Mornin', all.

Posted by: andy at 04:23 AM | Comments (184)
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Spring Cleaning....Moron Style.

Make sure to tidy up your liquor cabinet before the Spring rush.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:06 PM | Comments (70)
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Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

All non-book discussions should go in to Andy's open thread below. Thank you.

Uncle Tom, We Hardly Knew Ye

We all know that the epithet 'Uncle Tom' is a much-used stock insult in the progressive left's toolkit of avoiding having to actually discuss issues. It is hurled at black men or women who stray from the progressive agenda, as if such deviation constitutes some an unacceptable betrayal of black people by another black person, a selling out to white privilege and hegemony.

But that sort of selling out bears little resemblance to the real Uncle Tom. Since I have never read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', this blog post, Of Toms and Sambos put me some knowledge about the origins of this expression. It's worth reading the whole thing.

The author also encourages you to read the book:

Uncle TomÂ’s Cabin is an astonishing book that remains relevant even to this day, every American should read it, as should every Christian in the entire world. By design it is filled with types and archetypes. Uncle Tom, the protagonist of this allegory; is a type of Christ. Tom is the perfect Christian, in fact he is a super Christian...

I'm actually kind of ashamed I haven't read it. It is an important book in its time that greatly influenced events leading up to the Civil War, being the number one best-selling book other than the Bible. So I found this Kindle edition for 99 cents, which is actually part of a bundled collection, and it also contains '12 Years A Slave' by Solomon Northrup, Booker T. Washington's autobiography 'Up From Slavery', Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and two other slave narratives, as well as Uncle Tom's Cabin.

'You Are Consumed With Hopelessness And Despair - Lose 25% Health'

Maybe this should go on the gaming thread. They're about to release a video game based on the novels of Franz Kafka. No, it's not an FPS, it sounds like you have to run around solving puzzles.

Here is the opening line for the Kafka short story 'Metamorphosis':

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.

So the guy is now a bug. What a way to start the day,

The game ought to be a real hoot.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:09 AM | Comments (200)
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This is NOT your Travel Thread. This is just an Open Thread in which you may mock the French and talk about whatever you please until the next thread.

This thread brought to you by “How NOT to Travel”:

Train passengers in France greeted their afternoon TGV service with horror yesterday when it pulled in to the station with the body of a dead cyclist crushed onto its front.
Drivers of the Paris to Mulhouse high-speed locomotive initially failed to notice the accident in the village of Petit-Croix, near Belfort, in eastern France, on Sunday.
Shockingly, the unidentified 48-year-old victim was therefore carried for 25 miles across the French countryside on the nose of the service before it was spotted at the end of the line.

Read more at The Daily Mail Online.

Mr. Y-not alerted me to this story, which he first read about at a French publication called The Local. Courtesy of that article, I love this quote from the conductor (emphasis mine):

The driver named Michel, who knows the spot where the cyclist was killed said: “After the level crossing the track is straight, but before it there are two curves, so we see nothing at all. This is an area with speed transitions, and we have a lot of manipulation to do inside.
“So we are looking at the speed controls and at the electrical equipment,” he said. “We cannot see a pedestrian by the side of the tracks. If someone throws himself under the train we are completely helpless. This is a train, not a wheelbarrow. It cannot stop in 100 metres,” Michel added.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the driver wouldnÂ’t have stopped even if he had time to do so? Gotta love them French public employees!

Open Thread.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:37 PM | Comments (207)
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Coming up with fresh ideas for a weekly car thread can be a challenge, so we are taking this opportunity to mix it up a bit. The plan is to rotate out the Car and HI/DIY threads every other week.

We hope it meets with your approval.

For our first edition of the Home Improvement/DIY thread, let's start off with the basics, and with a bit of Spring cleaning:

When looking for a Spring cleaning checklist I came across several which suggested you set aside a full week for cleaning, to which, naturally, my reaction was to recoil in horror. If you have kept your home even moderately clean throughout the Winter months, and unless you are scrubbing soot off the walls, it should take considerably less time to accomplish a fresh, clean sweep throughout the house. I much prefer this approach:

The Winter months are hard on a house so you might want to perform a bit of Spring maintenance as well. This article is a good place to start:

Tools. Everybody loves tools. And, whether a renter or a homeowner, everyone should own at least a basic set of tools. This slide show lists the tools you should own, starting with the most basic, all the way through to the advanced DIY'er. I'm proud to say that I own most on this list. You may have a few other suggestions as well.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:03 PM | Comments (352)
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The Wall Street Journal tweeted the following this morning:

Negotiating salary and benefits can go wrong, leading to employers rescinding an offer. How to prevent that: http://t.co/Ryp84fJ3jS

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 22, 2014

Since I am presently seeking employment, I thought the article might be helpful. Alas, it was not. Well, perhaps, but only in the sense that it was instructive as to how quick some are to jump to the conclusion that, since the subject is a woman, obviously sexism must be at play.

