Car bomb
Jihad
Taliban
Weapons cache
Suicide bomber
Suicide attack
Suspicious substance
AQAP (AL Qaeda Arabian
Peninsula)
AQIM (Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb)
TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban
Pakistan)
Yemen
Pirates
Extremism
Somalia
Nigeria
Radicals
Al-Shabaab
Home grown
Plot
Nationalist
Recruitment
Fundamentalism
Islamist

Weather/Disaster/Emergency

Emergency
Hurricane
Tornado
Twister
Tsunami
Earthquake
Tremor
Flood
Storm
Crest
Temblor
Extreme weather
Forest fire
Brush fire
Ice
Stranded/Stuck
Help
Hail
Wildfire
Tsunami Warning Center
Magnitude
Avalanche
Typhoon
Shelter-in-place
Disaster
Snow
Blizzard
Sleet
Mud slide or Mudslide
Erosion
Power outage
Brown out
Warning
Watch
Lightening
Aid
Relief
Closure
Interstate
Burst
Emergency Broadcast System
Cyber Security
Cyber security
Botnet
DDOS (dedicated denial of
service)
Denial of service
Malware
Virus
Trojan
Keylogger
Cyber Command
2600
Spammer
Phishing
Rootkit
Phreaking
Cain and abel
Brute forcing
Mysql injection
Cyber attack
Cyber terror
Hacker
China
Conficker
Worm
Scammers
Social media

Get a good look? Next time you go on Facebook, remember not to use words like response, initiative, exercise, recovery, crash, police, recovery, facility, gas or burn. Not to mention worm, storm, aid, erosion, or any of a host of other everyday terms on the list. Still think the government is your friend?

I'm sure that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, has no interest in monitoring your communications, and that the government is collecting massive amounts of data on everyone's phone calls, emails, social media posts and what not for benevolent purposes. I'm sure that this list of search terms that DHS analysts are supposed to use is only intended to defend us against terrorists who hope to assault this country using snow, blizzards, and sleet, or maybe Crest toothpaste. On the other hand, maybe we should all just end all of our emails, Facebook posts, tweets and whatever else with "Yo, Clapper, blow me." Might overwhelm the system.

Sorry, have to go. A couple guys in black suits and really dark sunglasses are at the door. Gotta go see what they want.

Mighta jumped the gun on hope for Turkey

2013-06-13T15:52:00.003-07:00

Not looking good for the home team in Turkey:

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's prime minister issued a "final warning" to protesters on Thursday, demanding they end their occupation of a park next to Istanbul's Taksim Square that has ignited the largest political crisis of his 10-year rule.
Despite the ultimatum by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, thousands of activists camping out in Gezi Park dug in for a potential culmination of their two-week standoff with authorities.

The Associated Press seemed hopeful that a Rodney King moment could be reached and that everyone would just get along, because the dictator "was to meet late Thursday night with some representatives of the protesters occupying the park." The AP did not seem to notice what it reported later in its own story:

"We have arrived at the end of our patience," Erdogan told local party leaders in Ankara, the capital. "I am giving you my final warning," he said, directing his comments toward the protesters."

No offense, AP, but that doesn't sound like he wants to sing "Kumbaya" when he meets with protest leaders. Sounds to me like he is going to tell them to go home or get ready for him to go big.

Don't they look like they just want a hug?

Just a reminder

2013-06-13T14:51:00.002-07:00

You know, if you like this blog, you could do your Amazon ordering through the widget over there to the right. It won't cost you any extra, and it throws a little jack my way, which is always a good thing. Just sayin'.

Does Obamacare still suck if you can't afford it?

2013-06-13T14:21:00.002-07:00

The Associated Press apparently just noticed that the Affordable Care Act might be misnamed:

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's called the Affordable Care Act, but President Barack Obama's health care law may turn out to be unaffordable for many low-wage workers, including employees at big chain restaurants, retail stores and hotels.That might seem strange since the law requires medium-sized and large employers to offer "affordable" coverage or face fines.But what's reasonable? Because of a wrinkle in the law, companies can meet their legal obligations by offering policies that would be too expensive for many low-wage workers. For the employee, it's like a mirage — attractive but out of reach.

No shit, Sherlock. Nobody read the fucking thing before they jammed it down our throats, and now people are starting to realize that maybe it sucks. And it hasn't even kicked in yet. Look forward to a big post on how bad it sucks. Maybe this weekend. I want to include lots of links on how bad Obamacare sucks, and believe me, they're there.

