Bogieblog

Well, It's Happened

The government mandate has hit where I work. Being a government contractor, all employees are required to be vaccinated - even those who work from home full time. Employees have until the end of November to accomplish this and provide proof, or provide proof that they are excluded from the mandate for health reasons. Although I am vaccinated so don't have to worry about it, I disagree with the mandate. My company has no choice, so I'm not faulting them, but the government.

We thought we had a worker shortage before with all sectors of the economy having a hard time filling positions in NH. I can hardly wait to see how many voluntarily leave my company, and how many people have to be fired when all is said and done.

At the same time as mandated vaccines, the government hasn't seen fit to open the northern boarder to fully vaccinated people yet. Sure, they can fly in, but they can't cross by land or lake. This makes absolutely no sense and does nothing but punish northern states who depend on commerce and tourism from our northern neighbors. Additionally, a lot of families reside across the boarder from each other but can't see each other. If vaccination is so great, why won't we allow vaccinated people in by modes other than air travel (which by definition, you are forced into close contact with others so more likely to come in contact / spread the virus). Argh, this just makes my head hurt wondering where logic is.

Amazing Take Off of B52

Found this link on FB (link to Popular Mechanics which has a video embedded), and had to watch the video of a B52 bomber taking off in fierce cross winds. It is cool how the plane is facing a different direction as it's landing gear - and yo can see the "training wheels" at the ends of the wings.

Pandemic News You Can Use

OMG, I am so tired of reading about the two extremes going on about COVID-19 (novel corona virus). Some people that think this is a conspiracy to take over people's lives (gov't & businesses shutting down events/schools etc.) and that everyone should just ignore that it is out there. Some people are panicking and buying everything in sight.

Then there are those that disparage those who are stocking up  - which is many time called "hoarding" so to make those people seem to be bad guys people. But then, when that self-same person runs across the last 48 rolls of TP a store has (not in one pack), they buy them all. Seriously, this scenario was posted on a forum I frequent and that person did not see anything ironic about disparaging the action and performing that same action. [facepalm]

Anyway, I ran across this fascinating article that shows even better why social distancing is the preferred method of dealing with pandemics (or rapidly spreading anythings) than previous graphs I have seen. It has little to do with shutting contagion down, as that will rarely work. Please go check out the article as it has a bunch of simulations on forced quarantine, and different levels of social distancing. The cool part is that each time you view the simulations they change since they are randomly generated, just following the rules of what is being shown.

For my Mother

Wow, now this is a short landing!

The Secret to Happiness

 

 First - I blame my folks for my pragmatic outlook on life, instead of being a happy-all-the-time freak - LOL

6 months, seems to be pretty accurate judging from all the happenings of this year - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel 6 months after the crappy string of events started happenings. Sure, I have down times, but I am definitely in a much better place and can see it getting better every day.

Work - yes, that was one of my big saviours by keeping me busy; my job gives me a sense of responsibility, purpose and an outlet for exercising my skills. Even the work on my house keeps me engaged, busy, learning (or re-learning) skills and contributes greatly to my happiness.

Thanks to Scott for posting this!

Inequality Under the Law

If you or I did what this reporter did, we would be in jail, or at least arrested - even if we were ignorant of the law (ignorance being no excuse). However, a reporter, who was explicitly told it was against the law to posess this item, is not being prosecuted because "it wouldn't serve the public interest". Apparently it served the public interest in prosecuting those that were just passing thru and doing their best to follow information they were given by the police.

No I don't think either of them should be prosecuted, only because I don't believe the law should exist. But it is evident (under the information that I have) that one was not prosecuted because he is "important" and in the public eye, the other was prosecuted because he wasn't (as were 100+ other people).

The least that can be done is that everyone be treated the same.

The Demise of Twinkies

I've heard a lot lately about the demise of the Twinkie. That seems to be the only part of the story I hear on the news though - that the iconic twinkie will be no more with the demise of Hostess. However, I don't believe enough attention has been placed on one of the reasons why Hostess is going under - the union will not accede to cuts in pay. Let's get this out of the way right now - I am only going by what I have heard (precious little, so I may be missing a thing or two here), but if given a choice, I prefer to get a percentage of my pay as to no pay at all. In fact, I worked for a company that reduced pay by 10% (and cut benefits) so it could keep more workers - I was all for that.

The Weekend Pundit has a nice opinion piece up that highlights some personal experience with unions. When we first moved to NH, WS was working for a unionized company. He too found it insane that he couldn't change out a burned out lightbulb on a machine's indicating button (it's not so hard - even I could do it without endangering myself, the machine or the product). Also, having family in the airplane business (on WS's side of the family) who were union members - we found it interesting that they would vote to raise their pay by umpteen % (or strike if that didn't happen), then they were amazed when the company built a plant in Mexico to reduce costs - eventually closing the plant they worked in. Hmm, don't know why they didn't see that coming.

These people also thought that it was a shame that the starting pay for a cafeteria line cook was only $24/hr. This was for someone coming in straight off the streets with no experience or schooling. This was years ago, and the union members thought that the cooks weren't making a living wage. This is not in an area where prices of homes or goods are high. Heck, with my education and experieence in my field, I would have been happy to get that amount of pay then (in fact, that would be good pay for me now!) And they were shocked when the "greedy" company decided to make its airplanes somewhere else.

It just amazes me at how out of touch with the real world at least some union members are. And now, a whole bunch of people will be out of work, with an economy that is adding jobs at a dismal rate. I just don't get the thinking that went on there.

Wrong Way News

Apparently someone had too much to drink while they were creating this headline:

Didn't last on the site too long.

H/T Gregg

Of Space Ports and the Space Tourism Industry

The Weekend Pundit features a Bill Whittle video about the economic realities of XCOR (the space flight company) moving from California to Texas. Although I have a few quibbles (I don't believe that the US is the most bankrupt country in the world, for example), there is a lot of truth there.

Gopher Tunnel Tragedy

For you guys out there in gopher country - BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

Link via Scott