Daily Report: Just The Two Of Us

I've sent Maid Susan and Kid Sister Ednil back home to Jasaan. It actually wasn't for financial reasons: I'm still having Susan stop by once a week to clean and do laundry and stuff for the same salary as before. Instead, I just wanted to be alone with Epril more. I wanted an emptier house. I didn't want to have to take people other than Epril into consideration when planning my day.

I've had a maid in the house for years now. I got one when I moved into that monstrous house in Pattaya. There, Maid Go had her own private apartments, and I really had the place to myself. Maid Go was simply too good to let go when I moved out of the big place and into the small place. In the small house, Go spent most of her spare time in her bedroom ironing, but it still was a little too crowded. Here in Cagayan De Oro, I have a house that is roughly the same size as the last small house in Pattaya, but now I had 2 maids, and they spent all of their spare time in the living room.

So, now it is just Epril and me. I'm much happier. Epril is better off with the change too. She is like me in that she enjoys puttering about, cleaning here, rearranging there, organinzing and straightening. She's taken to turning off the television and doing puzzle books instead of watching Wowowee with her sisters. And, of course, us newlyweds having the house to ourselves...

Epril and I went to the Japanese Restaurant on the hill for lunch. Then, after an evening at Spooks hanging out with the local expats, we actually went to dinner at another Japanese Restaurant in downtown that I didn't previously know about. (It was raining tonight, so we took a taxi down into town, and heard a radio advertisement for the restaurant on the way to Spooks, so made a last-minute decision to have dinner there.)

Unfortunately, when I got the bill, I noticed that the prices we were charged on all of the items we ate were 4 or 5 pisos higher than what was listed on the menu. Too bad: I was going to write nice things about them here; but now, fuck them and the 20 pisos they scammed me for. If you live in Cagayan De Oro and want Japanese food, don't eat at the Japanese restaurant near the Divisoria. Instead, go up on the hill to the new place (I'll put the name in later, when I remember to write it down).

After dinner, Epril and I walked to Quinze Amigos, and we hung out with the Turners. Mike Turner is having fun researching all of the different people with the name "Michael Turner". He started this project after discovering that there was a convicted felon named Michael Alan Turner (same middle name even) from the same town that he himself grew up in, and that Expat Mike here in Cagayan was accused of being Convict Mike when he was testifying in a court case here in town.

Anyway, there is a famous scientist, a cartoonist, two felons, a profesional football player, and two politicians who share Mike's name. (I joked with him that it must suck being the most boring "Mike Turner" of them all.) Read Michael's blog to find out about all the different Michael Turners out there.

After that, it was a taxi back home, and straight to bed. We were going to go with the Turners to play some pool, but by the time we got done chatting, it was 10:30 at night. Way past our bedtime these days.

I Think He's Starting To Get It

Everybody at the G20 summit is shaking hands with each other... but nobody will shake President Bush's hand. It's not even subtle. Can you imagine what it must be like when the cameras aren't around?



As much as I despise The President, I do feel sorry for The Man: I believe he came into office with good intentions, and of course the vast majority of his day-to-day decisions were correct, and I'm even willing to believe that many of the originally-right-but-turned-wrong decisions he made were at least in good faith. No, I can't forgive him for the knew-it-was-wrong-but-did-it-anyway decisions, but at the same time, look at this video: This is a man, I think, who is suddenly realizing that he has achieved the immortality that all men can only dream of... but this immortality will be as an object of loathing and ridicule.

---

UPDATE:

CNN offers up a correction. Duly noted.



It's obvious what happened: Some CNN video clerk noticed the "no handshake" clip and gave it to his supervisor, who showed it to the director, who during a commercial break, previewed it for Rick Sanchez, who said, "Wow! Look at that! Let's get that on the air!" and then 30 seconds later during broadcast, you get clip #1.

This is a perfect example of the two ever-present fatal flaws of 24-hour news: One, that news makes it into a broadcast while necessary details are still being learned; and two, lacking those necessary details, 24-hour news anchors feel obliged to offer their opinions as a substitute. At least we live in a country where competing news outlets will fact check one another, or (as here, happily) even fact check themselves.

My apologies to President Bush for promoting an incomplete and misleading version of events on my blog. I do still stand by my commentary above, but it obviously no longer bears a relation to the video clip it accompanies.

Not Helping Matters

A deadly blast hits Bangkok.

CNN has a headline titled, "Thailand's Descent Into Chaos".

All coming right at the beginning of Thailand's already-deflated tourist high season. What a disaster for my friends who are business owners in Pattaya. If you guys are reading, you've got my best wishes. I hope you get through this okay.

Daily Report: I Love You Too Darling

A bit of an off day of work today. I spent 4 hours straight working, but only got 3 hours worth of work done... and I thought I was cranking it out.

We had a nice BBQ chicken lunch, and then I had an afternoon nap.

Epril bought a new lighter today to replace the one that exploded on me two days ago. It's the same lighter as the one that exploded, even the same color. She's obviously got it in for me.

Played some video games in the evening. Other than that, nothing much to today.

An Article On Upcoming US Economic Collapse

Ian Welsh at FDL explains the when-not-if circumstance that will bring about the end of the U.S. as we know it: When the Chinese people can afford to start buying their own products and become a consumer-driven society.

[T]he US needs massive inflows of money from nations like China and Japan in order to finance both the government and private consumption. China and Japan, and other countries, for that matter, have amassed holdings of US securities, cash and so on, in the many trillions, as a result. They have been willing to buy assets that they know they will probably not see a full real return on because the US buys their exports, and in China's case, is busily shipping American jobs to China, thus industrializing China.

The world needs the US because the US is the "consumer of last resort". It buys everyone else's stuff, issues a pile of securities and dollars in exchange, and exports industrialization to China in exchange for deindustrialization and cheap consumer goods at home, which kept down inflation for a very long time.

When China has a large internal market which has reached takeoff, it can sell mostly to itself, and will no longer need the US as much. Neither will any other country, since they can sell to China, with a much larger market. Sure, everyone'll be happy to sell to the US, but they won't need to. At that point, when the US has a financial crisis (and it will, unless things are cleaned up) China doesn't have to keep buying up treasuries or see its own economy crash out. It can say "no thanks". It can even start offloading all the crap securities it has. If it, or other countries do so, the US dollar crashes the floor.

At that point China has the US over a barrel.

Temple Made From Beer Bottles In Thailand

Cool.

Daily Report: With Lunch Sandwiched In

Epril got me out of bed in the usual fashion. Now she's playing The Chipmunks singing "Funkytown" in my ear.

Work went okay in the morning... although with the low amount of work, I notice that more and more people are working late in the evening to scrape by. Even at midnight back in America, there were 10 or 15 people plugging away.

I've been talking to people I work with, and there are, of course, other transcription companies out there, and their compensation is equal to or better than the company I'm working for now. (However, I have seniority, maximum vacation, maximum annual bonus, and my 20% "stat" overnight bonus to offset that.) The plan is that if at the beginning of 2009 things haven't improved in terms of work running out (say... mid-February), I'll move to a different company. The only problem is that such a move will require at least a couple of weeks back in America. (At least I hope it is only a couple of weeks. Any more than that, and I will lose my $15,000 overseas tax credit for 2009.)

Epril and I had a lunch date with Andy and Cynthia, Chris and Rhea, and Harry and Bebs at Country Steakhouse. Epril and I had their hamburger for 170 pisos ($3.40) which was really quite good — definitely the best hamburger in Cagayan De Oro — although I'll have to remember to tell them to skip the mayonnaise next time.

In the afternoon, upon getting back from lunch, work was very low, and I had to go into accounts I'm not actually scheduled to work in to snag jobs.

I've been watching "Fearless Planet" by the Discovery Channel on BluRay. It's pretty good, but not as good as the stuff the BBC puts out. Still though: I wish all of this excellent educational programming were around when I was a kid... I'd have learned so much more. (The best we had back then was the occasional "Wild Kingdom" with that white-haired fellow, and "Cosmos" which I did soak up like a sponge.)

The piso finally crossed back over to 50 per dollar today. Hallelujah and keep going. The Thai baht is up to 35 to the dollar, which is not nearly as substantial an improvement. The PI has to be looking better and better for those of you partying in Thailand, I imagine: A beer at a bar here costs $1 or less, and a beer at a bar in Thailand costs $3 and up. (You mongering types know the mongering prices too. I assume that's probably better as well.) Actually, with the crime, the visa regulations, the quality of the girls on stage, and the general sense of antagonism coming from the locals in Pattaya, I'm surprised there are still mongers left in Pattaya at all. If only Angeles City had a beach, eh?

