Snowzilla Ordered Destroyed in Anchorage

MSNBC story subtitle: Officials have issued a cease-and-desist order to builders of the giant.

Clearly they were concerned about the off-hand chance that there could be some magic in that old silk hat they planned to put on his head. I mean come on: at more than 16 feet tall, the resulting thumpety-thump-thump could have leveled the entire city. Furthermore, a snowman that large arguably wouldn't even pause a moment if a policeman were to holler "stop".

Tag: Snowzilla

Weirdly, Snowzilla reappeared anyway. "Magically", per the Anchorage Daily News. In the same article, the owner of the land on which the huge snow man is built seems to be getting the Joe the Plumber treatment from unnamed "officials".

Once Is Happenstance, Twice Coincidence...

Joe Conason writing in Salon: What's Obama hiding about Blagojevich? (D) The subtitle answers the question: "Probably nothing. But by mishandling the scandal, his team has allowed questions to be raised where there were none."
You'd have to read the whole thing to see if you really agree "there were none" in terms of questions about talking with Blagojevich. (He must really have political cooties if Obama--who famously stated he'd talk to a whole Rogue's Gallery of international scumbags without precondition--won't talk to the Illinois Democrat.)
Where have we seen this pattern before? Do a search on Obama and "birth certificate" and you'll find a whole roiling controversy on the right, where there didn't need to be one.
So why would they repeat the mistake of letting something fester endlessly?
Outside of Free Republic, the birth certificate controversy didn't get much of a look from the nation at large. As such, it may not have registered as a lesson that Team O! should take anything from. Perhaps the Obama campaign liked it--after all it kept the dextrosphere wrapped up about one particular thing on message boards and not out in the streets getting out the vote. And if it didn't really make a true penetration into the Big News cycles, what was the real harm to him? A bunch of people who wouldn't vote for the man anyway were now really sure they wouldn't vote for the man. A simple enough calculation for a campaign run by the numbers.
So now? The tapes that have been released give the impression that Obama's camp wasn't about to give Blagojevich a thin dime in return for appointing Valerie Jarrett to Obama's Senate seat. So what was the big deal?
We'll almost certainly never find out since the prosecutor pulled the plug right around the time Ms. Jarrett withdrew herself from consideration and was subsequently handed a job in the White House. If there's a third instance along these lines, we'll see if there's a trend.
Tag: Blagojevich

Rand Simberg on the UAW

It isn't just the compensation packages UAW workers get that has made GM, Ford and Chrysler less profitable than their non-unionized competitors: it's the thousands of union work rules that have dragged down productivity. Like what? Check this out, from Rand Simberg's own time working in AC Sparkplug and Fisher Body plants:

A breaker might trip on the robot. A gate might jam, causing the reservoir to fill and the parts line to be depleted, making the workers below unable to complete the assembly of an oil filter. And when these things happened, what was I supposed to do? If a breaker tripped, I was supposed to put in a repair ticket for an electrician. If a gate jammed, I was supposed to put in a ticket for a pipefitter — it may even have been a special subclassification for an assembly-line upper-level pipefitter. If a belt jammed, I was supposed to requisition a machinist, any of whom might be busy on other jobs. Or outside, taking a nap in their van. While waiting for them to arrive, assembly lines, perhaps even the entire plant, would be shut down, costing thousands of dollars a minute with workers sitting around unable to assemble the product.

They'll get to it, when they get to it. Rand also shares a couple of anecdotes from a former supervisor. Lest you think management has no role in this:

...but when I tried to make them increase production ever so slightly they sabotaged my ability to make even the current production levels by hiding stock, calling in sick, feigning equipment problems, and even once, as a show of force, used a fork lift truck and pallets and racks to create a car part prison where they trapped me while I was conducting inventory. The reaction of upper management to my request to boost production was that I should “not be naive.”

Sounds like management had long since given up on trying. You can, as they say, read the whole thing.

There is just no telling about some people

Family: Shoe thrower hates both US, Iran role

Al-Zeidi's act of defiance Sunday transformed an obscure reporter from a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with the nearly six-year U.S. presence here, but also fearful that their country will fall under Iran's influence once the Americans leave.

It's a real dilemma for them, isn't it?  But, Al-Zeidi, once he has cooled down, will consider what would have happened to him if Saddam was his target.

Technorati Tags: Iraq,Al-Zeidi