Hope for Turkey?

2013-06-09T02:58:00.000-07:00

In recent years, Turkey has been moving toward being an Iran-like Islamic state in contrast to its secular history. Recently, protesters, who were not originally concerned with the Islamification of Turkey, have been speaking out against the Recep Tayyip Erdogan regime and its authoritarianism. Don't know who put this video together, but thanks to Legal Insurrection for pointing the way:

Gotta get my ass to North Dakota

2013-06-09T02:11:00.001-07:00

Somebody just put out a list (and by "just" I mean relatively recently, as I've had this link for several days but have been working my ass off and been too busy to post, but I digress) of the states with the most bars per capita. This is important information. I was shocked that Virginia, where I went to college and never thought we lacked for bars, is last in the nation by a whole bunch. I was considerably less surprised to find that Maryland, where I live now, is No. 42. Maryland, after all, is always low on good lists and high on bad lists, like tax burden. But that's another post.

So anyway, Eater.com gives us the list, including this handy-dandy graphic if you're trying to decide where to live:

Information for life, people.

Forecast: Partly sunny with widely scattered DOOM!

2013-06-09T02:00:00.002-07:00

My impression lately has been that there appears to be work out there in the market, but that there is a disturbing trend toward JD-only projects at low rates, such as here and here. Well, things just got even worse. Below is a post from The Posse List advertising a project that is not JD-only, but does not require DC bar and pays $2-$3 below current market rate, which is already $4-$5 below the pre-crash market rate:

[An agency I've never actually worked for, although I tried once] is Currently Staffing a Document Review Project in Washington, DC Project Details:
Location – Washington , DC
Start Date – Monday June 10th 2013
Duration – 1-3 months
Schedule – 40 hours per week
Rate – $28.00 per hour
Project Type: Document Review - relevancy and privilege issues

Project Requirements:
Bar Membership – Candidates need to be barred in any US jurisdiction, active and in good standing-
Availability beginning Monday 6/10/2013 and not have vacation/travel plans during the duration of the project.
Experience – Previous document review strongly preferred
How to Apply - READ CAREFULLYSimply reply back to: [the recruiting email of the agency] (please do not change the subject line), attach your resume as a MS Word file (even if you know we have it already), and indicate that you meet the requirements listed above
What Happens Next?When we receive your resume and email indicating how you meet each of the requirements listed above we will review the resume and call you if we believe there is a good potential that you would be selected. Once we have spoken to you and obtained your permission we will send the resume to our client. Once we hear from them we will let you know if you were selected for the project. We will not send your resume ANYWHERE without your express permission to do so.

Okey-dokey. The trend of not requiring DC Bar membership continues, as does the downward pressure on rates and the lack of overtime. None of this bodes well for anything but DOOM! Exit strategy, anyone?

Let's remember why we need to spy on ourselves now

2013-06-08T20:53:00.002-07:00

‏@iowahawkblog

Govt has to scrape all your phone calls and emails because govt forgot to enforce immigration law on 20 expired visas in 2001.

If you've lost ABC . . .

2013-06-08T18:55:00.001-07:00

. . . probably no one will notice, since they have only slightly more viewers than CNN, or Australian rules football on ESPN 14, or where ever they air that now (great stuff, BTW), but ABC has an "imagined letter" from Barry to George W. Bush, apologizing for being a dickwad:

And now for the purpose of this letter (I know you are rolling your eyes and saying, "just get to the point," but you know me: I can be a little long-winded at times): I wanted to say I am sorry.I am sorry that, as a United States senator and presidential candidate, I was critical of you about so many things I now, myself, am doing.

I am sorry about saying Guantanamo would be closed immediately and it was a blight on America. It is still wide open for business.

I am sorry for criticizing you and your administration for intrusions on American's privacy and invasions into personal liberties. My NSA took what you did and put it on steroids.

I am sorry for criticizing the way you waged the war on terror. I have personally approved a number of drone strikes and actually have said it is OK to kill an American on foreign soil without due process. I know you are probably saying, "Aren't you the expert on the Constitution?" but, as you know, being president is hard work.

Go read the whole thing, which is pretty astounding if you consider that it is ABC News, which stands for All Barry Cocksuckers. Maybe that is finally changing as it becomes more and more apparent that the emperor has no clothes and, more important in the American context, that the son of a bitch thinks he's emperor.