Well, in the interest of encouraging tourism, here are the prices of things in Cagayan de Oro:

Cost of a cheap hotel room: 800 P ($16 / 560 baht).
Cost of a good hotel room: 1,300 P ($26 / 910 baht).
Cost of a good hotel suite: 3,000 P ($60 / 2,100 baht).
Dinner & drinks for 2 at town's best rest.: 1,200 P ($24 / 840 baht).
Beer, happy hour, Spooks Gogo bar: 25 P (50 cents / 17.5 baht).
Beer, regular, Spooks Gogo bar: 50 P ($1 / 35 baht).
Beer, Pulse Disco: 40 P (80 cents / 28 baht).
Mixed drink, Pulse Disco: 80 P ($1.60 / 56 baht).
Taxi, 8 km trip: 100 P ($2 / 70 baht).
Jeepney, across town: 8 P (16 cents / 5.6 baht).
Jeepney, 30 miles out of town: 30 P (60 cents / 21 baht).
Rent: Studio apartment: 5K P/month ($100 / 3,500 baht).
Rent: House, 100 sq. m.: 10K P ($200 / 7,000 baht).
Rent: House, 150 sq. m.: 15K P ($300 / 10,500 baht).
Rent: House, 200 sq. m.: 20K to 30K P ($400-$600 / 14K-21K).
Movie, SM mall: 50 P ($1 / 35 baht).

Daily Report: Surprises, Some Even Pleasant

I was sitting at my desk today when the cigarette lighter sitting next to my wallet, about 18 inches from face, exploded. No reason for it. Just a very loud pop... slightly louder than a champagne bottle uncorking. (I checked: Made in China.) It broke into about 3 large pieces, and 6 or 8 smaller pieces... and a stink of butane. No flame. No cuts or anything, and I was holding my coffee mug up to my face when it went.

There is a new little Japanese restaurant opened up just outside the entrance to my housing estate. I've been watching the place under construction for the better part of a month, anticipating. The head chef and owner is actually from Japan. The place is tiny, with just four 2-person tables, and an open kitchen surrounded by a bar. Epril and I went there for lunch. We had a soup for 60 pisos ($1.20), a beef with sesame seeds over rice for 170 pisos ($3.40), and a very large portion of California rolls for 175 pisos ($3.50). If you live up on the hill, you definitely should stop by.

This past Sunday, we had a group of friends over to the house after our usual roast beef Sunday lunch at Kingston Lodge. Andy and Cynthia were there, Chris and Rhea, and Harry and Bebs. We mostly just sat around and watched a couple of movies... but it was nice to have some visitors for a change, instead of constantly going out.

Epril and I finally got the video of our wedding back. Unfortunately, the video editors burned the DVD as one entire 45-minute scene, so there aren't any 2 or 3 minute portions that I can yank out to put on YouTube. We're going to try to get the original video stock.

And One Step Back

Sadly, another one of my predictions might be coming to pass. Since Obama's election, gun sales are skyrocketing (although mostly through a combination of NRA-fueled fears regarding gun ownership restriction coupled with price discounts), as are racially-oriented crimes (so far, thankfully, almost all incidents without physical violence).

I can only hope that the grace and tolerance of Americans at large militates upon the sensibilities of those few who would harm others in racial antipathy. The nation's history notwithstanding, we all know... even those who would aggress their countrymen know... that America isn't about that.

But, Oh How They Hate It If It Happens To Them

Conservative Christians — after their boycott of Disney, Ford, McDonalds, and Walmart for providing financial support to gay-positive causes — are shocked (shocked I tell you!) that gay people are boycotting California businesses that gave financial support to the anti-gay-marriage amendment in California.

Daily Report: Dodging The Future

I've been studying and calculating and analyzing what effect all of the recent changes in my job has had on my workload and how much I earn. After two weeks on the speech recognition, I've calculated that it represents a 12% pay cut for me.

I work the night shift in America, and I've mentioned that I've run out of work a couple of times this week, but it is either right before I start work, which quickly remedies itself, or right at the end of work, when it doesn't really matter. Using speech recognition is faster than typing (albeit not so much faster as to offset the lower pay that goes with it), and thus more work is being done by each transcriptionist. There was a balance in workload before the S.R. came along: There was enough work to keep everybody busy... as busy as they wanted to be.

That balance is now off.

It's mostly during the daytime. Before going to bed last night — at about 11 a.m. on the East Coast — I checked the work flow, and at that particular instant in time, there were 40 transcriptionists in my little department and 110 jobs available. Normally, there would be 3 to 5 times that number of jobs.

I'm lucky that transcriptionists are mostly stay-at-home moms who want to get in 5 or 6 hours of work before the kids come home from school and in between housekeeping obligations. When 5:00 rolls around, most of them are done for the day. That is when I start working, and that is also about the same time that doctors start dictating their reports for the day. (Also, as I work overnight, all of the emergency room doctors are dictating their emergency reports, and give me a pretty steady flow of work.) I generally have enough work to last me through the night... and certainly much, much more than the each person during the day is currently receiving.

So it seems that lots of people at my company have very little work to do... and they are getting paid less now for what little work there is than ever before. It's an awful time to be a transcriptionist, and I'm just lucky to be on the night shift, and a very gung-ho worker, or I'd be in the same boat as the rest of the transcriptionists... only I'd be half a world away from any alternate job opportunity.

To further improve my situation, I've started volunteering to take on the most daunting dictations and the most difficult accounts: Accounts that transcriptionists with no experience, transcriptionists who live in India, or computers that are designed to replace transcriptionists will never be able to do. It's a little bit slower at first until you get a data file built up for each doctor, and you learn their own peculiar jargon and prosody, but eventually (a) I'll be back up to speed with those doctors, and (b) I'll have pretty solid job security for the next five to seven years at least.

My company constantly sends out Orwellian bromides about how important "we" are to "their" success, but as I see it, as soon as my company can find an additional 2,000 Indian transcriptionists to do that speech recognition work for one third the cost, that is where it will go.

Five years ago, my company used to say, "We'll never ship your jobs to India." Now they say, "You'll never lose your job to India." It's true: They never will lay any employee off. They'll just have thousands of employees who are making no money, who will simply quit. (Then, eventually... maybe in a year and a half... with a vastly reduced American workforce, a balance in "work to do" and "transcriptionists to do it" will be re-achieved, and things will settle down.)

Anyway, keeping myself up to my neck in work by improving my transcribing skills is the short-term plan... 6 months. The medium-term plan over the next 3 years is to create a supplemental income that will take some of the pressure off me due to the persistent decline my industry seems to be in. The long-term plan, looking up to 6 years out, is to increase the supplemental income, and slowly migrate my work skills to a more stable industry.

Anyway, as for the rest of my day, Epril and I went out to Spooks tonight to visit with our usual circle of friends. After that, we went over to Chris MacQueen's apartment for pizza.

Chris and Andy were playing "World of Warcraft" on their computers, which I had never seen before. As much as I like fantasy adventure games, I'm not sure it's quite my style. It's almost certainly not a game that someone who wants to spend 8 hours a day at work (and 4 hours a day with his wife) would want to get involved in.

After that, it was back home for a bit of TV before going to bed.

Sometimes I Forget

I was missing Pattaya today, so I clicked on my Google news link to see what is going on in my old home:

Murders, suicides, accidents, shootings, stabbings, beatings, robberies, scams, fires, drownings, drugs, and drunks.

Daily Report: Out For BBQ

Up early again (thanks Epril). I got to work a bit later than yesterday... mostly just wandering around aimlessly on the internet while I had my coffee.

For lunch, Susan made a nice chicken in sweet orange sauce. We've finished "Carrier", we've finished "Doctor Who" (4 seasons' worth), we've finished "Heroes". Now, we're on to the second season of "24" for our lunch break television.

After lunch, I edited a picture of Inday (see photo here or scroll down) in her Thai gown on a great photo-editing website that I found online called Aviary.com. (Once again: If I was still a graphic artist in New York City... yadda yadda yadda.) As far as free online photo editing programs go, it's easily the best I've seen. It's far from perfect, and the lag time is pretty bad (though that may be this old computer and my internet connection), but as far as editing tools go, it offers just about anything an amateur would need to do quick touch-ups. I will say though that it has a bit of "sculpting with a chain saw" feel to it. It's hard to be nuanced and subtle in your edits.

