Sunday, February 8, 2009

Short musings

I think 90% of Twitter is pretty stupid. It's like miniature blogging, and 20 years from now will be the reason nobody has face-to-face conversations anymore. the other 10% is due to people like kick-butt Senator Claire McCaskill.

My understanding is that in any union shop, it's far from easy to get fired. But the only industry where people seem to feel that is a problem is in education. When the Big Dig collapsed, I heard nothing about the idea that it was due to incompetent construction workers protected by seniority. Funny how it's only teachers' unions where seniority apparently has nasty side effects.

Israel is voting on Tuesday. This great in-depth questionnaire tells you which party you seem closest to on the Israeli scale. I'm a Laborite (no surprise there!), but I'd be happy if anyone other than Benyamin "Blow It All Up" Netanyahu wins. Kadima and Tzipi Livni seem to have assembled some last-minute momentum so here's hoping.

Someday I'd like to read an explanation why Tom Allen never really got any purchase in his race against Susan Collins. Now I gotta hear about her for the next six years, dithering on all manner of issues.

Why do I think that bloggers are going to slowly kill off the word "failure", in t same vein that "hatred" was cut off? Invest the time in the second syllable, guys.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Big Dig ceiling collapse was due to the wrong product being used, not bad work. By all accounts the product was installed properly.

Seniority doesn't exist in the construction industry because the employer hires and lays off workers from job to job as needed. The employer holds on to the people they like.