Leno seems to think it's funny

2013-06-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

For four years, we've heard from comedians that they don't tell jokes about Obama because, well, there's nothing funny about Obama. Or, they're afraid to. He's soooooooooooooooooooooo serious and important, or something. Or, maybe, they're so liberal they're afraid that joking about an eminently jokable (is that a word?) president who happens to be half-black makes them racist. Yeah, fuck that. Finally, in recent weeks, Jay Leno has found the scandals swirling about the White House to be worthy of a couple wisecracks, as Newsbusters points out:

JAY LENO: Well, let's see what's going on. Hey, Snoop is back in the news. Not Snoop Dogg, Snoop Obama. Yeah, Snoop Obama. A big change at the White House today. They closed the gift shop and opened a Verizon store. Yeah.

Well, this has become a huge controversy after it was revealed that the National Security Agency seized millions of Verizon phone records, and of course this has caused a panic among civil libertarians, constitutional scholars and cheating husbands everywhere. Oh my God.

How ironic is that? We wanted a president that listens to all Americans - now we have one. Yeah.

Actually, President Obama clarified the situation today. He said no one is listening to your phone calls. The president said it's not what the program is all about. You know, like the IRS isn’t about targeting certain political groups. That's not what it's about!

I mean what's going on? The White House has looked into our phone records, checking our computers, monitoring our e-mails. When did the government suddenly become our psycho ex-girlfriend? When did that happen? When did that happen? When did that happen?

You know, I'll tell you, if Obama wants to put this snooping thing to good use, how about spying on the IRS next time they throw a $4 million party. Why don't you do that one? Yes, exactly, exactly. Find out about that. Yeah.

Good to see Barry finally getting at least a little of the derisive treatment that the previous 43 presidents got.

I don't know who she is

2013-06-08T14:25:00.002-07:00

But she's hot. And she's right.

Many people, mostly Democrats, would claim that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was none of the things she mentions and was the biggest step ever for African-Americans. Of course, it was Democrats who filibustered those bills, Democrats who imposed the policies that the bill was intended to void and Republicans who made the passage of that bill possible. Republicans voted for the bill in much higher percentages than did Democrats, and the bill never would have passed the Senate or the House without Republican support, even though the Democrats held 67 seats in the Senate and 248 seats in the House, both huge majorities. They could do anything they wanted to without the Republicans. Except a big chunk of them didn't want to. So even that is not really a Democrat accomplishment.

So let's look at today. Anything to contradict her contention that the Democrats are just a condescending candyman when it comes to African-Americans?

See? I can agree with liberals

2013-06-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm going to link to Mother Jones magazine, but that seems to be the case. Keep your eyes peeled for boiling seas, rivers running with blood, etc., etc.

Anyway, Mother Jones is reporting that

the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying.

It would appear that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee [truth alert -- they oversee the intelligence committee. It does not mean that the members of the committee are intelligent, although I wholeheartedly support Sen. Wyden, generally a screaming liberal, on this.] has been bitching since 2011 about the feds spying on the American public. Wyden thought Americans were being spied on by their own government in an unlawful fashion, and he fought the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to get declassified a couple statements he wanted to release. The statements were:

* On at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the Section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

* I believe that the government's implementation of Section 702 of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion.

So the situation is this: the government is collecting boatloads of data about the communications of ordinary citizens. A court found at least some of that activity to be unconstitutional. The government is fighting to keep that opinion classified so that the public will not know that some of what the government is doing to the public is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the president says:

If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.

No shit, Sherlock. We already don't trust you! These scandals with the IRS, the DOJ, and the White House itself over its lies about the Benghazi incident have undermined this administration's credibility to the point of nonexistence, and now Barry's position is "trust us"? Really? Because you need this information from millions of innocent American citizens to catch the occasional terrorist? Kind of like you need to frisk paraplegic grandmothers to keep would be terrorists off domestic flights? Why not, as Mark Steyn suggests, just pay attention to what's right in front of you? The Army and the FBI ignored Maj. Nidal Hasan, despite multiple warnings, right up until he was shooting up Fort Hood. Taking the phone records of American citizens didn't help there, did it?

As for Major Hasan, who needs surveillance? He put “Soldier of Allah” on his business card and gave a PowerPoint presentation to his military colleagues on what he’d like to do to infidels — and nobody said a word, lest they got tied up in sensitivity-training hell for six months.

