Government Is The Problem. As Usual.

 h/t CW

Reference please the above pic from CW's daily timewaster site.

Yes, we're sure it's an idyllic place, with gorgeous views, and tucked right in amidst Nature on all sides. Which is rather exactly the problem with it. If we were to name such a homestead, on the order of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, we would name this architectural act of insanity contrary to all common sense Kindling. Calling it Kingsford might be a wee bit too on-the-nose.

My absolutely curmudgeonly response:

"In a canyon, with a wood shake roof. And dead leaves all over it. Might as well just stack full gas cans against the outside walls. And violating just about every other survivability measure in a wildfire zone.

And some fall, the tearful owner will be "Shocked! Shocked, I say..." that's it's about to become a monument to human stupidity during a major brushfire.

This is why some areas should be declared unbuildable, all fire protection withdrawn completely, home insurance legally denied in perpetuity with the full backing of the state, and the entire area redlined from ever receiving a penny of federal disaster relief.

If you can absorb the cost to rebuild it every ten or twenty years out of your own pocket when it inevitably burns to the ground, ROWYBS.

Otherwise, once it burns down and the owner can't eat the cost to put it back, rebuilding permits are denied forever, and it reverts to permanent wild habitat by eminent domain, and the owner given $1/acre.

Now show some rich stupid jackhole's house perched over the waves and built beyond the mean high tide line that gets surf-pummeled by storms every generation or so."

And then, inevitably, Anonymous Yahoo (funny how they're almost always Anonymous, i'n'it?) pipes up:

"But also we are totally opposed to government intervention in people's private lives! Do we know that this property is in a location where brushfires are common? Seems like you want to confiscate these people's property based on a picture. But again, small government and "don't tread on me" or something"

 

To which load of halt-witted codswallop we reply:

"1) "Totally opposed"? No. Never said any such thing. You conflate "minimal" with "anarchy" at risk to your own argument, with a heaping helping of reductio ad absurdum. Best wishes with that approach.

2) Those are oak trees, growing in a canyon. Brushfire city. Period.

3) I don't want the property confiscated until Reality makes it obvious it never should have been built upon to begin with.

It was jackassical government greed that let some mid-century idiot build there in the first place, to maximize the county's taxable property value. Which then requires more brush crews to save it, and more roads to maintain to get to it.And then more disaster funds when it repeatedly gets burned up.

Government created this problem.

Smaller government would start by ripping out the paved road that gets there, closing the nearest fire stations, condemning the land, and turning it into permanent natural habitat. But that breaks five or ten government rice bowls, and gets entitled idiots all riled up. 

I've only seen this about 5M times in my lifetime in this state.

If some idiot wants to build his own private road, or make do by getting supplies in and out by pack mule, and carries the liability for such an idiotic house out of his own pocket, that should be the only way that place gets built.

Dollars to donuts the owner also gets all bent up when coyotes eat his pets, and mountain lions start eyeing his kids, and screams to Uncle Government to "do something". Then pisses and moans when the local fire department tells him that with trees and brush 20' from the house, they've already written it off when a fire breaks out. And he's likely the first in line at the trough when they declare a "disaster" (as opposed to "natural causes x human stupidity", which is also the plot recipe for every episode of Rescue 9-1-1, USCG: Cape Disappointment, and 57 other reality-based shows) once his house is a charred chimney surrounded by ashes.

It was big government that started such nonsense, A to Z, in the first place. Like people along the Mississippi found out a few years back, some places shouldn't have houses on them, ever, unless there's an annual stupidity tax on the property equal to 100% of its assessed value.

If government withdraws all services to such parcels save tax assessments, and cancels utility easements, which currently start a goodly number of brushfires up there in competition with lightning (you could look it up) the problem self-corrects within years, if not months, with no further effort nor public expenditure.

That's minimal government.

Your ball.

For a vivid exemplar of this sort of stupidity right now, google "Rancho Palos Verdes landslide zone", and read up about the latest batch of entitled idiots with more money than common sense, currently pissing, moaning, and harrumphing that gravity has annoyingly reasserted itself in their multi-million-dollar cliffside neighborhood, and demanding that government somehow stop it, and/or recompense them from public funds for their idiotic residential choices.

Boo frickin' hoo."

QED, podex.

Doubtless we'll be seeing further examples from FL and the Gulf Coast in a day or three as well, crying about "How dare Nature impinge upon our desire to build substandard houses in stupid places! Government should pay us for being that dumb!" in 3, 2...

We apologize to CW for buggering up his site with the second entry, or having to. Should he choose to zap all of the above back and forth into oblivion, we wouldn't blame him. His house, his choices. Which is why we moved it here, in case he does exactly that.

The annoyance at idiots who build such houses where they don't belong, purely out of presumption on the public's funds and good wishes, deserves calling out, which is why we have done so.

Ditto the air-headed thoughtlessness of Anonymous Yahoo's asinine riposte. But the lack of critical thinking which underpins such opinions bespeaks that the left end of the IQ bell curve continues to be over-represented both in real life, and on the internet. As always.

