Irony Check

The mayor of Boston does not agree with statements made by the CEO of Chick fil A who was exercising his First Amendment Rights so the mayor is going to use the POWER OF HIS OFFICE to prevent Chick fil A from building a restaurant near Faneuil Hall, which is on the famous Freedom Trail, which tells the history of how Americans gained their freedom from the tyranny of oppressive governments.

The mayor of Chicago believes that Chick fil A does not share the same values as the City of Chicago so he is going to use the POWER OF HIS OFFICE to prevent the construction of a Chick fil A in his fair city. But since his city is also a murder capital of the USA, he has no problem in allowing Louis Farrakhan, an avowed anti-semite, help "police" the streets. (and I guess he didn't realize that Chick fil A already has one restaurant within the city limits. He'd know that if he checked their web site)

Retribution for voicing ideas counter to those of the politicians currently in power - isn't that the working definition of a NAZI?

Pitchforks, tar and feathers will be distributed soon.

August 1st is Chick fil A appreciation day. Go get a sandwich. And middle grandson loves their key lime pie. Get some if they make it at a restaurant near you.

Follow Up: It's as I suspected. The Chicago Chick fil A is a franchise owned by a local Chicagoan. And they'll add about 100 jobs to the economy. So he is punishing his own constituents.

An Education in the Classics

The other day my son and his wife had to go to a wake so we kept the grandsons for dinner. It was a slow TV night but I noticed that the Turner Classic channel had "Fobidden Planet". You know. The movie with Robbie the Robot and a sound track that was all electronic sounds. Made in 1953, it was one of my favorites as a kid.

I thought the boys might find the special effects a little hokey since they were brought up on CGI but after about 15 minutes in to the movie, the 12 year old turned to me and said, "This is a good movie, Grandpa."

Now the challenge is to find another SF classic. What about "The Day The Earth Stood Still"? Any others?

USS Miami Follow Up

It has been determined that the fire on board the USS Miami that caused $400 million of damage to a United States Submarine was caused by arson. Casey James Fury, 24, of Portsmouth, NH, a civilian painter/sandblaster at PSNY, has been arrested. He failed lie detector interviews made by the NCIS. His reason for setting the fire - he wanted to get out of work. I have a feeling he won't have to worry about work for a long, long time.

Happy Ramadan

Ramadan began at sundown July 19. Be alert.

Obama's Logical Progression

When the President says, "You didn't build that.", he means that you do not deserve compensation for your creativity and labor.
When you are not compensated for your creativity and labor, you stop innovating.
When you stop innovating, the country falls behind the rest of the world in technology.
When the country falls behind in technology, it becomes a third world country.
Don't live in a third world country. Kick Obama out!

Reacher

I discovered Lee Child's series of book featuring Jack Reacher earlier this year. The good news was that it gave me a whole series of books to read - and the opportunity to read them in sequence. I am almost up to date with the series and look forward to Child's latest release.

But now I read in the entertainment news that Tom Cruise is going to star in a movie version of one of the books. Whaaat? Jack Reacher is 6'-5" and 250 lbs. Tom Cruise is smaller than most of his ex-wives.

Who would you cast for the part of Jack Reacher?

Meetings

Up before the crack to attend some meetings in Houston. As luck would have it, thunderstorms shut down Intercontinental for several hours. The good news was that they let us off the plane so we eat and other things. I finally arrived in Houston 4 hours late. I had missed the morning project status review meeting but I could still make the afternoon meeting. That meeting was a kick off meeting on the preparation of a fairly substantial document we had to prepare to satisfy our regulatory overlords in the Yankee Government. It describes our development plans - in detail. I arrived at the office to find that meeting had been postponed for one hour because, wait for it........some people had problems getting over from New Orleans. Obviously, they were piss poor planners because they picked a flight that left them no time cushion and I had to suffer for their incompetence. They had still not arrived when we started the meeting but there were too many managers sitting there to postpone it any longer.

The meeting lasted all of a half hour. After we introduced ourselves, the leader said he would tell us what our responsibilities were in an email. And that was that.

I had a 16 hour day of travel for 30 minutes of meeting.

PS: Star Sighting - RJ from Swamp People was on the same flight in the morning.