BunkBlog

Cats are insane. If a dog is hungry, he’ll slap his food bowl around, making a horrendous noise and letting you know what he wants. If a dog wants to go to the bathroom, he’ll paw at the door and whine.

Now, contrast that with cat behavior. If a cat wants to eat, she’ll do nothing or mewl at some random location, generally nowhere near her food bowl. What the heck?

I’ve got two cats temporarily, instead of the usual one. With one cat, we went through one can of “good” cat food daily, plus a half-bowl of dry food. With two cats, we go through about three cans of the wet food every day. And they still get in my face. My mother-in-law claims her cat doesn’t eat much. That is definitely untrue. Little beggar takes over Holly’s food bowl now.

So, after making sure they have food, water, and a clean place to poop, they still want to mewl at me and imply that I’ve forgotten some important part of their logistal support. Cats are crazy.

Following up on the whole social order discussion I started (to a resounding lack of response) the other day…

Talking to a couple of my coworkers this morning, we ended up wandering down the labor unions – good or bad debate. It seems to me that unions are not inherently wrong, but the implementation of them in the past 30 years has grown increasingly lopsided. Where, in the 20s, the factory owner had all the power and was able to force workers who wanted to feed their families to do pretty much anything the boss wanted, the balance has shifted all the way to the other side. This has ended up being actively *bad* for the very people the unions are meant to protect.

I do not in any way assume any altruism on the side of the owners, of course. A businessman is in business to make money for his shareholders or himself. There need not be any higher moral calling in his decisionmaking. Any large company has to balance the various kinds of efficiency that come with manufacturing and distributing whatever widget they create. Offshore workers (and to a lesser degree Mexican factories) make the logistics much more complicated, so a smart business owner would avoid splitting his business into multiple international pieces unless he gained more in doing so than the headaches.

When the labor unions become the majority (or in some industries the entirety) of the workforce, they have all the power. You would think the unions would negotiate to get the most they can for their workers; it’s only natural. What they frequently seem to do in recent years is to get the most they can for the short term, while destroying the industrial capacity that allows the workers employment at all in the long term.

If you’ve got an unskilled laborer in El Paso, they will make upwards of fifteen bucks an hour in a union shop, building whatever it is they build. That same factory can move across the border to Juarez, all of ten miles away in Mexico. In Mexico, the factory owner no longer has to worry about those pesky minimum wage laws, ecological restrictions, work-week length restrictions, overtime, or safety. Way to go, NAFTA(North American Free Trade Agreement).

What steps are required to keep semi-skilled laborers employable in the United States are beyond my ken. But telling company owners they must pay fifteen bucks an hour or not have workers will end up with the owners saying, “we’ve got plenty of workers elsewhere.”

In my semi-educated opinion, it seems that things like NAFTA should only go into effect with concommitant changes in the safety and environmental laws for the partner country, to force them to be competitive in all substantive ways with the United States. To say that we won’t impose any tariffs on our neighbors and to encourage our companies to relocate to them while at the same time imposing restrictions on those same companies in their native country seems counterproductive. It’s a basic equation that anyone with a brain can work out. Why is it surprising that manufacturing jobs have moved out of the country? Why does the President claim, with a straight face, that he’s working to improve manufacturing job creation, when it’s not possible? He can’t do a thing unless the companies suddenly find a more hospitable business atmosphere in the States than overseas for the same type of manufacturing. That seems unlikely, unless we’re willing to have five-income households instead of the now-common dual-income families.

What am I missing that is stopping the politicians from seeing this painfully obvious thing?

I was talking to a family friend last month, and the general trend of the conversation dealt with a kind of obligation versus compulsion topic. When you have a reasonable amount of resources, do you have an obligation to “give something back” to society? And, does it automatically follow, then, that society can or should compell you to give it back? I think this debate lies at the heart of many of the problems that the two ends of the political spectrum have in relating to each other. Libertarians, shut up.

