Thinking about work

I was going to do some whining, but realized I don't care enough.

Workers Memorial Day

From the latest issue of MMWR:

Workers Memorial Day recognizes those workers who have died or sustained work-related injuries or illnesses. In 2008, a total of 5,214 U.S. workers died from occupational injuries, and 49,000 deaths annually are attributed to work-related illnesses. In 2009, an estimated 3.28 million workers in private industry and 862,900 in state and local government had a nonfatal occupational injury or illness. Of those workers, 1.7 million in private industry and 374,100 in state and local government were transferred, placed on work restrictions, or took time away from work. An estimated 2.6 million workers were treated in emergency departments for occupational injuries and illnesses in 2009, and approximately 80,000 were hospitalized (CDC, unpublished data, 2011).

The Lunacy Continues

I speak, of course, of Birthers, the pathetic losers who are dumber than stumps and totally unable to get their heads around the fact there's a black man in the Oval Office -- and he's not there to pour the coffee. President Obama released his long form birth certificate this morning, and, judging by some of the way-beyond-delusional comments in the AJC, Washington Post, and elsewhere, the tinfoil hat crowd has simply decided to double down on the crazy.

Personally, I love the way all the wackaloons keep babbling on and on about a "certificate of birth" not being the same thing as a "birth certificate." Obviously, they haven't looked at their own papers in a long, long time. Either that, or they're so illiterate they don't know what a prepositional phrase is. Or maybe both.

Actually, some of them have looked at their own papers recently. Sort of. One of my favorite comments today was from a wackaloon who ranted about the fact the certificate as shown didn't have the baby's footprints or a nifty gold seal like his own did. The poor sap is actually so clueless that he thinks the souvenir certificate hospitals sell the parents to frame or put in baby books -- the ones that usually state clearly, albeit in small print at the bottom of the form, that it's not a legal document and an actual, legal birth certificate has to be obtained from a government office -- are what the real ones look like.

The stupid, it burns.

Feeling old

And how's your week going?

I'm dealing with camel snot and lung worms. No wonder I have writer's block.

Scale bar = 1 mm.

Gourmet tip for the day: make sure any snails or rats you eat are well-done.

Liberal media? Or cheerleading section?

I made the mistake of watching CBS this morning. This is the network that Caribou Barbie likes to blame her various woes on, the network that sicced Katie Couric on her and forced her to answer tough questions like "What do you read?" I don't know why Bible Spice bitches about the lamestream media, because they're doing a better job of flacking for her than her own PR people.

Palin was in Madison, Wisconsin, to speak at a Tea Party rally -- the Koch brothers and others supporting this astro turf effort chartered buses to haul in the faithful, put up the bucks for the Quitta from Wasilla's fees and expenses, and generally tried to put on a good show. Well, I know from various non-major network sources that they only managed to fill 6 out of the original 14 chartered buses, protesters outnumbered supporters by quite a bit, and that Palin was resoundingly booed a number of times. Did any of that get mentioned this morning?

Nope. All the shots were tight ones, showing Palin and a handful of people around her so you never got to see just how big the "enthusiastic crowd" was, there was no mention of the fact they failed draw even one half the number of people they thought they would, and not a word, not a hint, nada, regarding the protesters. All this accompanied, of course, by a lot of blather about Palin being one of the front runners for the Republican nomination in 2012. So much for the liberal media.

Your tax dollars at work

Or, more accurately, where your tax dollars work. Lisa had a post up a few days ago about "Where do you write?" Well, for me, this is it, at least when it's writing I'm getting paid to do.

It's in a leased building several miles from the main campus for Large Nameless Agency. It's also one of the nicer offices I've occupied over the years.

Speaking of Large Nameless Agency, the bureaucratic behemoth whose name I had said I wouldn't make explict until Retirement was Imminent, it appears to be trying to sell itself to the American public as Necessary, Vital, and Deserving of Funding. I guess when ICE decided to cooperate with National Geographic television on "Border Wars," it made it easier for producers to persuade LNA that infomercials masquerading as reality tv ("Killer Outbreaks") would be a good idea.

Let's see. It started with "Cops." Lots of action as law enforcement chased shirtless drunks around in gritty, urban neighborhoods, not to mention a rather catchy theme song. I'm not sure what the progression would be from there because I don't watch many reality shows. . . lots of on-the-job stuff (Axe Men, Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs) but we're now down to watching epidemiologists talk about culturing bacteria and seeing clips of Public Health Service officers carrying briefcases. This wasn't exactly riveting television, even if it did highlight why LNA exists and some of the stuff it does.

Oh well. It could have been worse. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure how.

I could hear the tinfoil rustling

First topic of the day on C-SPAN this morning? Donald Trump and his supposed interest in being a Republican candidate for President in 2012. I swear, every time I think the right-wing loonies have hit the ultimate in living in a fantasyland, they manage to top themselves. Does anyone with two brain cells to rub together seriously believe that The Donald is doing anything other than promoting himself?

They showed an excerpt from his most recent speech given to the delusional Obama-haters. The Donald managed to touch each and every one of the red meat issues in under 60 seconds: he's anti-abortion and pro guns and a birther. The gullible fools in the audience ate it up. He was telling them exactly what they wanted to hear, so of course they think it's the closest thing to the Second Coming they've seen in a long time.

And then the calls to C-SPAN began, proving once again that there are a lot of people out there who will support anyone who's willing to validate their own delusions.

I do recognize that all politicians play the same game: they make promises to the electorate that they either know can't be kept or will not be kept, but they run their mouths anyway. But usually they're a little more subtle about it -- there's nothing subtle about The Donald. He's going to tell the Republican base exactly what they want to hear, no matter how insane it is, and they're going to be foolish enough to believe every word of it.

We do have to thank Trump for one minor blessing, though. He's managed to suck so much oxygen away from the other possible candidates that Caribou Barbie seems to be fading into the muskeg. One can only hope that a year from year Bible Spice's star has dimmed to the point of being referred to as "Sarah Who?"

For those of you who don't bother reading comments

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H/T to the Blog Fodder.