The Way Things Work in The Third World and Louisiana

Pardon the redundancy.

The U.S. Congress gives Louisiana $12 Billion dollars (OUR tax dollars - from all 50 states) for Hurricane Katrina recovery.

The Louisiana legislature creates a Disaster Recovery Unit to spend that $12 Billion dollars through community development block grants (a recipe for graft).

Bryant Hammett, Jr. (Democrat-Ferriday [Little Port-au-Prince], Louisiana), Chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, applies for a job in the new Disaster Recovery Unit which he helped create.


Grinnin' like a possum eatin' grapes

Bryant Hammett, Jr., who is tight with that national disgrace and thoroughly incompetent governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, alternately insists that:

a) he saw an advertisement for the job on a website.
b) a friend told him about the job.

Bryant Hammett, Jr., also the sole owner of Bryant Hammett & Associates LLC, a civil engineering and land surveying business that benefited from state contracts while he was Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, doesn't see a problem with applying for the job.

Neither does the Louisiana Board of Ethics (talk about oxymorons). The Louisiana Board of Ethics says it's OK for Hammett to take the job.

[Kinda reminds me of that old song: You ain't done nothin' wrong, but you ain't done nothin' right.]

Bryant Hammett, Jr. resigns his position (he was term limited to 2008) in the legislature which he has held for 15 years.

Bryant Hammett, Jr. gets the $140,000/year job as Infrastructure Manager/Senior Engineer for the Disaster Recovery Unit which will dole out the $12 Billion dollars.

Bryant Hammett & Associates LLC will be precluded from doing any work for the Disaster Recovery Unit, BUT the firm could be a subcontractor on jobs involving regular Community Development Block Grant funding and continue to do work for other state agencies AND local governments EVEN IF they (the local governments) receive Disaster Recovery Unit funding.

$12 Billion dollars taken involuntary from the pocketbooks of taxpayers across the nation and sent to Louisiana to be spent as Bryant Hammett, Jr. sees fit.

It's enough to make a rabbit spit in a pitbull's face.

Sources:
Legislator takes job to help rebuild state
Rep. Hammett to resign, will direct rebuilding
Ferriday legislator considers recovery job
Hammett Considers New Job
Hammett considers new job

If you want to learn more about how Louisiana works -- and we all should since we've given the state $12 Billion dollars -- then don't miss this excellent blog: Louisiana Political News Service

Janet Hale, Department of Homeland Security

Now ain't this a daisy? From Drudge comes this pointer to a Washington Post story that is just ... just ... something:

Prostitution Alleged In Cunningham Case, Investigators Focus on Limo Company

So how does Janet Hale fit into this, Monk? I'm gettin' to that part.

Our tax dollars are paying for a convicted criminal to provide limo service to senior officials of the Department of Homeland Security -- the same limo service that is transporting whores to hook up with congressmen.

Christopher D. Baker, president of Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc., has a lengthy criminal record that includes drug possession, attempted petty larceny, attempted robbery and car theft. Christopher D. Baker has had huge financial problems - both personal and business.

The Department of Homeland Security rewarded Mr. Baker with two contracts worth about 25 million dollars.

25 FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS.

Mr. Baker appears to have been the sole bidder for the contract under a government PRO-graaaaaaaaam that LIMITS COMPETITION to businesses in poor neighborhoods. How nice and politically correct!

Janet Hale is the Undersecretary for Management at DHS. She is responsible for budget, appropriations, expenditure of funds, accounting and finance; procurement; human resources and personnel; information technology systems; facilities, property, equipment, and other material resources; and identification and tracking of performance measurements relating to the responsibilities of the Department.

Janet Hale was the person who approved spending 25 FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS of OUR MONEY on a convict who has an extensive criminal history.


How Proud She Must Be

So yeah, I'm pretty pissed off at Janet Hale about that.

But what is just damn near unbelievable is that this involves the Department of Homeland Security -- at a time when we are at war with savages who just a few years ago slaughtered thousands of our fellow citizens. Savages who are NOT done with killing us. Savages who demand that we either convert to their twisted religious ideology or die by the sword of Islam.

How much easier can we make it for the savages of al-Qaeda?! Afterall, they are NOT stupid savages. Hell, just start a limo service in a poor neighborhood and Janet Hale and the Department of Homeland Security will award you 25 FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS to transport their senior officials.

Don't even get me started about why we're paying 25 FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS for limo service.

It's not hard to get our heads around that kind of money when we think of what "only one million dollars" will buy.

For instance, "only one million dollars" will buy about 25 of these:




Hell, Janet, just give me 25 of those bad boys and my retired buddies and I will transport your pathetic asses for free. We all have Special Background Investigations and we are all trained marksmen. What more could you ask for??