I put in a short afternoon at work: Jobs ran out at about 4:00 a.m. back in America. I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing more of that. They've moved a suprising amount of doctors to the speech recognition software (even some ESL speakers). Although I find it slower to do the S.R. than to just type it out, I am in the top 1% of transcriptionists, speed-wise. Most of my slower coworkers are getting more done with the S.R. than they did before. The result will be less work for those of us who want it.

Well, at least until people start quitting. Hopefully that isn't too far away.

Epril and I went out for BBQ at Quinze Amigos tonight. One of those typical almost-a-shack type affairs with plastic chairs and tables, open air dining, a couple of macacas in cages, big ornery fish in a tank, and a coca-cola refrigerator filled with San Miguel beer for 40 cents per bottle.

Epril and I selected a couple of chicken leg/thighs on a stick, and 6 skewers of pork, which the fellow behind the grill proceeded to cook for us, brushing it all with a fine BBQ sauce. We had 2 beers, 1 coke, 2 quarter chickens, 6 pork skewers, and 2 plates of rice. Total price $3.70.

After that, when I got back home, I noticed that some more work had become available while I was out, so I sat down and put in another 45 minutes before going to bed. (It's possible there won't be anything to do when I wake up in the morning, so I figured I might as well get some down now just in case.)

Another Thought On That Mormon / Prop 8 Thing

I have to admit, Mormons aren't the reason Proposition 8 passed in California. It's 52% of Calfornians who are the reason. I can countenance a little low-brow tit-for-tat, goose/gander action (like my idea from the other day) against Mormons... but the way that the anti-Prop-8 protestors are targeting the Mormon Church with menacing temple-front demonstrations, chest-thumping objurgations of the "this-is-all-your-fault" variety, and scheming punitory legal action against the Mormon church for doing what was well within their rights to do is not very productive.

Dale Carpenter says it best:

Here's my advice to righteously furious gay-marriage supporters: Stop the focus on the Mormon Church. Stop it now. We just lost a ballot fight in which we were falsely but effectively portrayed as attacking religion. So now some of us attack a religion? People were warned that churches would lose their tax-exempt status, which was untrue. So now we have (frivolous) calls for the Mormon Church to lose its tax-exempt status? It's rather selective indignation, anyway, since lots of demographic groups gave us Prop 8 in different ways — some with money and others with votes. I understand the frustration, but this particular expression of it is wrong and counter-productive.

Hat tip Sullivan.

Interesting Article

It is amazing how little Americans understand the middle east, the area of the world in which we are so heavily invested with our finances, manpower, and political capital.

Take this article, for instance. The Shi'ite/Sunni acrimony and animosity has popped up in the new leadership in Pakistan, and now Iran and Saudi Arabia are pulling strings there.

Daily Report: Through The Hours

I've been getting up early once again, with Epril's help. I've never met someone as bubbly and energetic in the morning as my wife. She pokes my nose and pulls my mustache and pries my eyelids open, giggling and laughing the whole time, until I finally get out of bed. She sets the alarm on her Nokia to blast really annoying music as an additional aid, and holds it to my ear. Her current otalgic choice is that rakish roundelay, Macarena. (Last month was Eye of the Tiger.)

I had a fair morning of work. I put in the requisite number of hours, but spent most of my time with my attention divided. Days are like that sometime: I can work, but just don't have the discipline to give it my full attention; the desire to make quick visits to Internet Explorer to read about something frivolous, or write a personal e-mail is too great.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Epril, Susan and Ednil watched silly Filipino game shows and laughed. Combined, they have the most annoying laugh: It's similar to the sound of a newspaper wiping Windex off the living room window. Squeak! Squeak! Sqweeeeek! Swk-swk-swk-swk! Squeak!

In the evening, Epril and I watched "The Baby Human" on The Discovery Channel. I really can't think of any behavioral science that I find more fascinating than studying infants and toddlers. The clinical studies that these scientists do, and the empirical findings that they make, and how much they have learned about what babies think, learn, understand, and process just impresses me immensely.

A Fun Idea

Based on this idea from somebody at Daily Kos: I figure that since the Mormons came to California and used their money and efforts to pass Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state, gay people should use their money and efforts to pass a Constitutional Amendment in Utah banning divorce.

Think about it: Get the Mormons to put their vote where their mouths are in order to enact a constitutional amendment about the sanctity marriage... but this time, make sure it actually effects Mormons personally.

Of course, if Mormons decide to vote against a Constitutional Amendment banning divorce in Utah, they'd be huge hypocrites, as they work to strengthen marriage in ways that only requires changes from other people, in other states, but not being willing to strengthen their own marriages in their home state.

I love the Catch. I love the 22. Oh: And no joke, I'd give such an Amendment a 50-50 chance of passing.

Daily Report: Away From My Desk

I worked 90 minutes this morning. I figured it was actually a perfect representation of what the future of my job will look like, based on the proportion of different types of work I got (speech rec. with good and fair authors, plus regular transcription). At the end, it looks like there will be a slight reduction in pay — about 10% to 15% — using speech recognition. (The 99% of transcriptionists who were slower typists than me will see either no change or an increase in their pay... so it's not a scam or anything. It's just a leveling of the playing field whereas before I had a big advantage in earning ability.)

At noontime, Epril and I went and joined all the other filipatriate couples (that's my new invented word for couples consisting of a Filipina and expatriate, jot it down somewhere) at Kingston Lodge for their weekly roast beef dinner. We sat with Andy and Layla, Nelson and Shiela, and Chris and Rhea. Epril decided to take a break from roast beef this week and instead ordered pancit. She paid the price when her lunch finally arrived after everyone else was finished with theirs.

After that, Epril went out shopping at Gaisano Mall while I stayed at home.

There is a new alcoholic beverage being sold in stores that is a strawberry-margarita-flavored drink. It tastes vaguely similar to the Thai wine cooler "Spy Pink" actually. It tastes quite a bit like a strawberry margarita, but not quite. I sat around with my blender and tried to mix the drink in with tequila, triple sec, and lime juice to see if I could come up with a proper-tasting strawberry margarita, but couldn't coax enough strawberry flavor out. (I also tried using the strawberry lambanog instead of tequila, and that worked a little bit better.) I might try to use it accentuate the flavor of the bitter little strawberries that they sell here in The Philippines. Bob McCrea and I are dedicated to making good strawberry margaritas here... while lacking all of the fundamental ingredients except tequila.

I got to the very end of my Ratchet & Clank game and found that I didn't have enough bolts to upgrade my weapons to beat the evil emperor... so I'm stuck. Instead of going back and getting more bolts, I'm moving on to Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation 2).

An Engineering Game

"Assembler". It's pretty straightforward until you get to the 16th level (level 3 pictured above)... then it turns into an engineering brain twister. I made it through all 18 levels. (Finished the 18th level in just under 300 seconds... see if you can beat it.)

Quotacious

"At the end of the evening, the electoral vote count was 349 for Obama, 148 for McCain. Or, as Fox News says, too close to call."

"How about Sarah Palin, ladies and gentlemen. Right now on her way back to Alaska. And I'm thinking oh, I wouldn't want to be a moose now."

— David Letterman

Daily Report: Little Changes

I had a great day of work today. I got up early and worked for 7 hours straight before calling it a day at 3:00. Why can't all days go this well at work?

My mother sent me the PBS documentary "Carrier", about a WestPac cruise aboard the USS Nimitz... the ship I spent 2 years on when I was fresh out of high school. The girls and I have been enjoying it. I've only recognized a few places: Most of the film is spent on the 03 Level and higher, while I spent most of my time on 2nd deck and lower (storekeeper, I was... down in the hold). The major difference now is that women are members of the crew, which is quite cool.

The only problem I have with women on board ship is that their presence seems to have destroyed the 400-year-old tradition of becoming a shellback. When I crossed the equator for the first time (along with about 5,000 out of the 6,000 crew) in December of 1988, it was a pretty harsh 6 hours: We spent the entire time on our hands and knees, crawling on lacerating non-skid decking; getting spanked with lengths of salt-water-hardened thick fire hose the entire way; then getting our faces mashed into the biggest, hairiest, greased-up beer belly on the ship; and then crawling through a 30-foot tube of rotten food before graduating to the status of shellback. When I was finished, I felt like I had really accomplished something. The things I had to do in and of themselves were a bit pointless and definitely painful and gross, but it added up to an experience I'll never forget, and a title (Shellback) that carries a bit of weight among Navy people... or at least it used to.

