Sunday, December 26, 2010

Musing of One Watching a Guy Who Fell Out of an Antique Biplame at the Top of a Loop, Landed on the Side of a Haystack, Slid All the Way Through It...

...And Set It on Fire by Friction of His Pants.


Semi-fantasy #1:

The board of directors of a large corporation finished its review of a proposal for production of the goozlemawhatchit, a new product. It exhaustively studied the market analysis, the facility requirements, profit and loss projections etc. Having done so, the board decided to approve the project and duly notified the CEO of that decision. The CEO hired a plant manager who in turn hired a controller, a director of human resources, and director of industrial engineering and they began work. Before the workforce requirement had been determined the board sent a letter to the CEO specifying the skills and pay grades of the people to be hired. The director of industrial resources began struggling with this since it did not conform to general labor practices in the area. While he was doing so, the board sent another letter to the CEO specifying the types of accounting systems and banking arrangements that were to be used. This resulted in confusing the controller, who nevertheless began to try to comply with the letter. While he was so engaged the board sent another letter to the CEO specifying the size of the new facility, its layout and the manufacturing flow. The industrial engineers climbed up the wall trying to figure this one out.
As a result of all this, the whole project became enmeshed in a tangle of conflicting requirements and solutions. The project fell behind schedule by about a year. Meanwhile, a competitor began producing a similar product and garnered about 2/3 of the market.
In the light of all this, the board finally decided to cancel the project with a substantial loss to the company. Because of this the plant manager was summarily fired, the CEO lost his annual bonus and two directors decided not to stand for re-election.
The foregoing is the fantasy part.
Reality - Congress does the same thing with much of its legislation, an outstanding example being the health care law. Instead of acting as the policy-making board of directors which it is supposed to be, Congress has become mesmerized with the details of upper- and middle-management, for which it is not qualified and which should be properly left to the executive department.
Sic transit gloria mundi.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Musing of One Thinking About the Guy Who Tried to Sell Santa Claus Batteries for Rudolf's Nose

Fantasy #2
The Dream Act passed and people began to come out the shadows to claim their share. One guy joined the military, served two years in Hawaii, got his citizenship papers and began to organize his compatriots into a solid voting block. He succeeded to such an extent that the block was able to force passage of an open borders act.

Within a few months after the act was passed some one billion people from around the world flooded into the United States. The financial strain was so great that the economy collapsed resulting in a depression worse than the Great Depression. It was so bad that the military took all its equipment and went to Canada, where in conjunction with Canadian military it set up a defence line along the U.S. and Canadian border.

Things were so bad in the United states that people started heading south to find a better life. Mexico, whose population was down to 50 million because of out migration, tried valiantly to seal its borders but failed.

With all the new arrivals things got just as bad in Mexico and the masses continued to migrate south eventually arriving in Argentina, Chile, parts of Brazil, and the Falkland Islands.

Meanwhile a false rumor arose that Australia had enacted an open borders act another couple of billion people of Oriental decent headed to Australia which was unable to resist the on slot.

All this weight at the bottom of the world caused an imbalance so that the Earth tilted one half a degree from its normal inclination. The result was drastic climate changes aroused the world. Mexican resorts began to order ice skates. skies, and snow shoes in the hope of attracting more vacationers. Central California became the Ski capitol of the world, the Riviera found its self encased in ice two feet thick, and all the snow melted off Mount Fuji.

This prompted a group of environmentalists, who had blamed the US and George Bush for global warming, to head for the now and feeble united nations to ask for establishment of an office to monitor global cooling, ignoring the fact that Scandinavia has an average temperature of 95 degrees.

Eventually everybody realized the whole thing was a pipe drain and returned to their native lands, where upon the Earth turned to its normal angle of inclination. The climate changed again, and everybody resumed their practice of debating who was responsible for what.


Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus but during the great upheaval it got so warm at the north pole that he moved his entire operation to the South pole, where he had proceeded to review his navigational charts and adjust Rudolf's nose. Whether he is still there or has returned to the North pole is unknown at this time.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Musing of One Thinking about a Congressman Who Went Home to Campaign for Re-election, Accidentally Hit His Head on a Brick Wall...

... Got Confused and Campaigned for his Opponent, and Wound Up Winning the Election Anyway.

There is a general premise to which, we believe, the vast majority of law-abiding people subscribe: no one should benefit directly or indirectly from the violation of the law. It appears to us that the so-called Dream Act directly contradicts this premise, and may well be a long-range effort to buy future votes.

Musing of One Watching a Man Who Found a Peapod Containing One Red Pea and One Green Pea

Recently, the President called for a 2-year freeze on federal pay scales. This is laudible, but it does not go far enough (See our posting from Saturday June 12, 2010 entitled "Musing of One on Crutches When Someone Offered to Help Him Put Roller Skates Under the Crutches to Help Him Go Faster").
It is good that some Congressmen have come to the realization that we are approaching the edge of the cliff and that drastic action needs to be taken. However, in all the interviews with Congressmen that we have wacthed on tv, not one has mentioned that Congress should take a hit.