If Barry still thinks America trusts its government, maybe he should look to Facebook. Hat tip to Instapundit for both of these:

The most transparent administration EV-AH can eat me

2013-06-07T02:42:00.002-07:00

OK, so we learned on Wednesday from a British newspaper (because the American media is still too busy sucking Barrys' schwantz to go after this kind of stuff) that the "National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon" under a secret order granted to the FBI April 25 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The authority lasts for three months, ending on July 19. As The Guardian reports:

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

We are talking about the data on phone calls by roughly 120 million people. That's a whole lot of secret surveillance. Wish that was all of it:

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

The Post reports that the program, apparently known as PRISM, relies upon the voluntary cooperation of various internet service providers.

The technology companies, whose cooperation is essential to PRISM operations, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley, according to the document. They are listed on a roster that bears their logos in order of entry into the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, has hosted traffic of substantial intelligence interest during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.

So pretty much every company involved in moving your shit around on the intertubes -- email, blogs, IMs, whatever -- is promptly shoveling that shit right over to the NSA so the federal government can get up in your Kool-Aid. And the Post -- really deep in the article, to ensure that most people don't read that far, states that "President Obama presided over exponential growth in a program that candidate Obama criticized." Ain't that the way of it? The other guy is eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil for doing something, but once you get the chance to do the same thing, it's cool. Fuck that.

Basically, my view on the whole thing is that if the government is reading my emails, my blog, or whatever
is that if they don't like it, fuck 'em. Come and get some, y'all.

D-Day remembered

2013-06-06T20:48:00.002-07:00

On this day in 1944, American, British, Canadian and other allied troops -- Polish, French and God knows who else -- stormed ashore at Normandy, France, to begin the end of fascism's grip on the European continent. June 6, 1944 -- D-Day -- cost the lives of roughly 4,000 Americans. I suspect we might be unwilling to pay that price today, but they paid it willingly. The guys who made it through are fewer everyday. The least we can do is pay some small honor to the sacrifice they made. Lord knows, they deserve more.

Speaking of homework

2013-06-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

The J. Geils Band covered this song, I used to be in a blues band that played this song, but "Homework" was made famous by Otis Rush. Like B.B. King, Otis did not play guitar while he sang. Both virtuosos, I have to believe they could, but B.B. never has, and Otis did not - don't even know if he's still with us. But "Homework" is:

Do your homework, kids

2013-06-05T20:55:00.001-07:00

One of the big problems with the so-called debate over global warming is a disturbing lack of understanding on the part of the public regarding the basis of the positions of the two sides. The alarmists, the ones who say we're all going to die if we don't stop using fossil fuels yesterday, base their positions on computer models. The so-called skeptics -- or worse, "deniers," invoking that whole Holocaust denier imagery -- base their skepticism on observed data, among other things. The whole point of the scientific method is to come up with a hypothesis and then try like hell to prove it wrong. The global warming folks -- and by that, I mean the anthropogenic global warming folks, who claim mankind is causing a warming of the planet byt its production of carbon dioxide that is going to be disastrous -- have never tried to follow this method. Instead, they ignore data they don't like and base their entire theory upon the results of global climate models. In other words, computer simulations, not the real world.

Alas, their models suck. There is so much that still is not understood about what factors affect climate that the warming alarmists don't even know what they're leaving out of their models, or whether the factors they are including work the way they think they do. The models, frankly, stink.

How do we know this? Because we have data, and the models are contradicted by actual data. Reality bites, right? Not a single fucking one of the major climate models out there accurately predicts what has happened in recent years and is happening now. Read that much? Try this:

Seventy-three climate models worldwide, not a single fucking one matches the actual data. Hey! Maybe Americans are better, right? Nah, not so much. Nineteen US-based models also go 0-fer:

Please note that they are not even close to reality.

So what does this mean? It doesn't mean man isn't contributing to any atmospheric warming. It doesn't mean we are. It means we don't fucking know, but we do know that the models that assume mankind is causing, not contributing to, any warming are for shit. For anyone who disagrees, please explain the anthropogenic warming theory in the comments. I'm betting none of you even understand the basics of the theory in which you so fervently believe. (At least the liberals in the audience.) And if you don't understand the theory at its most basic level, I'm a little confused as to why you might defend it while simultaneously calling me "anti-science."

So what do they actually mean?

2013-06-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

Periodically, the two project managers from the firm, who are on-site on this project, will come out and let us know that "someone" is fucking up in some way. We always are assured that most of us are fine, but that a small number of people are fucking up and in danger of being fired for it, so we should all get in line, straighten up and fly right.

