Explain this to me:
Scott Brown wins a Senate seat in the US.
The Democrat party's majority goes from 60 out of 100 (technically 58 + 2 independents) down to 59.
So they don't have the 'super' majority to push through legislation without any discussion, but they do still have the majority.
And they have the majority in the House of Representatives.
But with Mr Brown's election Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, now says that the Democrats do not have the numbers to pass Obama's health reform bill.
Now as far as I can work this out it must mean that Ms Pelosi cannot count on the support at least one sixth of Democrat votes in the Senate. How many can she count on in the House?
Naturally the Democrats are holding the Republicans responsible for some 'great evil' (not letting them provide inefficient, ineffective, and expensive provision of basic health cover for all), but isn't the issue really that the Democrats are not united on this?
Isn't the issue that Democrats in the Upper and Lower Houses cannot agree on abortion?
(The Upper House Democrats voted to change the legislation to not fund abortions, whilst the Lower House Democrats are adamant that the bill must fund abortions.)
I went to a 'sceptics' gathering at a pub this week. One of my Eastern European friends called to ask if I was interested. Me (Anglo-Australian), the Latvian guy, and two guys of German derivation. Have I mentioned before that I generally have a two hour time limit with Germans? Seriously, the way their brains work just starts to grate after a while. Anyhow, this 'meet and greet' was just a get-together to have a drink and a chat listed on a public activities website in town. Organised by a small number of former members of the Sceptics Society.
'Former members'? Yeah, the reason being that most of them turned out not to be 'sceptics', i.e. people who question any statement or thought to challenge its inherent assumptions and force it to hold to the truth. No, they were just storm troopers of established orthodox 'scientific' theory. If it is published in the media as a 'generally accepted fact' then they defend it against all. If it is 'on the edge' then they denounce it.
A few centuries ago they would have been fanatical defenders of the Flat Earth theory. (Sorry, the Flat Earth Fact.)
But some of the others that attended were worth listening to. They had open minds and were willing to consider and discuss things until the absolute facts were known.
I had an interview for a contract on Thursday. It is not my first preference - I am still angling to get on that ERP project that I can't name. And it is exactly half of what I got on my last two contracts (and almost half of what I got for the two before that). But it would pay the rent. The irony is that is is equivalent to the half dozen offers that I turned down in Singapore. And how I wish now that I had taken one of them and then enrolled in SMU part-time to finish a masters. I would still be in SG, which is, in my view, immeasurably preferable to being in AU.
The only major issue I have with living in Singapore is getting hold of English language Manga. Seriously! Here I have a list of standing orders with Pulp Fiction, and the stores are full of English language books in alphabetical order. In SG the only place that has a lot of manga in English and in order is Kinokuniya. All of the manga-specialist stores are in Chinese and their small selection of English titles is not arranged alphabetically. Well, not English alphabetically, I have my suspicion that it is alphabetically in Chinese. So you have to search the whole lot to find what you are after. It would be alright if Kinokuniy took orders, but they don't.
Totally different with comics; I found a small comic stall on the third or fourth level of Funan, one of the IT centres. (Funan, Sim Lim Tower, Sim Lim Square, and 'The Verve' was opening whilst I was there - each have a dozen or more floors of IT stores. Sim Lim Square focuses on cameras and things, Sim Lim Tower on computers, Funan is more mixed.) Anyhow, this stall had American comics at their US price in Sing Dollars. So if the covers said US$2.95 then it cost SG$2.95 - they would cost AU$7.95 in Australia! I was so stoked to find him! If I was living and working in SG then I would definitely be taking up comics again. (Mostly Marvel, but also Dark Horse, Image, Top Cow. I don't read DC.)
Over January I have kind of gone half nocturnal due to the heat; some weeks it is upper thirties and touches forty for a couple of days, then some weeks it is upper twenties to lower thirties, but all in all it has been encouraging me to not go outside until evening. Kind of like Singapore in that respect. But if I start working again then I will have to start getting up at 6:30 again. That is probably the hardest part about working, the getting up in the morning bit.