As my father pointed out more than once, "You could get rid of all the horses in the world, but you'd still never run out of horses' asses."

UPDATE: And here's the latest edition of The Stupid People's Gravy Train

Computer Training On My Day Off! Oh Goodie!!

 

I may change my stance on euthanasia before the end of the day.

UPDATE: Survived without killing the trainers. Barely.

And it was a gigantic waste of time, as they were showing the software on a too-blurry-to-read projector screen, and the actual software installed for training was on a laptop too small to see the actual working screen, which also lacked the same functions, so I literally could have watched a YouTube podcast at home, in my pajamas, and learned more in 20 minutes' time, than I did wasting most of a day going to this training session. People who do flight training at home with Microsoft Flight Simulator and self-purchased controls are miles ahead of this bargain-basement approach to "training".

There are two absolute truths about EMRs (Electronic Medical Records):

1) Everyone in the medical field is certain that their version of EMR is the worst one ever inflicted on mortal man.

2) They are all correct.

So, in a few weeks, we will switch from the old kludgy, klunky p.o.s., to a shiny new electronic total p.o.s. (apparently on the theory that a steaming fresh turd is better than an old dried out one), and patient care will slow to a crawl for days to weeks while we find out all the things the IT bozos didn't think of that crash it, total chaos and panic will ensue, a blue cloud of profanity will form over the hospital system's various branches, and then we'll settle down to our newest p.o.s., and slowly beat it into submission. We hope.

Every month they will go back to paper charting (always on the night shift) for several hours, while IT finds all the old bugs in the software, kills them, and installs new ones at a 2:1 ratio, slowing the system's responses even further, which will be followed by "Lather. Rinse. Repeat." for several more years, as we try mightily not to kill someone because of a charting problem that we complained about pointlessly for years, whereupon some huckster will sell the corporation a brand new total p.o.s. that still f**ks everything up sideways, with a rusty chainsaw. And never, not once, just as in all of recorded medical history, will anyone involved in programming ask so much as a single doctor, nurse, tech, or clerical weenie for as little as a single word of advice or request on the next p.o.s. they install, and the software abortions will continue, world without end, amen.

{Somebody could literally have thrown $20M at Bill Gates one time, and said "Make us a better medical charting mousetrap." And he would have farmed it out to people less stupid than the current nationwide crop of @$$holes, and he would have gotten it done. But it would have suckage points, and would be improved, year by year, and in a few years, every hospital in the country would use it, it would have metric fucktons of outside add-ons and tech support, and it would be the equivalent of Google, YouTube, Amazon, or Twitter. He'd have another billion dollars, and no one anywhere would have to waste time re-inventing the wheel every couple of years, forever. But where's the fun in that, right?}

Thanks to Obozo and his dipshit minions at HHS, everyone has now spent literal billions on these fucktarded craptastic disasterpieces, which interfere with patient care, slow delivery of it, and force all actual practitioners to spend 2 hours treating the computer program for every 20 minutes they spend on actual patient care. At this rate, a new nurse now will only be able to treat 2-3 patients a shift by the time they retire, and need a master's degree in computer science to do their jobs, the exact opposite of the UPS clipboard that they can and do teach high school dropouts how to use in a couple of hours.

Back in the day, I noted that UPS tracked a $5 package with a $5,000 clipboard, while we took care of $50,000 patients with 50¢ worth of paper and pen. That was absolutely backwards.

The promise of EMRs was that they would be portable, accessible, and compatible. The reality is that they are an abomination, less secure than hiding the patient's medical records under their pillowcase, none of them talk to each other, and patients in Turd World countries where pen and paper charting is the norm get better hands-on care than patients anywhere a computer chart is in use.

But we moved from 18th century charting to the space-age all right. With programs from the 1960s, during the Apollo era. Totally not kidding about that. It's a wonder the software wasn't mailed to us on 8" floppies or magnetic tape reels. (Actually, for all I know, that's exactly how it was sent.) A dozen years later, it's only gotten worse, every single time a change is made.

Thank your congressweasels and the illegal alien Kenyan.

There is nothing whatsoever on the entire planet in all of world history that government cannot royally fuck up simply by looking at it or touching it.

Midwit Employee Of The Month: Why We're Doomed

My patience for such rank stupidity as the following tale has definitely come to a middle.

Me last night: "Item not recognized." High-70s IQ sales help comes over because Pavlovian conditioned reflex to flashing red light. Tries both magic tricks she knows. Item still not recognized. Like the computer told her the first three times.

"I can't sell this. I don't know what the price is."

"Ma'am, I'm gonna go out on a limb and bet that your $19.98 Clearance sticker on an 8-year-old banged up book that went for $24.99 brand new in 2014 is probably a major clue there."

"But it's not coming up in the system. So I have no way to sell this to you. Is there another one?"

"No, it's the only copy you have of a How To book from 8 years ago. I have the money for it. It's the only one you have. I'd like to buy it now. How hard is that?"

"But I have no idea how much to sell it for. Anyone could have put that sticker there. And it's not coming up in the system."