And Janet, if you're reading this and take me up on my offer, throw in one of these for the team leader (me):



500 horsepower, 8.3-liter, Viper-powered V-10, fire engine-red, Dodge Ram pickup truck

Microsoft, Your Slip Is Showing (Passion)

Microsoft recently announced that it's follow-on to Windows XP will ship later than planned. The revamped OS, Vista, is not ready. It won't be ready until 2007.

Some Microsoft employees, specifically the Windows team, are letting the world know what they really think about that slippage.

It's a thing of beauty... their passion, that is. More on that in a moment.

I've been a huge fan of Microsoft for a lot of reasons -- a big one: the people at Microsoft have changed the world. They continue, today, to chart an historical, world-changing course. How many people (outside the United States Armed Forces) can say that? And the change has overwhelmingly been for the better, IMHO.

I've never owned a MacIntosh. I did train on an Apple IIe once upon a time back when I was computer illiterate. My experience with the Apple IIe contributed immeasurably to my "remain computer illiterate and preserve your sanity by staying away from anything with a once-bitten apple thingy on it" attitude.

That attitude stayed with me for another 10 years. I saw my first Mac at about the same time I saw my first Windows-based PC. Somebody was working up briefing charts on a Mac for the monthly training conference. I was sitting nearby doing my charts the old-fashioned way: butcher paper and viewgraphs.

The guy on the Mac was mumbling about how much better Mac's graphical something or other was compared to Windows. It was all Greek to me. His slides sure were pretty, though. That's what I remember mostly... and me thinking, "Damn, that thing's got one of those 'once-bitten apple thingy' logos on it" ... and ... "For an infantry officer, he sure is acting pretty gay about that computer."

And oh yeah, the Commanding General was impressed by the 1st Cavalry Division patch and motto on each and every slide. That Mac guy started a revolution within the headquarters of 1st Cav -- a cheese revolution and by default, a Windows revolution.

The Army had mostly Windows PCs and anyone who wanted their slides to be as pretty as the Mac guy's needed to learn Windows and something called Harvard Graphics (I stuck with my butcher paper and handwritten viewgraphs during this revolution and was promoted to Major anyway). Briefings got so pretty that the mice used to stand around with little signs that read, "Please feed me. 1st Cav stole all the cheese." OK, I didn't actually see the mice holding up signs....

This was also the birth of the Mac vs (Windows-based) PC "war" for me. It bored me to tears back then and still does. Look, they're both great. You fall into one camp or the other mostly because you started out working on one or the other, loved one or the other -- or hated one or the other and switched to one or the other. That's about it, isn't it? Well, that ain't war. That's freedom to choose.

Unless, of course, you work for either Microsoft or Apple... then it's fully macking, thermo-digital, trench warfare.

And this partly explains the passion of the comments you will read on this post at Mini-Microsoft.

Skewering the Microsoft leadership. Calling for heads to roll. Frustration. Disgust. Dark humor. Cynicism. Optimism. Pessimism. Rage. Love. Hate.

Another reason -- big reason -- why the Microsoft commenters are so passionate: They give a damn. Whatever else you may think about their comments, their Give-A-Damn meter is registering in the Green. Sure, it may seem like I've got it ass backwards and they're pegged out in the dreaded Red zone.

I'm sure a few are indeed red-zoning, but what I see mostly are folks who want to to be the best. They want their team to be the best. They are proud people. They are winners. They hate the thought of losing -- in any endeavor... to any person or thing.

The people who work for Microsoft are not only some of the best minds in the computer industry, they give a damn about what they do. That is a good thing.

Whatever leadership/management problems are festering at Microsoft and within the Windows division, specifically (and there do seem to be problems), surely no leader/manager wakes up in the morning saying, "Lemme see how I can fuck up things today". [to which, I imagine, there are some on Mini-Microsoft who would reply, "Yes, they do. And stop calling me Shirley."]

It's more likely that the leadership/management problems can be attributed to the Peter Principle:

"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

In this specific case, one might say that the road to Vista slippage was paved with the good intentions of some incompetent leaders/managers.

In other words, there's nothing broke that can't be fixed with competent leaders. If BillG is reading the comments on that blog, I hope he's not tone deaf. If so, he'll miss the good that I and (I'm sure) others see... and then he'll probably do something stupid like try to go after the blog owner and commenters.

Seems to me that it would be better for Microsoft if its workers felt free to vent on a blog on the company's intranet. Leadership needs this type of honest feedback. The organization would be better for it. And the Mac people would be munching on popcorn while watching "24" DVDs, rather than munching on popcorn while watching Microsoft folks munch on one another.