Usually, it's pretty vague. Sometime in February, not long after I joined this project, we were told by the project managers that some unidentified people were not meeting production expectations. To quote one of the managers, "58 documents in an 11-hour day is not enough. It means you don't get it." They couched the production shortfall they were talking about in terms of someone not understanding the document requests who was, as a result, struggling with the work and not really knowing what to do with a given document. Everybody understood, of course, that what had happened is somebody, probably only one person, was just a seriously lazy fuck who needed to speed up. Why this has to be brought to everyone's attention is beyond me. Everybody knows that in Temp Town most folks will look for the Mendoza Line -- the number of documents they have to code per day to keep their job. The guy who is averaging less than 6 documents per hour is an outlier -- the Mendoza Line is higher than that. Or maybe not, since no one seems to have been fired following that particular speech.

So today they jacked us up a little -- assuring us that 95 percent of us were doing just fine with regard to this particular issue -- about timekeeping. They wanted to make sure that we were accurately recording our time spent at work each day. This gets stupid and complicated. Maybe even contagious. (Sweet Nirvana reference there.)

We have, on this project, a paper sign in/sign out sheet. Everyday, we are supposed to write on this sheet what time we come in, what time we take our mandated breaks and what time we leave. Yes, we have professional degrees and yet we are subjected to a Middle Ages timeclock. This exercise is rendered even more pointless by two things: first, we are required to submit timesheets each week (used to be paper, now -- finally -- online) that lay out what time we come in, what time we leave and the time we take for our mandated breaks. In other words, the sign-in sheet is superfluous. Second, the review platform we are using keeps records of what time we sign into the program, and what time we sign out. In other words, it records how long we work each day, thus verifying our timesheets in a way that cannot be faked. If we claim to have worked X hours, and the review platform shows we were logged in for only Y hours, if Y is less than X, we have some splainin' to do.

My point here is, if you're going to try and cheat on your time sheet, you're going to get caught. Frankly, I think this is an ethics violation that should result in the pulling of your bar card, but what the fuck do I know. Here, apparently, it doesn't even result in getting fired. Instead, it results in a vague warning to everyone to make sure our timekeeping is accurate -- even though we've just been told that 95 percent of us are fine. So why not pull aside the 5 percent and talk to them? Or maybe even just fire the fuckers? Or are they just trying to scare people? I don't know, but my money is on door number three.

A belated first post and a hearty welcome to my co-blogger, Raised By Wolverines

2013-06-02T21:07:00.001-07:00

Editor's note: This post had been sitting in the draft files for months. Raised By Wolverines wrote it and submitted it for review. I thought I had told him to put it on the blog, but signals crossed and it sat there. So, while it is not the very first post by Raised by Wolverines, it was supposed to be, and here it is:

By Raised By Wolverines

So like Raised by Wolves, I am one of the few conservative temps in the legal industry in DC. On my current project I think I am actually outnumbered 18 to 1. So for the last four months, I have had to suffer and endure the normal liberal shopworn cliches and diatribes, mainly about how all conservatives are stupid southern rednecks, racists, homophobes, etc., and how liberals and Obama are just so much smarter. I guess I could take this if there was some justification for it and if most of the temps were not complete blithering idiots. But in fact, as Raised by Wolves has taught you, most temps are blithering idiots. Worse, most liberal temps are fairly politically clueless and have little knowledge of current events, history, or even basic 8th grade geography. Like most projects, this one did not let me down when it came to providing fodder demonstrating the cluelessness of many left-leaning temps.

On this project, like most, it is not only a temp's legal knowledge that is important but also just a general knowledge of basic economics, current events, business, and, yes, even geography. One day a very liberal but pleasant temp came across the initials ONT and wanted to know what it stood for. I responded that it stood for Ontario. The next question - where is Ontario? Now, this is someone who went to four years of college and three years at our supposedly best law school - the same law school Mr. 57 States went to. Yet this temp had absolutely no idea where Ontario is. Now, he/she could carry on endlessly about how our evil capitalist system supposedly exploits women and about the evils of the Christopher Columbus holiday. But 8th grade geography - not a clue. I wish I had been a bit quicker and told him/her Ontario is where Columbus landed. I think the temp would have bought it.