The concept of giving something back is a tough one, because society didn’t give me jack, I earned it. Isn’t that the American way? We are rugged individualists, right? So, if nobody ever gave me anything, how can I be giving it back? And, if they gave it to me, it’s mine now so nobody should expect it back. For any X called “it.” 🙂

In my view, though, if I have a lot of stuff and can afford to help someone else out, it is morally repugnant to not help them. The specifics of how and who I would help are up to the giver, obviously. In my mind, to help future generations, I like to donate money to the Nature Conservancy. Direct action groups like NC are my preferred way to do things, because I distrust lobbying groups and Political Action Committees. The PACs, to me, fly in the face of that rugged individualism. If some big group takes my message to some other big group, it just doesn’t feel very personal to me. And, in fine libertarian tradition, charitable giving is all about the giver.

So, the lefties will say, if it is a moral imperative to give back when you have been lucky enough to not struggle, then it must follow that some people won’t want to give anything back. Those people should be forced to help others, for their own good. A rising tide lifts all boats and all that rot. Not in my mind. Yes, I believe everyone who has the means should help others. But, I also firmly believe that forcing someone to give is not a good thing. This compulsory redistribution of wealth just encourages class warfare, and the rich keep finding ways to stop giving a fair share, much less a generous share.

More later, I have to work…

While perusing Intelink today, the J2 Daily Briefing included an acronym I wasn’t familiar with: GWOT(Global War On Terror). Now, think for a couple seconds and I’ll bet you’ll get it too. Don’t I feel dumb for not parsing it immediately.

Of course, some of my cow-orkers still aren’t sure what the classification caveat MCF(Multinational Coalition Forces) means, so at least I have them beat there.

For any other child of the 80s that has wondered Who Ate All The Frusen Gladje, now we have an answer.

Who knew it was made by Kraft? I thought it was Danish or something. Damned fake imports.

The O’Reilly Factor – Talking Points – The Most Liberal Ticket, Ever

The Bush administration has had a very tough time in Iraq. And the media is heavily weighted against them.

The media is weighted against Bush? Which media is that? Is it the media that refuses to ask him about reports that he paid for a girl’s abortion before they were legalized in the early 70s? Is it the media that doesn’t talk about the giant gaping holes in the explanations for most of his choices while in power? Is it the media that lets him get away with making some of the most egregiously nonsensical statements ever, because he’s a folksy guy? Which particular piece of the media is weighted against Bush?

I’m not saying that everything Bush does is bad (some would find plenty to support that hypothesis, though). I’m just amazed that Bill O’Reilly, one of the most-watched correspondents in the media, who is on the most-watched news channel in the media, can pretend that the media of which he is a huge part is anti-Bush. Hasn’t the “liberal media” myth been blown apart by now?

1. Where were you when you heard that Ronald Reagan died?

Work, in the break room, watching CNN(Cable News Network) Headline News.

2. Where were you on September 11, 2001?

Getting ready for work. Read about airplanes and something big on my LJ friends list. For some reason, I thought I’d be able to get onbase to work that day.

3. Where were you when you heard that Princess Diana died?

Lying in an empty barracks room in Monterey, the weekend before my refresher training in Korean.

4. Do you remember where you were when you heard Kurt Cobain had died?

Seattle, strangely enough. I believe that was the weekend I arrived from Korea on assignment to Fort Lewis.

5. Take one for The Gipper: What’s your favorite flavor of jelly bean?

Watermelon. It’s red on the inside and green on the outside, man.

6. Where were you when Magic Johnson announced he was retiring from the NBA(National Basketball League) due to AIDS(Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)?

I was in Korea, or so says the calendar. I don’t remember.

7. Where were you when Reagan was shot?

Probably in school. I was 10, what do you want from me?

8. Where were you when the Challenger exploded?

High school. It was . . . memorable and shocking.

9. Where were you when the OJ verdict was announced?

Again, according to the calendar, I was in Korea. I’m sure it was a big deal at the time, but the most memorable part of the OJ murder thing was while I was at BNCOC(Basic Noncommisioned Officer Course) in Arizona, watching the lowspeed chase on TV.

10. Where were you when the Berlin Wall fell?

At DLI(Defense Language Institute), learning Korean to defend the free world from the commies and keep fighting the good fight of the Cold War. Shit.

It’s interesting to contrast our Independence Day with other countries’ similar observances. The one I’m most familiar with, Samil, is the Korean independence commemoration day. This is a rather long stretch from our own, though.

It is true that we “declared independence” on this day, but we took several years until we fought the British to a surrender. The Koreans declared independence from Japan on March 1st, 1919. They failed. The people were brutally subjugated and kept in near-slavery until 1945, when a foreign power (that would be us) gave them their independence.