Now, apparently, the only thing that wogs (the pre-shellback crew) have done to them is getting sprayed lightly with a firehose (not even on full blast), told to do calesthenics, and be shouted at. No hitting, no crawling, no nasty belly face mash, no rotten food. Oh: And the raunchy and hillarious drag show to choose Amphritrite the night prior has been replaced by some dorky talent show. I think they should call people who go through this new version of equator crossing "Cruise Ship Shellbacks" or at least "21st Century Shellbacks" to connote the differences in experience that they had compared to their predecessors.

For all you military folks out there who aren't Shellbacks, think of it this way: Imagine if boot camp was suddenly turned into summer camp because girls were in it. You might approve of the fact that endless marching and exhausting hours, the tedious uniform folding, the pointless rifle salutes, the draining calesthenics and the heavy-handed discipline are gone... but part of you realizes that the boot camp experience gave you a sense of accomplishment, a bit of pride, and an appreciation of military tradition.

Anyway moving on. It was pouring rain tonight. (Height of dry season? It's raining constantly now.) That put a stopper in going out. Instead, I sat home and played Ratchet & Clank on PlayStation.

I also figured out a way to butch up my Cagayan Cocktail a bit, in a bid to acknolwedge a fair sentiment from a commenter:


1. Four parts strawberry Lambanog. (Or 4 parts vodka and a splash of grenadine if you want.)
2. Two parts of triple sec.
3. One part Rose's lime juice.
4. Four parts beer.
5. Two parts orange juice.

Epril went out to Jasaan today. Little sister Inday was in a school pageant today and was assigned to dress up like somebody from Thailand. (I wonder why?) Epril and I supplied Inday with a formal gown from Thailand. I haven't seen the pictures yet, but they should be nice. As you can see, she looked quite nice, and made quite an impression.

Also, a belated thank you to those of you reading who helped get this dress to Inday.

Hey. Who You Callin' Energetic?

The Onion is fast becoming the best political satire in America.



"For the past year and a half, thousands of Obama's most obsessive supporters have devoted their every waking moment to the Obama campaign. Last night they were celebrating his victory, but today they woke up to the cold realization that they have nothing to fill their pathetically empty lives.

I think a lot of people just hope these people will die, but worst case scenario is that someone with evil intent seizes control of them. They've proven their minds can be taken over with empty rhetoric. So if someone were to come up with a catch phrase as simple and vague as "Yes We Can", they would have an entire army of extremely energetic, insufferably annoying, mindless pawns at their command."

Acrimony With A Dash Of Hypocrisy Sure Is Tasty

Republican columnist Bob Novak in 2004: Bush's 3.5 million vote victory over Kerry was a "mandate". (Remember that term bouncing around? It was Novak who started it.)

Republican columnist Bob Novak in 2008: Obama's 7.5 million vote victory over McCain is not a "mandate". (And yes, he even used the word "mandate".)

Ah... the election may be over, but unfortunately hypocrisy never dies. My mission continues.

Thanks to Think Progress for giving me something to write about on a slow work morning.

For All Of You Poll Doubters Out There

FiveThirtyEight.com. I told you that was the place to go. I told you they were good... but their final entry on the beginning of election day is uncanny:

Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana. These states total 353 electoral votes. Our official projection, which looks at these outcomes probabilistically — for instance, assigns North Carolina's 15 electoral votes to Obama 59 percent of the time — comes up with an incrementally more conservative projection of 348.6 electoral votes.

We also project Obama to win the popular vote by 6.1 points; his lead is slightly larger than that in the polls now, but our model accounts for the fact that candidates with large leads in the polls typically underperform their numbers by a small margin on Election Day.

Final real world tally? Obama with 349 electoral votes, and a margin of 6.1 points. Bam.

One Last Kick When She's Down

(Not that she doesn't have it coming:)

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Don't expect Sarah Palin's star to rise too high or burn too brightly after this election. That lady was belle ideal for everything that was wrong with the Republican Party in recent history. Don't count on Republicans of any stripe to be turning to her any time soon for answers.

Yes, she'll probably get elected to the US Senate when Stevens gets shown the door (Alaska elected her once, they'll probably do it again), but she's lost her new-car smell, and the Republican Party higher-ups (as well as fellow Senators) aren't going to be giving her any more chances to "go rogue" and fuck up the program. And don't think for a minute that the you betchas and winks are going to help her in the back rooms of Congress, on the Senate Floor, or in Washington social circles.

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UPDATE:

The Anchorage Daily News is even less optimistic about Sarah Palin's future than I am.

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UPDATE 2:

Fox News tells us that McCain campaign staffers... boy do they have some stories to tell about Sarah Palin now that the election is over.

Work Update

God, it's been a fucked up month.

At the same time Epril and I were getting married, my company was switching everybody over to new software. When I got back from my vacation, my entire work world was turned upside down: Old accounts were gone, new and unfamiliar (and dreadfully slow) accounts put in their place. The new software was... well... new, and slower (and a month down the road, it still is a bit slower, mostly due to a time-consuming quality scan that it runs every time you submit finished work product back to the company's servers).

My company told me 'no more overtime' until further notice. (I kind of brought that one on myself, putting in 70-hour weeks before the wedding, and getting crazy paid.)

Then, last week I woke up to find all of the easiest dictations had been switched to voice recognition. So I went all last week listening to nothing but Indian, Russian, and Chineese accents. (Now, I've finally got them down well, and I'm back roughly to my old speed.)

On Monday, I attended online training to do the V.R. jobs, and now those are flowing in hot and heavy, and represent about 66% of my workload. The pay rate is two-thirds that of regular work. The V.R. is a work in progress: You open up a dictation with the text already there, listen to the voice file, and fix the errors that the V.R. software has made. The software is suprisingly accurate, as it goes back and looks at your corrections after you submit the job, and updates a file for each doctor. It even learns to start putting in formatting and punctuation that the doctor doesn't even dictate.

The unfortunate part is that, in the same way that paving over a road with 100 potholes is faster than filling each pothole, typing a report from scratch is faster than fixing bunches of errors. So, for the time being, pay has gone down. However, as the software learns more, the number of mistakes will go down, and the speed should increase to... oh... about 50% faster than what I could have typed, which is precisely a wash in terms of money earned. (Since I type at 120 words per minute, I have to be listening at 180 words per minute — and be editing at the same time — to break even.)

Anyway, after a topsy-turvy month at work, coupled with my attention being focused on the election... I can finally feel my world stop spinning too quickly. It sure feels good to have things returning to a more "certain" and "regular" stance.

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UPDATE:

Jeebus. I just logged on to work and all of the accounts are empty. That's rare. Well, it's early: The flow of my day is (1) start working at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, and spend 3 or 4 hours doing work left over from day shift, and (2) start working again at 2:00 a.m. Eastern, and spend 3 or 4 hours doing stuff from earlier that wasn't finished, as well as all of the reports that doctors dictate while at home in the evening, or at midnight after getting off the swing shift (always a pile). Occasionally (as will be the case today, to make up for having nothing this morning), there is (3) go back to work at 6:00 a.m. Eastern (after dinner for me) and put in another 2 hours of work doing whatever is available.

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UPDATE 2:

Epril woke up and just came in and asked me to massage her butt. She was playing badminton yesterday, and now she is sore. Well, now at least I have something to spend my morning on. Heheh.

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UPDATE 3:

Oops. Turns out that voice recognition jobs don't appear in the same "work available" list as the regular jobs. There was a fine amount of for me to do that I missed. So, I could have had work, but Epril's butt is better.

Quotacious

This is precisely what I had hoped to hear, phrased even better than I could have imagined it. (Via Sullivan)

"Today, reality in America has superseded fantasy. ... Americans have struck a deadly blow to racism all over the world. Americans have regained themselves and have regained the American dream. The picture of the U.S. that was disfigured by the Republicans in the past eight years fell from the wall today. The picture of the America we had in our minds has taken its place."

— Dawood al-Shirian, deputy head of
Al-Arabiya TV and one of Saudi Arabia's
most prominent columnists.

Farce, Thy Name Is Onion

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job.

Daily Report: A New Era Dawns With A Yawn

I spent the morning watching election returns. It was kind of cool: I did split screen and used the Playstation 3 to browse the internet while I watched Fox News (forgive me: they were the only channel broadcasting House results) for the coverage.