The contract would be building budgeting and forecasting models and reports in Business Object Planning. Which I can do in my sleep. Apparently they have Oracle Financials and Hyperion but they didn't talk about the latter; it's probably not Hyperion Planning but one of the other applications in the suite.
In a way I enjoy the periods between contracts where I am not working, where my time is my own. Yeah, I know that I get far too slack, but time without stress is nice. If only I could find some way that I could get twice the average income and only have to do half the average work.
Saturday, January 23
Tuesday, January 19
Second Worst?
I can't resist. Seriously, I can't.
So I am watching Fox News this morning.
I know; it's Yankee crap, but most of the cable channels in Oz are Yankee, the local ones (Sky News, Sky Business, APAC) are dull - for local news I go to the interactive channel and browse the stories, all done in ten minutes!
So I am watching the AMERICAN news, and most of them are full of Haiti, a sad event, but I know about it now so why keep on? CNN and Fox were both covering the Massachusetts (God! I am glad I don't have to say that every day!) election, one decidedly red, the other decidedly blue. Everything in the US is so partisan! Anyhow the Democrats might lose Ted Kennedy's seat, something incomprehensible to them. The stories move on to something a little more interesting - Obama's first year!
Now I am not aware of him having done anything of note, certainly he has failed quite a few things, and definitely he is out to turn the US into a Socialist demagoguery and make most yanks poor, but get this - one commentator said that his first year was the worst since William Henry Harrison, who died in his first year from pneumonia. Hey what? What about Abe Lincoln? Didn't he start a civil war in his first year?
So I am watching Fox News this morning.
I know; it's Yankee crap, but most of the cable channels in Oz are Yankee, the local ones (Sky News, Sky Business, APAC) are dull - for local news I go to the interactive channel and browse the stories, all done in ten minutes!
So I am watching the AMERICAN news, and most of them are full of Haiti, a sad event, but I know about it now so why keep on? CNN and Fox were both covering the Massachusetts (God! I am glad I don't have to say that every day!) election, one decidedly red, the other decidedly blue. Everything in the US is so partisan! Anyhow the Democrats might lose Ted Kennedy's seat, something incomprehensible to them. The stories move on to something a little more interesting - Obama's first year!
Now I am not aware of him having done anything of note, certainly he has failed quite a few things, and definitely he is out to turn the US into a Socialist demagoguery and make most yanks poor, but get this - one commentator said that his first year was the worst since William Henry Harrison, who died in his first year from pneumonia. Hey what? What about Abe Lincoln? Didn't he start a civil war in his first year?
Friday, January 15
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
Well, B'Lack Osama has done it again!
As you may recall there was a minor mishap in the corporate sector recently and it required the US government giving a lot of money to certain companies. A lot was given to banks, and they had to pay it back, and what's more, they are paying it back.
BUT...
They also have to pay back the money that was given to General Motors, Chevrolet, and American International Group!
Yes, that's right, Obama in his infinite wisdom realises that his demographics want to punish the banks, and a lot of auto-workers vote for him. So he is putting two and two together and he gets this.
Remember how he went to Chicago and told the farmers that they would not get any handouts from him? But then he made huge handouts to Detroit? And those auto companies do not, repeat, do not have to pay that money back! Instead the banks are going to be forced to pay it back.
They, of course, will pass it on to the consumers, and I hope that they restrict this pass-on to car loans!
Also in the news; with the series of extremely cold winters in Europe scientists there are finally having to admit publicly that the world is NOT getting warmer, it is getting colder! Now I know that all intelligent, educated, informed people already knew this, it was only the flat-earthers that insisted that the world was getting warmer and that man was responsible - despite the records clearly showing that the planet has been getting colder every year since 1996!
I know that I have harped on about this one before, but I do not suffer fools lightly, and this about-face is so laughable. Forced to acknowledge the truth by the truth being rammed down their faces in the form of three winters in a row, each progressively colder and more severe than any in a century. The general public was beginning to cotton on there...