One subject a lot of temps like to complain about is the cost of health insurance. If you are a single temp or a married temp who cannot get on your spouse's health insurance plan, you are left to buy insurance in the individual market, i.e., you are screwed and probably spending at least one month's pay - if not more - on health insurance for an entire year. Since Obamacare was enacted, the individual market has seen steep increases in premiums because of a variety of new Obamacare rules and regulations that mandate certain benefits (think Sandra Fluke), bar insurers from excluding people with pre-existing conditions, and require community rating. Most temps like me have seen their premiums increase by $100 or $200 per month since the passage of Obamacare.

Of course, a discussion of increasing health insurance costs in the last few years would never lead any Obamabot to re-examine Obamacare. After all, why blame the man who has been in charge for the last four years and actually got everything he wanted on health care when you can blame a greedy insurer? I would not expect liberal temps to ever question their Dear Leader.

What has been most comical and amusing, though, is the number of temps who complained they did not meet the current threshold that only allows you to deduct health care expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of your income. Of course, not one of them knew that their hero's signature legislative accomplishment will make it even more difficult to deduct health care expenses by raising the threshold to 10 percent of income. But this dumb conservative knew and took great glee in pointing it out to them, even if it did nothing to shake their devotion to Obama.

Besides the under 30 somethings, I cannot think of a group of people who regularly vote to screw themselves more than legal temps. But as my favorite football coach would say, it is what is. But if you ever want to know why America is screwed or why our legal education system is a joke, come join a temp project.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and thanks to RaisedbyWolves for providing me this opportunity and giving me a chance to gripe.

The Chinese are winning

2013-06-02T20:51:00.001-07:00

No, it's not a military thing. And it's not the charm offensive being conducted by Chinese President Xi Jinping down in Latin America. Nope, it's the Chinese first lady:

Damn, y'all.

2013-06-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

I've told you before and before that and even before that that this industry is looking less healthy by the day. While not conclusive evidence, I have yet another nail in the coffin, as illustrated by this recent posting on The Posse List, which those of you in the know realize is a vital job-finding listserve for contract attorneys:

[An agency I have worked for upon occasion] is currently recruiting JDs for a deposition review project starting Wednesday, May 29th in Washington, DC.
* Location -- Downtown Washington, DC
* Pay Rate -- $21/hr
* Duration - 2 weeks
* Hours -- 40 hours per week
Please email a current copy of your resume in Word format to [the resume-receiving email address of this particular agency] if you are interested. Please reference"Deposition Review Project" in the subject line.

Several things make this unnerving. First, it is yet another JD-only project, indicating that clients are more and more willing to ignore the June 2005 advisory opinion by the DC Court of Appeals Committee on Unauthorized Practice of Law that threw it out there that contract attorneys must be DC Bar members. (Yeah, my Bar dues have to be in this month. Lots o' money for fuck-all.)

Second, the rate is even lower than the JD-only project advertised in the first link. The rate on this one is insulting, which brings us to the third point: this is supposedly substantive work. Reviewing depositions is not like document review, where you basically look to see if a document references one of a list of key topics and then mark it responsive or non-responsive accordingly. Deposition review requires reading the entire transcript and making a decision on what is relevant, and on what is important. Theoretically, the lawyer taking the deposition asked relevant questions, so all of the answers are "relevant." The task, then, is to find the good stuff.

This is not the same as nearly mindless document review which, frankly, could be done by monkeys (and increasingly is done by computers and people in India, as we've discussed, because US-barred attorneys aren't really necessary). This is, done properly, real lawyer work. And they're paying two-thirds of the going rate for document reviewers? Really? I'll be they get some quality product there. Not. But it is yet another bad sign for Temp Town. The devaluation continues

Post or go home, right?

2013-06-02T20:26:00.002-07:00

I've been remiss in posting lately, partly because of the hours of my project and partly because I've been a lazy shit this weekend, at least with respect to posting. One of the rules of blogging is if you want people to visit, you better give them a reason, i.e., something to read. I've been a little slack there lately, and I apologize and promise to make amends. On the other had, I still averaged more than a post per day, so there's that.

Also, despite this being largely content-free week on the blog, May wrapped up as my best-ever month for traffic not including the Instalanche month, November 2012. It wasn't even close. The numbers would be a crappy hour at many well-traveled blogs, but for Eff You, May was awesome. Thank you, and please keep coming by. I'll try to post more often.

Brilliant strategy for closing Gitmo

2013-05-28T21:12:00.003-07:00

Who'd a thunk it was this simple. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.