All in all, the results were quite underwhelming: The Presidential race was never in doubt, but the Democrats underperformed by a fair margin on the downticket races. Moreover, the passage of Proposition 8 in California (taking away gay people's marriage rights... passed primarily with the help of black people... oh the hypocrisy), along with similarly mean-spirited measures passing in Arkansas and Florida, was a black eye on what was otherwise a grand and historic night.

Obama is America's new President. I remember watching him speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention and thinking to myself with certainty that he would be America's first black president... someday. Who would have imagined then that someday would come so soon?

I finally got to work at about 4:00 in the afternoon.

At 7:00, Epril and I had a dinner date at Ron and Eve Van Orden's house. Epril wore her pretty white and pink dress. For dinner, there was grilled chicken breast, with (joy!) baked potatoes with sour cream, chives, and Bac-O's... a treat half a world away from Idaho (although Bac-O's could be Chinese cardboard soaked in melamine... not sure). The wine flowed, and the conversation was great.

A Final Election Prediction

I predict that Obama (or McCain) won't be declared the winner of Tuesday's election until Wednesday morning... and I don't mean after midnight... I mean breakfast time. The networks won't declare a winner until then.

The way I see it, so many people are going to be voting, it's going to clog the system. Everywhere. The majority of states will probably have to extend the polling schedule in at least a couple of districts by several hours (maybe even as late as midnight in some areas; if there is a 6-hour line when polls close at 7 p.m., there you go). If closing times are extended in New York or Texas or California until late night, that's one thing: everybody knows who is going to win those states. However, without results from Florida, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, and half a dozen others, nobody will be able to figure anything out for certain.

Then, of course, all of those states will still have poll workers tabulating through the night, and there will be enough problems to delay releasing results until the rest of America is waking up on Wednesday.

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UPDATE:

Well, happily I was wrong. I'll never grumble about having one of my pessimistic predictions fail to come true. I haven't heard any complaints about voting yet, or any polling snafus. Other than the obvious news tonight, if I find out that this election went off without a hitch; that everyone who wanted to vote was allowed to vote, and within the scheduled time frame — compared to what America had been through on several previous elections — it would be the best news.

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UPDATE 2:

Uh-oh. Minutes after Update 1, it looks like the distant rumble of trouble can be heard coming out of Georgia. FiveThirtyEight says the early word is that somebody might have forgotten to add in the early voting results... a million votes which were heavily Democrat. Not too much news for Obama — although a Georgia win would be nice — but Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss (currently winning at 50.1%) just shat himself.

You Suck At Photoshop

I'm sure if I was still a fancy-schmancy Manhattan graphic artist, I would have heard of this guy a long time ago. But I'm not, so I haven't.

Donnie teaches Photoshop in an online course titled "You Suck At Photoshop": Every week, he puts together little 5-minute lessons, with each one showing a different cool feature of the world's top image-editing software. It's very informative, but that's only part of it. The fun part is that each lesson is also an angst-ridden episode of Donnie's depression, desperation, fury, and impending psychosis over his wife having left him for another man.

Just watch.

A Blog Post About Daylight Saving Time

Epril and I were at a party last night and one obvious topic of discussion was Daylight Saving Time, which happened last night.

I realized I knew virtually no facts about daylight savings time. So, after reading up today about DST on wikipedia, I have the following tidbits of information to share:

(1) Benjamin Franklin did not propose or invent DST. He just recommended people get up at sunrise. However, one of his reasonings — to save candles — was the eventual "official" reasoning behind DST: To use less electricity by turning on lights later.

(2) Holy $h1t... A guy at the party was right: DST was the brainchild of a British fellow, William Willett, who in 1905 proposed the idea because (among other reasons) he wanted more daylight to play golf during the summer time.

(3) DST was first used by Germany in World War One in 1916. Britain and her allies came next, followed by Russia, and then finally The United States in 1918. (Not after World War Two, as another person at the party suggested.)

(4) DST is not around in winter because there isn't enough sunlight to make it saving it worthwhile, and they also didn't want kids walking to school in the dark. (That was the one bit of information I knew... but I thought that that was the main reason for DST.)

(5) Other pro-considerations for DST: Economic benefit to stores from extra daylight, fewer road accidents, better health due to more time spent outside in the evening.

(6) Other anti-considerations for DST: The obvious confusion, and the fact that there is no actual major energy benefit from DST anymore.

(7) And yes, it is true: Arizona does not observe daylight saving time.

Personally, I wish they would forget about daylight saving time, and just take the standard day and shift it permanently forward by 2 hours: That way, in New York state where I grew up, New Year's Day sunrise would be at 9:45 a.m. and sunset at 6:45 p.m., and a July 4th sunrise would be at 7:00 a.m. and sunset of 11:00 p.m. Here in the Philippines, where summer days are only one hour longer than winter days, the sun would come up at an average time of 7:45 a.m. and would set at an average time of 7:45 p.m. That's not as cool as having an 11:00 p.m. sunset, but it's a hell of a lot better than always having the sun go down before 6:00 every evening.

Brilliant

Jungle Jil Cool Blog Recommendation

It Aint William... a blog by Willam (that's Will-uhm) Belli, Hollywood transsexual actress and better at finding humor in the mundane and annoying shit that life hands out (especially in a life as far removed from mundane as his) than any other person around.

A favorite quote (after losing a part at an audition to another tranny):

Upon arrival at my house, I ate a whole box of Lean Pockets. There's only two in there but still, that's a lot for me. Plus while the first one was cooking, I decided to see if I could gnaw into the frozen one.

I'm really happy for Kelly though. He/She's not even a frenemy. Just a normal friend. I knew I shoulda told casting about the Judging Amy incident in where Tyne Daly got mad after trying to finger Kelly. Oh well. CBS couldn't find her vagina. Up to NBC now.

The entire blog is great.

The Cagayan Cocktail, By Jungle Jil

Best part: It's actually cheaper per gallon than gasoline.
Worst part: Most ingredients only available in Philippines.

1. Four parts strawberry-flavored Lambanog (a coconut whiskey).
2. Two parts of triple sec (buy the cheap Orchid brand).
3. One part of sweet lime concentrate (the Island Mixers brand).
4. Two parts Cali pinapple soda.
5. Two parts orange juice.

Serve on the rocks. Tastes like bubble gum.

A Long Essay On How The Republican Party Lost Me

Ryan Sager in Reason Online writes an article about what the Republican party did to my political leanings:

Back in 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush's political savior, Karl Rove, was performing nothing short of an electoral resurrection, running around South Carolina calling Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) an unpatriotic, illegitimate-black-baby-fathering Manchurian Candidate.

I favored John McCain back in that election. It was my third presidential election since becoming politically savvy in 1992. I had followed the Republican campaign to impeach Clinton, and found it a rather tasteless and mean-spirited effort, but I didn't let it change my Republican leanings. But watching Carl Rove's slimy tricks against McCain in the primary was a real turn-off for me. Watching Republicans ignorantly fall for those tricks was the deal breaker. It was the first election I didn't vote Republican, and voted Libertarian instead: It was the first time I witnessed (with the help of the internet) the angry, strongly-Christian-yet-dishonest underbelly of the Republican party, and the portion of the party they represented. Of course that had always been there, but I never really paid attention.

Who could have guessed that eight years later, the senator from Arizona would be dedicating the remainder of his political life to finishing Karl Rove's good works on Earth?

I know. In this 2008 election, I favored Ron Paul as the Republican candidate (and I might even have voted for him over Obama), and put him ahead of John McCain because Paul's strict constitutionalism and stark conservatism is music to my ears. I never disliked John McCain until he actually won this nomination and let his moderate conservativism be overshadowed by campaign tactics that were originally used against him by Carl Rove. Bob Dole never did that, even when he knew he was sure to lose if he didn't.

And yet, as McCain runs around the country this fall, calling Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) an unpatriotic, socialistic terrorist-paller-around-with, it seems he's taken it upon himself to complete what should be called the Rove Realignment.

No, not the once-envisioned "rolling realignment," under which the Republican Party would add to its base of white Evangelical Protestants, bringing in Hispanics, culturally conservative African Americans, and economically vulnerable whites—those who supported Medicare Part D and opposed gay marriage in equal measure—to create a "permanent" Republican majority that would last at least a generation.

