vxbush 2/17/2025 5:47:59 AM

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Occasional Reader 2/17/2025 6:51:15 AM

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vxbush 2/17/2025 7:55:27 AM

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Now that today's fire has been put out, let's add some news: 

Hopefully you've seen the insanity related to Iron Mountain, where federal employee retirements are processed manually. MANUALLY. Like, the same way it was done pre computers. And this work is completed inside a former limestone mine in Pennsylvania.

This sounds like the WORST way to spend federal money ever, and the worst office conditions. But this was first presented by the Washington Post in 2014. And nothing happened for over 10 years.

Multiple companies have moved from paper systems to electronic systems and from one electronics system to another over the decades. Surely some company can do this for the federal government. Write the contract so they can't overcharge for it, either.

vxbush 2/17/2025 7:56:34 AM

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The way in which the FBI got started in 1908 is not what I had expected. It was a memo by the attorney general. 

Another memo could be written to disband it, you know.

vxbush 2/17/2025 7:57:52 AM

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vxbush 2/17/2025 8:07:55 AM

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vxbush 2/17/2025 8:11:21 AM

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I get the feeling that Margaret Brennan will say anything to push her point, regardless of the actual truth in history. This time, she said Vance was "standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide."

I remember when the media and Democrats were all about free speech. Good times. 

vxbush 2/17/2025 8:14:45 AM

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Al Sharpton makes sure no one misses the opportunity to understand just how dumb he is. Video of him on MSNBC courtesy of Kanekoa (video embedded below is playable):

JCM 2/17/2025 8:48:01 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 4:

There a Constitution argument that all the different agencies with police powers are unconstitutional. There is no enumerated powers for the, and a few early court cases affirmed this position.

vxbush 2/17/2025 9:25:58 AM

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In #9 JCM said: There a Constitution argument that all the different agencies with police powers are unconstitutional. There is no enumerated powers for the, and a few early court cases affirmed this position.

Was international espionage and crime unknown at that time? Doubtful, given the pirates at sea. So how were cases handled? Do you know?

JCM 2/17/2025 9:36:09 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 3:

I can guarantee you it is because of the union contract to "save jobs".

US Ports are the least efficient in the world because of the Long Shoreman's unions.

All Federal Employee unions should be decertified, the Long Shoremen because port efficiency is a national security issue.

vxbush 2/17/2025 9:43:32 AM

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Three Impostors Wearing Elon Musk’s DOGE Shirts and MAGA Hats Storm San Francisco City Hall, Demanding Access to Sensitive Government Data

buzzsawmonkey 2/17/2025 9:55:07 AM

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In #11 JCM said: the Long Shoreman's unions

The King of the West Coast waterfront in the early/mid 20th century was Harry Bridges, who was of Australian origin, head of (and, possibly, founder of) the Longshoremen's Union in the California ports, and was well known as an ardent Communist.

buzzsawmonkey 2/17/2025 10:09:06 AM

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In #5 vxbush said: The military food spending is absolutely ridiculous. How they expected service members to be able to work without real food just highlights the disconnect between the managerial class at the Pentagon and the grunts. And you have to wonder where that money went.

Quartermaster corps have had a well-earned reputation for theft and corruption for a very long time.  I dimly remember reading some stories about the Civil War when I was in high school in which crooked, or allegedly crooked, quartermasters and sutlers figured.   In one of Kipling's "three soldiers" short stories,  Private Mulvaney predicts the coming rise of some hotshot new recruit, and how eventually he'll go into the Quartermaster Corps "an' drive a carriage with his...savings"---i.e., that being a quartermaster is the road to riches.  And, of course, there's the classic WWI-era song, "There are rats, rats, rats as big as cats/In the quartermaster's store," the chorus of which celebrates the benefits of selective blindness; "My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me."

So, the idea of chiseling the troops by expropriating some of the food funds would seem to be a longstanding military tradition.

vxbush 2/17/2025 10:50:18 AM

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In #14 buzzsawmonkey said: And, of course, there's the classic WWI-era song, "There are rats, rats, rats as big as cats/In the quartermaster's store," the chorus of which celebrates the benefits of selective blindness; "My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me."

I don't know if you know who Raffi, the children's musical artist, is, but he sang that song without including the word "quartermaster" in it. I wonder if the tune was the same. Given your expansive repertoire, can you provide a link?

vxbush 2/17/2025 10:52:50 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 15:

Never mind, I found it! Raffi's version says "The corner grocery story" instead of quartermaster's store. Wow, so he repurposed the song. interesting.

JCM 2/17/2025 11:00:29 AM

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Strategically Transfer of Equipment to Alternate Locations.... STEAL.

Is a real thing.

buzzsawmonkey 2/17/2025 11:37:01 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 16:

The original version of "The Quartermaster's Stores" can also be found on YouTube. 

I remember Raffi was a big kiddie song star a decade or several ago, but I've not heard his name in years.  It's no surprise that he did a slightly-altered version, though; I remember singing an altered version of the song myself in summer camp when I was a kid.  It was only after I'd read Dos Passos' USA, which quotes the original, and had heard songs from the WWI-song musical, "Oh! What a Lovely War!" that I really understood it.

BTW, in the song "Oh! What a Lovely War!", the chorus is as follows; 

Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war---

What do we want with eggs and ham,

When we've got plum and apple jam?

Form fours! Right turn! How shall we spend the money we earn?

Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war!

I suspect the "eggs and ham" line is an oblique reference to being cheated on rations, and that the "plum and apple jam" are allusions to solid and liquid forms of human waste.

JCM 2/17/2025 12:45:35 PM

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Delta Airlines plane crash lands upside down in Toronto

Early with limited information.

JCM 2/17/2025 12:55:29 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 10:

The difference is internal and external. Pirates were handle with the formation of the Navy.

Espionage, foreign actors, and crimes outside the country against US interests, can be military, or now CIA.

However internal Law Enforcement at the Federal Level was considered a different matter.

It's only with the vast expansion and overreach of the Federal Government that Federal Law Enforcement became a "thing".

There is no reason for Department of Education has a law enforcement division.

I will concede there is some utility and reasonable argument to have a Federal Law Enforcement. But IMAO you create it with a Amendment, and it is very limited in scope. 

buzzsawmonkey 2/17/2025 1:09:08 PM

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