The academic, who was referred to as “W” in the original post on the blog Philosophy Smoker, asked in a brief email for five sweeteners, including a salary bump to $65,000 (it’s not clear what the original offer was), a pre-tenure sabbatical, and a semester of maternity leave.

Her would-be employer, Nazareth College in Rochester, NY, responded by withdrawing its offer, noting that her requests indicated the philosopher would be happier at a larger and less “student centered” university.

What went wrong?

Many observers suggest that, even in the age of Lean In, sexism was at play, especially given the request for maternity leave. Indeed, if W were a man and had asked for all the same sweeteners, minus the maternity leave, would he have been so handily dismissed? WeÂ’ll never know in this specific case, though plenty of research suggests that women negotiate less, and are viewed as too aggressive when they do play the game.

You see... I look at her demands, listed more specifically at The Philosophy Smoker blog, and I see a potential candidate more interested in negotiating the time spent NOT doing her job: A sabbatical prior to tenure, a full semester of maternity leave, and a start date in 2015.

These requests of her employer lead me to believe that this woman is so far removed from the condition of the jobs market that she thinks she, alone, might fill their vacancy. It leads me to believe that she believes that she possesses some magically glowing aura that makes her simply irresistible to employers. Or... perhaps. in the world of academia, these types of requests are considered par for the course, in which case.... Are you kidding me?!

Let's assume a man had asked for the same concessions that this female candidate had requested. After all, men are entitled to FMLA leave as well. Do you suppose the results would have been different? I do not. And, I find it incredible that anyone would.

You know those houses you see which are perpetually for sale, year after year? The ones which, every few months or so, have a sign for a different realtor in the front yard?

That's what happens when someone (I'm looking at you, my next-door neighbor) has determined herself/himself to be the one magical unicorn that will sell her/his house for top dollar at a time when the market has tanked by 50%.

Nied's Simple Tip For Assessing Your Market Value: Is the unemployment rate above 6%? Can anyone else perform the job you are applying for?

If the answer to these two questions is "Yes", then you are not a special snowflake.

I am a pretty good negotiator but I can tell you this, in this market, I am likely to accept any offer that isn't an outright insult with an enthusiastic "Thank you!" and be happy to put dinner on the table at night. Once I prove my value to the employer, then I might have a leg to stand on in negotiating a perk or two and, if not, I can continue to look for work elsewhere from the comfort of a paying job.

In summary, I am left to believe that despite her academic achievements, this particular candidate is lacking, at the very least, perspective. Worse, she seems to be lacking in common sense.

This is just my take, and I'm sure my opinion varies from some of yours.

What's your take? How far is too far in negotiating in the current job market?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:20 AM | Comments (397)
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Greetings, gardening morons and moronettes, and welcome to your Saturday Yard and Garden thread! Today’s thread theme is “weird” and is brought to you by the master of weird, wild stuff:
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:42 PM | Comments (180)
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This is a specialty of Florence, called "Bistecca Ala Fiorentina," and the finest examples of this are considered among the best steaks in the world. They claim that it is because of the breed of cattle, the Chianina, and the size they attain before slaughter. The cut is called the Porterhouse in the United States, but they get up to 3 kilos in Florence, which is huge!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:45 AM | Comments (258)
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... Busted Bracket Edition.

Posted by: andy at 03:12 AM | Comments (286)
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See, it's harder to find the wreckage of the plane, because we done messed up the ocean's currents with our global warmenating behavior.

The claim is that global warming has already disrupted the expected currents, and... whatever. You read it.

Blame this one on @theh2.

Meanwhile, a French satellite has, maybe, found additional possible wreckage floating in the ocean. But as of yet, no human beings have gotten close enough to the various possible debris fields to confirm they're part of Flight 370.

Details on the French data were not immediately released. The statement from Malaysia called the information "new satellite images," while a statement from France's Foreign Ministry said "radar echoes taken by a satellite" had located floating debris but made no mention of imagery.

Posted by: Ace at 09:35 AM | Comments (254)
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