That "rolling realignment" could have happened at one point. Most people are conservative about the majority of things that get discussed in politics. Liberal domestic policies and government programs have never gained much traction with Americans. In my early years, when it came to politics, I was budget-focused. (I still am.) I always sided with the Republicans in fiscal matters. When it came to the Religious Right's occasional pushing of their pet issues and pulling of the Republican party strings, my favorite thing to say was, "You can't legislate morality." What I was saying was: The religious right will never get the Republican party to give up its conservative foundations. I'm sure that's what most people thought. Then the new milenium, and the new Republican party showed up.

Click here for the rest of the article.

McCain's working on the other realignment: The one where eight years of fiscal recklessness and cultural warfare alienates swing voters and withers the Republican Party until the very base of the conservative movement cracks in half—splitting a coalition that has endured since the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964.

Yeah. I'll skip how the "conservative" party ran up the national debt into the trillions. Cultural warfare really was what it was all about for me originally: The religious right from 1996 to 2006 steered the Republicans right over a cliff with their dogma (for me, Terri Schiavo is the apotheosis of that time) but I jumped ship just before all that. The libertarian-style Republicans (holding on by a thread when the Contract With America brought them roaring back in 1994) lost control to the Religious Right probably because of Clinton's reelection. First, they went after Clinton (reasonable but tacky in a down-to-their-level kind of way). Then, they smeared the Pro-Choice McCain straight out of his election bid, and got George Bush into the White House. Then, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, they learned to use fear as their primary political tool and use tests of faith and patriotism to smear their opponents instead of engaging them on the issues.

Who were the Republicans ever going to win over with those tactics? Not me... but it sure did "play well to the base" (those scum who perpetuated the "McCain's black baby" lie, and the retards who believed it). In the end, after all the Religious Right had done to the Republican party, McCain's nomination of Palin almost didn't seem surprising in a way. McCain could have nominated James Dobson and I wouldn't have been surprised.

That coalition between social conservatives and economic libertarians (who tend to be socially moderate to liberal), served the GOP well from 1964 to 2006. It gave the party eight years of Ronald Reagan and 12 years of a Republican Congress. But the Bush years have proven to be one long pulling apart. And, in a matter of days, we may just see the final snap.

Actually, it didn't serve the GOP well from 2000 to 2006. That was the problem: Libertarian-leaning Republicans generally didn't figure shit out in the 2000 elections (though some of us did). If they had, the Republican party wouldn't have had 8 years to paint itself into the ideological corner it finds itself in now. In the 2002 elections, people got suckered into making the "fear" vote... the save-us-from-the-terrorists vote.

By 2004, a large portion of the libertarian-leaning Republicans had gotten a clue... but nobody wanted to vote for Kerry. I'm surprised that enough people were able to hold their nose and re-elect Bush, but there it was. Republicans gained congressional seats in 2004 only in the deep South... the heart of Religious Right territory, but lost elsewhere. That was the beginning.

In 2006 though, voter dissatisfaction with the Religious Right's control of the Republican party really showed up with a vengeance. Unfortunately, the Republican party's attitude was only half-hearted to making change... and the Religious Right's leash was not coming off.

In 2008, the Republicans (those who were still around after 8 years anyway) finally figured stuff out, and nominated McCain over at least two other candidates that the Religious Right would have preferred. Unfortunately, McCain ran up against a perfect storm with his campaign: Being a Republican following the most unpopular Republican President in American history, some of the worst economic conditions since The Great Depression, and the other team's game-changing barrier-breaking candidate. What did candidate McCain do? Something very stupid: He turned to the Religious Right and asked, "What do I do?" Hence, McCain's campaign to date.

The Cato Institute has done excellent work over the last few years tracking the shift in the libertarian vote—the roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of the American public that can be categorized as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Based on an analysis of the American National Election Studies, Cato found that between 2000 and 2004, there was a substantial flight of libertarians away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. While libertarians preferred Bush by a margin of 52 points over Al Gore in 2000, that margin shrank to 21 points in 2004, when many libertarians—disaffected by the Iraq war, massive GOP spending increases, and the campaign against gay marriage—switched to John Kerry.

Like I said, I'm just surprised it took Libertarians so long to jump ship.

I'm equally surprised that the Republicans didn't figure out that with their bloated budget and mean-spirited and often wacky religious/moral legislative efforts (remember Terri Schiavo?) that the only reason they were still able to call themselves "conservative" was because nobody else was interested in laying claim to the title.

Polling on libertarian voters is somewhat sparse during elections, but there are a couple of data points and some broad trends that can give us an idea of where things stand now. An early October Zogby Interactive poll found that self-identified libertarians (about 6 percent of the poll's sample) give McCain only 36 percent of their vote, lower than the 45 percent and 42 percent Zogby found them giving Bush in the last two elections. The libertarian voters claim to be defecting mainly to Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr and other third-party candidates, not to Obama. A Gallup poll conducted in September, which identified libertarian-minded voters with a series of ideological questions about the role of government in the economy and society (pegging them at around 23 percent of the electorate), found that only 43 percent of these voters plan pull the lever for McCain, slightly fewer than did for Bush in 2004. The Gallup poll also finds a significant uptick in libertarians planning to vote third-party, with 3.5 percent supporting Barr.

The reason that I'm supporting Obama (unlike other Libertarians who are voting third party) is the same reason I've given from the very beginning: Living overseas, I'm concerned a lot about people's opinion of America, and how it effects not just me, but the American economy and American security. I believe that no other Presidential candidate comes remotely close to what I believe is Obama's ability to make America the most admired and respected country on the planet by people around the world.

At the broader level, McCain's problems with the libertarian side of the conservative base are evident in how he's faring regionally. While the GOP can win the South without libertarian voters, as McCain is doing handily, it can't win the "leave-me-alone" Interior West without a healthy portion of them. And even before the economic crisis took over the national headlines in mid-September, the three up-for-grabs Mountain states—which by themselves, when added to the 2004 Kerry states, hold enough electoral votes to swing the election to Obama—looked grim for McCain. New Mexico (Bush by 1) has looked solid for Obama all year; Colorado (Bush by 5), likewise, has hardly deviated from an Obama lead in the RealClearPolitics average this election season. Only Nevada (Bush by 3) has seen the advantage teeter back and forth (it's now leaning Obama).

The fact is, it is getting to the point where Republicans who are both socially and fiscally conservative (instead of culturally liberal and fiscally conservative) are having an argument with themselves as to where they want to take their vote. The Republicans have not been fiscally conservative for years now, and what's worse is that Republicans have accomplished nothing socially conservative on the national level either... unless you count "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and several all-but-meaningless abortion laws.

Why would libertarians abandon McCain? After all, they believe in low taxes—and McCain is the one promising those. And if they're concerned about social issues, well, McCain's never shown much of a stomach for cultural warfare.

Well, there is also the war in Iraq. A lot of us don't like McCain's back-out-so-slowly-maybe-no-one-will-notice approach.

That is, of course, until now.

The real McCain, whoever that is or was, may still believe that major swathes of the Religious Right represent "agents of intolerance" in our politics. But he has decided to stake both his election and the Republican Party's future upon them—from the barely coded racial refrain of "Who is Barack Obama?," to the rallies with shouts of "terrorist" and "kill him," to the corrosive choice of pipeline-prayer Sarah Palin as his running mate and heir apparent.

Well, I wouldn't read racist stuff into that "Who is Barack Obama?" refrain... but I would read the same old "Is he faithful? Is he patriotic? Does he know any French or eat organically grown food or wear imported underwear?" fear-of-the-foreign line that the Religious Right has been using since 2002 into it.

Tax cuts or no tax cuts, a party that can be roused in time of deep crisis only by fear and tribalism—a party that a supposed moderate is now deeding to its most extreme elements—can scarcely serve as a safe home to liberty or the voters who cherish it.

Two years ago, I wrote a book imploring the Republican Party not to follow its worst elements off a cliff—not to evolve, in short, into an insular party with little-to-no appeal outside of the rural, the southern, the Evangelical. As the McCain campaign flames out in a ball of Rovian disgrace, scorching the center in an attempt to fire up the base, it's difficult to reach any other conclusion than that the battle for the soul of the Republican Party has been lost.

I also cannot see the Religious Right giving control of the Republican party back to moderates. They have mixed their religious goals so thoroughly with their political goals (stopping abortion, stopping gay marriage, stopping Islam and saving Israel) that ceding any ground on those issues... compromising their politics... is tantamount to compromising their religious beliefs. People from the Religious Right tolerating the Republican party changing those planks in their platform to attract new Republicans is the same as people from the Religious Right tolerating their church changing the fundamentals of Christianity in order to attract new Christians.