Word to Corporate HQ's Mother: When you hire someone with an IQ in the 80s (which seems to be a lot - like 90-ish percent - of your employees) couldn't you help a brother out by putting them in orange jumpsuits, and a hockey helmet with a flashing red light on top to clue the rest of us in on what's about to happen? I'm BEGGING you...

Smoke streaming from both ears, Midwit then puts it over on her counter, like I'm a five year old in a timeout and can't see it there any more.

I had no idea people coming into the store and dropping off strange books with the company's clearance stickers was such a huuuuge problem at their stores until just this moment, but at least I've finally solved the lifelong mystery of what ever became of the kids from kindergarten who ran with scissors and ate the craft paste who didn't end up in Congress. With a little luck, Midwit here could become a congressweasel from NYFC if she's not careful.

Thusly hijacked by stupidity, I complete my remaining purchase and tote my trove to the car. Then come back in to look for someone who can either take their socks off and do the math, or with a higher IQ than Midwit. I'll take either one. Worst case, I'll see if I can't find the same book on Amazon, and cut them out of the sale entirely, and let them eat shit on the deal. (Note to anyone who cares: the 'Zon in fact has it, in stock, and for another $10 less than Wallytardia. But I'd have to wait until next Wednesday for it, plus S and H. So that's a wash.)

But Midwit has already rotated to some other low-IQ task. The new flunkie now on duty is pre-occupied. So I walk by , lift the book, and carry it back to where I found it, only I stash it instead behind the coloring books (which, to be fair, is probably the only area of the store she's got committed to memory), at 10 minutes to closing.

Went back this morning just after they opened, with a whole new crew on duty, found another newer clearance item with the same price, took both items to the registers, scanned the new one, paid the bill, left the other item, and bagged the book I wanted in the first place the night before.

Wally World has now, despite the best efforts of their chattering hired monkeys, successfully sold the ancient item they couldn't unload for 8 years at the exact price to which they marked it down, and I have the exact item I was prepared to pay for the night before, banged up and cover-worn, but still worth the price to me at a 20% discount.

And nobody there among the high-functioning retards has to flap their feathers and burn out their brain transmissions by grinding gears in their tiny brains to figure out how to sell a book to a guy standing there with cash in his hand to buy it, because the all-powerful CPU has forgotten what it is nearly a decade later, and they haven't been clued in to the use of a signal flare, and calling the undoubtedly 80-IQ assistant manager over to help them.

Most stores have managers on duty to make exactly such high-level corporate financial decisions, but what the hell do I know, since I've only been buying stuff at stores since eleven or twelve presidents ago, and I seem to recall the clerks back then used this arcane art known as looking at the goddamned price sticker, typing that into the cash register, ringing it up, and taking your money, pretty much the same way that's been done for over 143 years, ever since James Ritty invented the sonofabitch in 1879, and nobody had a stroke over that, including an entire century of history when no computer had anyfuckingthing to do with the entire retail process whatsoever, and even the most simple-minded idiots could accomplish the task of ringing up a sale without taking off their shoes or spraining a synapse. I could be mistaken, but that's my best recollection of how it's worked, oh, since EVER.

If the corporate twatwaffles who run that ship of fools has a problem with that, they probably shouldn't have forced me to be their employee to ring up my own shit, because they're too stupid and cheap to hire a couple of more minimum wage checkout clerks every day and shift.

Monkeyfucking assholes hiring monkeyfucking assholes is no way to run a business, even if they're getting good-guy points for hiring the high-functioning retarded kids and rehabbing the brain-fried stoners from the '70s and '80s, or something, and paying them 16 bucks an hour.

One has to but wonder what sort of productive work such an employee can actually accomplish, and dollars to donuts the only reason the pallets of goods dropped around the store just prior to closing get broken down each morning before they open is that they must hide food pellets among the goods to keep employee interest in clearing those boxes up to par.

Half of me expected her to turn to the side and reveal that sentient apes in the back office had done brain surgery on her or something.

WallyWorld had a minor kerfluffle a few years back when they pulled a certain mug. I don't think they actually pulled it. It's just a hunch, but I think they just saved them to give out internally to store employees across the chain for this sort of accomplishment.

The exercise was worth it to me for the sheer satisfaction of working out a way to thwart the Minions of Stupidity, but I'll bet a paycheck that somewhere in the annals of miscellaneous tales during the decline of Rome from imperial HQ to cow pasture, that somewhere there's an account of some middle class Roman frustrated because the inbred clerks at the marketplace couldn't make change for a sesterce without taking their sandals off, couldn't read cursive script, couldn't tell time from an hourglass or sundial, and had to look up what a "dozen" was at the public library. 

Get off my lawn, you damned punk kids!

(Hand to God: Half of me wants to buy another copy of it from Amazon, go back there, bring it into the store, put three different price stickers from the Clearance aisle on it, including at least one far above the retail price on the cover, and smear some glass etching compound on the scanner on my way out for good measure. I do have a birthday coming up...)