I think we are unusual in not being given independence, but fighting for it tooth and nail. It took 5 years to win our independence from Great Britain. It took 26 years for the Koreans to be *given* independence from Japan.

Australia may seem like another former British Colony to us, but some in Australia say they are not yet fully independent, as their constitution stipulates that their Head of State (a ceremonial position, to be sure) is the British monarch.

What other countries have won independence, rather than having it handed to them as a gift?

I am a member of 1 clique of size 6

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Predict your love and sex life

It’s pretty funny. Really.

Thanks to ThrowingStarDNA on Livejournal for this article:
Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012

An excerpt:

bq. What made this all the more disheartening was the wretched performance of our forces in the Second Gulf War.[73] Consumed with ancillary and nontraditional missions, the military neglected its fundamental raison d’etre. As the Supreme Court succinctly put it more than a half century ago, the “primary business of armies and navies [is] to fight or be ready to fight wars should the occasion arise.”[74] When Iranian armies started pouring into the lower Gulf states in 2010, the US armed forces were ready to do anything but fight.

Preoccupation with humanitarian duties, narcotics interdiction, and all the rest of the peripheral missions left the military unfit to engage an authentic military opponent.

My cow-orkers tend to say some absurd things that they think make sense. Here are a couple from this week.

“I’m ok with Word until you get into the advanced features. How do you delete a page break?” Um, yeah. That’s not really advanced so much as it is blatantly obvious. DELETE key ring a bell?

“I don’t run an antivirus because it would be a step backward for me. As a programmer, I know how things propagate and I’ve got a good router.” Sure you do. The magical kind of router that is not only a stateful packet sniffer but stops trojan horses and updates itself automatically to prevent file corruption on all computers attached to it. Fantastic technology.

Apparently these are two spiders in Iraq. Yet another reason to not go there. Damn.

Because Lysa did it and Aaron did it, I have to go along I suppose.
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Poppy Brite says, “Thanks for Nothing (Literally)” in her recent post. This dovetails nicely with a recent article in Salon dealing with the woes of a self-described mid-list author. Based on the outpouring of love Ms. Doe received, it’s a good thing she remained anonymous.

Seriously, anyone who has ever had any slight glimmer of hope of becoming a world-famous author and live the jet-setting lifestyle of the rich and famous had to have done a modicum of research and found out the worst-kept secret of publishing. That secret? Glad you asked. Most writers are poor or have “real” jobs that allow them to write without worrying about the money from the publisher. The vast majority of writers do not earn a living at it, even the famous ones. In addition to the indomitable Doc Brite, Steven Brust has mentioned his money woes in passing during recent months.

According to one set of data, manufacturing jobs have fallen 22 percent in the past 20 years, but output from manufacturing has risen 77 percent. Similarly, farming jobs have fallen 33 percent, yet farm output has risen 96 percent. This leads into an interesting ponderance, wherein my compassionate liberal side wars with my hardnosed libertarian side.

I think most people can see there is a trend here. We are (going against all known mathematics) able to do more with less. The problem, of course, is that there continue to be *more* of us, as well. So we need fewer people to do the work, yet we have more people. This is an exponential problem, as our industrial efficiency increases and population increases.
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Suppose her man is at all uncomfortable with Oleg taking this photo of Kit? Just sayin, most guys would be a bit . . . peeved.

If you call me…

* Gary – you’re normal
* Gar – you’re Cynthia
* Gar Bear – you’re one of a few people from DLI or High School
* Funkie Bunkie – you’re way too amused by bad Beastie references
* Sergeant – you’re living in the past
* Mister Bunker – you don’t know me very well
* Sir – you don’t know me very well or you’re in the military and can’t stop yourself
* Bunk – you’re one of my old Army buddies
* Gray Buckner – you’re an illiterate telemarketer

What is with American companies and introducing tiny cars that almost nobody will buy? There was the Ford Festiva (Kia Pride), the Ford Aspire (Kia Avella), and now the Chevrolet Aveo (Daewoo Lanos).

These are all Korean cars and so are made for skinny short people, no matter that the latest Aveo commercial shows basketball players getting into one. I’ve ridden in a Daewoo Tico, the Lanos’s predecessor, when I was in Korea. It is most assuredly a lot tinier than you think it is. Think roller skate.