A Merrill Lynch Financial Analyst: What That Means

I saw in this blog post that the America Blog folks were getting kind of snarky and "serves you right" because the financial analysts at Merrill Lynch aren't too happy with the offer of a $25,000 bonus per year (times 7 years) if they will stay with the company when it is taken over by Bank of America.

I used to work for Merrill Lynch at their world headquarters in the World Financial Center as one of their overnight graphic artists. I used to know some of these financial analysts personally. These people started off life as the kids you remember from high school who spent every day from seventh grade onwards working on putting together the best college application that they could.

Then they went to a private college and came out at the very tip-top of their baccalaureate class with their degree in business... and they spent every summer doing prestigious and much-sought-after 12-hour day apprenticeships in Manhattan investment banks. It was mostly crap work, but it led to the right places.

Then, with luck, they made it into one of the ten or twelve MBA programs from which Merrill Lynch is willing to recruit junior level analysts from. There, they graduated in the upper third of their class... else they would have been relegated to one of the several dozen smaller investment banks in New York City.

After that, they came to work at Merrill Lynch. I met these financial analysts every night at 11:30 p.m. as they were dropping off their PowerPoint presentations at the graphics department for overnight edits, before catching a cab home. I also met those same people every morning at 7:00 as they came back to pick up the finished work. They were usually around on Saturdays as well for a few hours... six or seven maybe. They did take Sundays off though. When you did the math, they were making a hell of a lot less per hour than I was. No overtime.

So, four or five years out, these folks finally have their college loans paid off, and the bottom falls out of their company. These people had put in their time and were now ready to launch up to the half-million-dollar-bonus plus quarter-million-dollar-salary region (and only 60-hour work weeks, as a bonus) and now they are suddenly faced with an employer who is willing to toss them 7 years of $25,000 bonuses instead.

I'm not writing this as some kind of complaint that people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time somehow deserve better: Life tends to be like that sometimes, and it happens far more often to the poor and ill-prepared amongst us than the rich and well-equipped. But nevertheless, while there are a lot of people harrumphing at the several — or even many — executives of these companies who are getting away with millions and suffering no real consequences, there are a fair number of people at the bottom who shouldn't receive any share of the animosity that is being directed at those higher up who deserve it.

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UPDATE:

A bit of info in the comments section sort of discombobulates this post: The Americablog article was referring to Merrill's financial advisors, while I was commenting on Merrill's financial analysts. My defense: Drunk.

Now That's A Fire

Mega Ororama, one of Cagayan's older malls... a 5-story warehouse looking building... caught fire at about noontime today. We could see the massive column of smoke coming out of the place from 5 miles away at our house on the hill.

I just noticed that at nearly 10:00 at night, smoke is still pouring out of the place, illuminated by the ambient glow from Cagayan's city lights.

Keep On Keepin' On

No real surprising news on the piso actually... but:

One thing that has me stumped is why the dollar is gaining while the pound and yen have weakened severely in the past few weeks. My belief had always been that a global financial crisis would cause the second and third tier currencies to collapse as the big currency players moved toward more historically stable first tier currencies. That obviously hasn't been the case: The financial bailout seems to be a boon for the dollar, but two of the other big currencies have lost ground big time. The Thai Baht is unbelievably holding steady against the dollar; that's just simply "WTF?" territory.

Looks like I've got some studying to do to figure out what's causing these counterintuitive ups and downs. If you've got a helpful link, stick it in the comments section.

Jungle Jil Music Video

One of my favorite post-classical pieces: Ravel's Bolero from 1928. You would think that a 4-beat background repeated over and over, never changing, supporting a quirky, dystonic primary-secondary-call-answer theme repeated over and over, never developing, with only changes in the volume and combination of instruments to make the orchestra fuller and louder over a period of 15 minutes would be tedious. Instead it is a mesmerizing exercise in timbre and harmony that morphs a song that starts as a winsome frolic through a lonely forest into a thundering march down a boulevard to cheering crowds. It's the same notes, the same tune, the same pace, the same rhythm... but the difference in characterization makes it one of history's great pieces of music (with or without Bo Derek's help).

Part 1

Part 2

What I Do

I never thought to put up a blog post that demonstrates what my job is actually like. So, click on this link to go to an MP3 file of a urology dictation (it's a dictation that I would place at exactly the 50-yard-line of the toughness scale), and click on this link to see the resulting report.

If you want to know what a tougher dictation would sound like, imagine the exact same report spoken at the exact same speed, but with a really thick Indian accent... or with a doctor who is only a fraction as awake as the doctor in this particular recording was... or both. It can drive you up the wall.

Of course, 50% of the jobs are easier than this one... so there is that.

Also, most doctors tend to say many of the same things over and over again, so once you know the parts that they repeat over and over again, you can put those bits and pieces into your text expander program (a program all transcriptionists use to help with typing speed) and just have them drop in ready-made when the doctor says them. (In an OP report like this, that would probably be... oh... a quarter or a third of the dictation.)

Wardrobe Malfunction

I was moderately amused about the fact that Sarah Palin is campaigning around the country with a $150,000 wardrobe given to her by the Republican party.

Then I thought about the "hockey mom" moniker she gives herself, and "the real America" she claims to be a part of, and the "elitist" labels she applies to others, and even the "pork buster" fiscal responsibility she claims to be a champion of, and decided that it is more than just an amusing little tidbit of news: It's wrong, it's politically stupid, it wrecks her "Jane Sixpack" image, and it is more than just a little hypocritical.

Oh hell: Now that I think about it, is there any candidate I would/should give a pass to for accepting something so extravagant and unnecessary, even without the specific hypocrisy applicable only to Governor Palin? No.

I don't blame Sarah Palin completely. The McCain campaign really is mostly to blame for being dumb enough to let something this exploitable happen. I also have to consider other share-the-blame possibilities: (1) Governor Palin might not have even been there on all those shopping sprees, or seen the bills. (2) She might have been told (i.e. lied to) by some McCain staffer that $150,000 is the standard cost for a campaign wardrobe. (3) She might have thought that the "we'll donate it all to charity after the campaign" bullshit was enough of an excuse to shut up any criticism.

(4) As a distant outside possibility (and the only thing that exculpates Governor Palin), it could be that while a big crowd of staffers and assistants was at the checkout counter with 50 or 60 not-that-expensive items on these shopping sprees, some person on the campaign was secretly buying himself or herself a diamond-crusted Cartier watch which tacked on an extra twenty or thirty grand to the final bill each time, and nobody thought to wonder why the tab was so high. Like I said: Doubtful, but I've gotta consider all the scenarios. I'm sure that numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 will all be worked out (and probably proven wrong) in the next few days.

Now, what might have happened is that the $50,000 that each of the three shopping trips cost included lots of peripheral costs such as travel, lodging, security, staff, tailors, porters, shipping, and things like that. Also, I've heard that some of the clothes were for Governor Palin's family as well. Whether or not those incidental expenses would be enough to make a $50,000 shopping tab seem reasonable, if this is indeed the case... well: The political damage has already been done really; it doesn't change the final tally of $150,000.

(Anyway, I will add that it I do find it amusing — and only amusing — that John McCain has spent over $5,000 on makeup for the campaign. Heheh. And yes, I'll chuckle (or shout, perhaps) at Obama's and Biden's ridiculous campaign expenses when they come out. Every campaign has always had at least a handful of them, and they are always embarrassing.)

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UPDATE:

According to this Washington Post Article, John McCain spends $8,700 per month on his makeup artist, and Sarah Palin spends $13,200 per month for her makeup artist. Deeaaaamm. I must have mis-read or mis-remembered that $5,000 figure up above.

Al Qaeda Endorsement

Al Qaeda endorses McCain. This is really hardly a surprise... and I wouldn't consider giving John McCain a hard time over it on a personal level: Of course he's no more a friend of terrorists than Obama or any other person with a conscience. However, it can be related to... and sheds light on... his campaign platform and politics.

Al Qaeda wants America to keep bombing terrorist hideouts (Afghani villages), and staying in Iraq, and that is basically what McCain wants America to do as well (at least more than Obama, certainly), so it is McCain whom Al Qaeda are supporting. Al Qaeda supports the war on terror because they believe that it is wearing down and weakening America more effectively than any individual or group of terrorist attacks ever could; Al Qaeda is quite happy because we've spent unimaginable amounts of money on a war against them... and it hasn't cost them a penny in return... and it has demonstrably hurt our economy in the process.