Changing to something personal...
I just had a letter from GE Money telling me that I was in arrears. Also that I had to pay the arrears within eight days of the due date or get hit with a late payment fee. First problem? the letter reached me TEN days after the due date! Second problem? they deduct my payments from my bank account automatically, so how could 'I' be in arrears? Answer; without my requesting it, without my approving it, and indeed without my knowledge of it, they reduced the amount they were deducting to not include the account handling fee - which then accumulated into this 'arrear'!
Well done guys!
Fortunately a phone call sorted this out. To an Indian call centre of course. They waived the late fee naturally, they also waived the arrears (good call), and they asked me if they could adjust the deducted amount to include the account fee again. A puzzling occurrence to be sure.
On a different note;
'Kai Shan in SG' when I am in AU?
I have thought about this, but as far as I can determine it is still my intention to return to Singapore, and on a permanent basis. I just got the timing wrong and didn't do enough background research on the contracting industry there, and made a few bad decisions. I am now carrying a large debt from the exercise (a lot of that from the process of returning back to Oz and getting set up here again). But it was all a learning experience.
And my friends want to go there as well. One friend and I talk regularly about business we can start, new ideas and innovations, we work on new devices (we met at college studying electronics and programming), and all of these are now framed in setting these up in Singapore.
As you may recall there was a minor mishap in the corporate sector recently and it required the US government giving a lot of money to certain companies. A lot was given to banks, and they had to pay it back, and what's more, they are paying it back.
BUT...
They also have to pay back the money that was given to General Motors, Chevrolet, and American International Group!
Yes, that's right, Obama in his infinite wisdom realises that his demographics want to punish the banks, and a lot of auto-workers vote for him. So he is putting two and two together and he gets this.
Remember how he went to Chicago and told the farmers that they would not get any handouts from him? But then he made huge handouts to Detroit? And those auto companies do not, repeat, do not have to pay that money back! Instead the banks are going to be forced to pay it back.
They, of course, will pass it on to the consumers, and I hope that they restrict this pass-on to car loans!
Also in the news; with the series of extremely cold winters in Europe scientists there are finally having to admit publicly that the world is NOT getting warmer, it is getting colder! Now I know that all intelligent, educated, informed people already knew this, it was only the flat-earthers that insisted that the world was getting warmer and that man was responsible - despite the records clearly showing that the planet has been getting colder every year since 1996!
I know that I have harped on about this one before, but I do not suffer fools lightly, and this about-face is so laughable. Forced to acknowledge the truth by the truth being rammed down their faces in the form of three winters in a row, each progressively colder and more severe than any in a century. The general public was beginning to cotton on there...
Changing to something personal...
I just had a letter from GE Money telling me that I was in arrears. Also that I had to pay the arrears within eight days of the due date or get hit with a late payment fee. First problem? the letter reached me TEN days after the due date! Second problem? they deduct my payments from my bank account automatically, so how could 'I' be in arrears? Answer; without my requesting it, without my approving it, and indeed without my knowledge of it, they reduced the amount they were deducting to not include the account handling fee - which then accumulated into this 'arrear'!
Well done guys!
Fortunately a phone call sorted this out. To an Indian call centre of course. They waived the late fee naturally, they also waived the arrears (good call), and they asked me if they could adjust the deducted amount to include the account fee again. A puzzling occurrence to be sure.
On a different note;
'Kai Shan in SG' when I am in AU?
I have thought about this, but as far as I can determine it is still my intention to return to Singapore, and on a permanent basis. I just got the timing wrong and didn't do enough background research on the contracting industry there, and made a few bad decisions. I am now carrying a large debt from the exercise (a lot of that from the process of returning back to Oz and getting set up here again). But it was all a learning experience.
And my friends want to go there as well. One friend and I talk regularly about business we can start, new ideas and innovations, we work on new devices (we met at college studying electronics and programming), and all of these are now framed in setting these up in Singapore.
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