(The terrorists in the article also think that a terrorist attack right now would swing the election back to McCain... and, well, as far as evil plans go... I can't deny that that might work. Sad but true.)

For Al Qaeda, the war in Iraq struck a perfect plangent 3-note chord of (1) confirming everything the Islamists/terrorists had been preaching about America for years, (2) creating massive untold depths of anger and grief which the Islamists/terrorists could feed into and draw from, and (3) harming America's economic and military apparatus, it's political and cultural leadership, and it's domestic comfort and security. The resonance from that chord is slowly dying as Iraq is stabilized, but that doesn't mean that it can't be sounded again. (What do you think Al Qaeda would have to say about America attacking Iran?)

Like I said: It's hardly news that Al Qaeda digs things the way they are in the Middle East now.

A Bit Of Catharsis

I never liked her. Now, neither do you apparently.

That doesn't appear to be the case with McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin. Fifty-five percent of respondents say she's not qualified to serve as president if the need arises, up five points from the previous poll.

Now, Palin's qualifications to be president rank as voters' top concern about McCain's candidacy — ahead of continuing President Bush's policies, enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich and keeping too high of a troop presence in Iraq.

Pretty Much Over

FiveThirtyEight.com gives Obama a 92.5% chance of winning. Electoral-Vote.com has 264 "strong Dem" electoral votes (i.e. Obama has a greater than 10% lead in polling) out of the 270 necessary to win, and predicts he will get 364 electoral votes total. (Looks like it will be the landslide I predicted.)

To use the 2008 political season's favorite catchphrase, it's "dead girl live boyA quote from Edwin Edwards, Governor of Louisiana, in 1983: "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."" time.

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Update:

I just noticed this: On October 18th in St. Louis, Obama drew a crowd of 100,000 people. On October 20th in St. Louis, McCain drew a crowd of 2,000 people. A little bit apples and oranges with it being a Saturday crowd versus a Monday crowd, but still: Ouch.

The First Black President

I was thinking about this last night. It is something that nobody has talked about yet during this campaign season, but I'll predict that you'll see covered in the opinion/news and on blogs more and more as we near the election:

I would say that there is a small-but-sizable portion of the United States population (perhaps as low as 1%... three million people... but likely higher) who will never accept Barack Obama as their president. They will be virulently — perhaps violently — opposed. Three million people.

(The fact that these people have been whipped into a blood-thirsty frenzy by their pretty, charismatic-Christian V.P. nominee, who has them convinced that Obama is an anti-Christian, baby-killing, Muslim terrorist is most certainly exacerbating an already dangerous situation.)

Just remember, these are people from whom came the crazies of the shootout at Ruby Ridge, the siege of Waco, the bombing in Oklahoma City, the murder and bombing of abortion providers, Stormfront and the Michigan Militia... and they have never faced a challenge to their core, deeply-held political, cultural, racial, and religious values on the scale and scope of what they are about to. It will literally drive some of them (perhaps as low as 1%... thirty thousand people... but likely higher) insane. Insane enough to believe that it is the beginning of the end of the world. Insane enough that they will make major changes to their lives because of the upcoming President Obama. Thirty thousand people. Angry. Insane. At minimum.

I predict that you will see thousands upon thousands of these people arming themselves and (most likely, hopefully) retreating up into the hinterlands to "escape from America" like they did at Ruby Ridge, or (less likely, and sadly) engaging in acts of domestic terrorism like we saw in the 1990s... and probably, tragically, racial violence as well. You can expect to see many more Christian doomsday cults arise in the next 2 to 3 years. (Now is the time to buy stock in firearms manufacturers and camping equipment and survival gear companies.)

I think that the United States has not yet had the discussion as to whether or not we can have a black president: A large portion of America — the portion who need to be convinced that it can and should happen — still believe Barack Obama will lose, and think that the discussion will not need to be held. After the election though, when these people realize what they are faced with, that's when the discussion about the end of the racial Sturm und Drang in America will begin... and I predict that it will not be pretty. (And as above, the anti-Christian, baby-killing, Muslim terrorist labels from Sarah Palin make it so much more likely to lead to violence.)

Like I said — especially after we've all seen the video of the very angry people who have been attending McCain/Palin rallies — this is something we'll all be talking about soon, and unavoidably experiencing shortly thereafter.

Daily Report: Not Frabjous, No Calloo, No Callay

Truly a jejune Monday. I woke up, walked 15 feet from my bed to my office. At lunch time, I walked 15 feet from my office to lunch. After lunch, I walked 15 feet back to my office. At bedtime, I walked from my office back to my bed.

Well, sometimes Monday's deserve to be treated that way.

Article on Airport Security

It is becoming common knowledge that airport security and passenger screening has never been effective at catching actual terrorists, has little chance of catching an actual terrorist, and probably will never catch an actual terrorist. The general consensus among security experts is that if a potential hijaker makes it to the airport without being detected by law enforcement beforehand — during the planning stages — then he never will be detected.

Read this fascinating article about a reporter who keeps trying to arouse the suspicions, and get arrested at airport security... and keeps failing.

As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver’s license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schnei­er had made for me. I told the document checker at security that I had lost my identification but was hoping I would still be able to make my flight. He said I’d have to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor arrived; he looked smart, unfortunately. I was starting to get genuinely nervous, which I hoped would generate incriminating micro-expressions. "I can’t find my driver’s license," I said. I showed him my fake boarding pass. "I need to get to Washington quickly," I added. He asked me if I had any other identification. I showed him a credit card with my name on it, a library card, and a health-insurance card. "Nothing else?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"You should really travel with a second picture ID, you know."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"All right, you can go," he said, pointing me to the X-ray line. "But let this be a lesson for you."

Daily Report: Sunday, It's The Un-Day

Another crap morning of work. Reading about how the election is going always takes up too much of my mornings these days.

Epril travelled out to Jasaan today. All her old friends from school were getting together at Twin Hearts Pool Resort to hang out. I wasn't too keen on going: I'd just be a twenty-third wheel, and a hindrance for Epril being able to focus all her attention on her friends. So I stayed home.

For lunch, AusAndy and Cynthia picked me up in their little microvan, and we went to our usual Sunday event: The weekly family-style roast beef dinner for expatriates held at the Kingston Lodge. It's always a great and relaxing afternoon with the usual crowd, and really creates a nice family atmosphere: Everybody sits around at the long table on the patio, with auto racing on the TV in the background while the husbands talk about sports, politics, and expat life, while the wives talk about food and babies and family, and the kids splash around in the pool and play ball on the grass. Then, everybody is served roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and vegetables with gravy. Afterwards, with everybody stuffed, conversation is resumed. For some reason, at the same time every Sunday — just after lunch is finished — a light rain shower always passes through.

After lunch, AusAndy dropped me back home, and I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon playing "Civilization Revolution". For the first time, I won the game at the highest difficulty setting. I'm awaiting the local newspaper to call me for an interview. Any time now.

It was my intention in the evening to get some more work done, but the server for the new software was down. (What? You thought "new" meant "better"? Silly.) Instead, Epril (back from a good time in Jasaan), Maid Susan, Kid Sister Ednil, and myself bought Jollibee chicken, and watched an episode of Doctor Who. Then I spent an evening listening to music and playing a new video puzzle game for a while before going to bed.

Good Article, Great Predictions

A good editorial from the New York Times which says basically the same thing about ACORN that I said here, only 5 days later. (p.s. New York Times: I love that new highlight-and-click-to-see-the-definition-of-a-word feature you've put up. That's just made entirely of win.)

Also, since I'm having fun looking up my past predictions to see how they turned out, here's another bit of brilliance from three years ago when my blog was only a teeny little baby blog at 2 weeks old. (And it's also my first effort at teasing a clueless commenter (yes, I even had them back then). It was certainly a little over-zealous on my part though: Six consecutive comments by me to reply to one? Doh. Just a little perfervidity on my part perhaps?.)

Well now, as things stand [without Kerry as President], there is nobody to blame but Republicans, and boy is there going to be hell to pay in the 2006 elections... probably enough to flip the congress to the Democrats... and I would almost guarantee that in 2008, Democrats (or demoncrats, as the right-wingers like to call them) will be in charge of both houses of congress plus the White House.

Anyway, read the rest of the post, as it is equally filled with some pretty stunning presentement on my part.