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Back to the Weekly Notes
2006 Archives
January 16, 2006:
Automakers:
According to a media report, American automakers have lost over
40% of their market to foreign competition. That is disgraceful
for a country that used to pride itself on technological leadership.
That is not good management. That is incompetence. Those industry
so-called leaders should be hiding under rocks. Instead, they
pay themselves millions of dollars and screw the workers.
Kerkorian:
He has about one billion bucks invested in GM. Now, he is getting
after the bigshots at GM. You got to love him. He said in effect,
quit putting it all on the workers. Start at the top. He wants
to start cutting salaries with the board of directors and work
down from there. It remains to be seen whether these arrogant
bigshots will pay any attention to him.
I think this same reasoning could also apply to Ford Motor
Company. We could go in with a big knife and cut all but the
bottom three floors off of the glass house in Dearborn. Then
we could toss that whole bundle, including that silly penthouse,
into Lake Erie. Don't worry about the pollution. American and
Canadian industries have been treating that lake as their own
private cesspool for decades. A little more won't matter.
Meteorologist:
Our local weather guy on Channel 12 News, Mr. Kirtek, is one
of the very good things about that TV station in Flint, Michigan.
He stays in touch with the Longway Planetarium in Flint. That
planetarium is one of the really good things about Flint. Kirtek
is very big on stars and the heavens in general. Heavenly bodies
are not all on the beaches in Florida. Many are in the sky. Kirtek
always knows what is going on in the sky. He can tell us when
a planet will be visible and where it will appear. He once said,
every kid should get a telescope as a gift. Right on! I would
only add, "Instead of a play station."
Medco:
Recently, Ford Motor Company compelled all of us retirees to
go to a Medco prescription drug plan. We have to mail order our
drugs from Medco in 3 month batches. It really was a win-win.
Ford saved big time and our copay was smaller. That was then.
Now Medco is getting stupid. They substitute generic drugs for
more expensive name-brand drugs. That is okay because they are
the same drugs with a different name. The problem now is, Medco
sends us substitute drugs, but they do not tell us what the drug
is a substitute for. There used to be a little note on the container
that said, "Substitute for whatever." For some reason,
they dropped that little note from the label.
I am still okay because Mrs. Gaffer is an RN. She can look
it up and tell me so I can label my own containers. What about
the other folks. I am sure that some day some poor guy is going
to die from taking the wrong drugs from an improperly labeled
container. When that happens, Medco can count on me. I will be
there to testify for the victims family against Medco in the
lawsuit. Count on it.
A Discussion:
Mrs. Gaffer and I had a discussion. It was not really an argument,
but I did win. We were having trouble with our water softener.
It was an old one that had gotten contaminated with too much
iron. It had to be replaced. Mrs' Gaffer wanted to have a tradesman
come into our home and mess around, making the kind of gawd-awful
mess they usually make. I have been there too many times. I end
up cleaning up the tradesman's mess and finishing the job after
they leave. I finally convinced her that I could do the job in
less time with much less mess. She reluctantly agreed.
It was tough on Mrs. Gaffer. She is not so much worried about
the task and the mess as she is about me. She is always afraid
I will screw up and hurt or even kill myself. I have hurt myself
enough times to give credence to her fears. For example, one
time I drove a 16 penny nail through my finger with a pneumatic
nailer. Boy, did that hurt! This time I did not screw up. The
job went smoothly and I was finished in a couple of hours. Now
we have swell soft water. Thank Minerva for plastic pipe, hacksaws,
and glue. No more blowtorches, solder, and bollixed up messes.
No more leaks. Now anyone can be a plumber. Plumbers don't like
it at all.
Postoffice Again:
Our local paper, The Detroit Free Press, carried a short piece
about some postal employees who were caught. They had been stealing
cash and gift cards from the mail for months. It stuns me that
the postoffice actually took action after a complaint. When my
wife complained to our postoffice, she got insulted and treated
like an adversary. Perhaps there is hope.
Specter:
I really like this guy. He is a Republican for sure, but he is
not a card carrying member of the far right fascist party. He
is thoughtful and reasonable. He can't say so, but he must be
embarrassed by some of the lunatics who have taken over his party.
Speaking of lunatics, I liked Specter even more when he put Kennedy
down at the Alito hearings.
Windmills:
Ubly is a small town in Michigan's thumb area. Some outfit is
going to build windmills there with the permission of the local
government. The local people were not consulted and they took
exception. They gathered up signatures on petitions to force
a vote on the issue. The clerk disallowed the petitions and a
Judge backed her up on it. He said, the people who signed the
petitions probably didn't know what they were signing. Is that
bizarre or what? So much for democracy in Michigan!
The people who want to put up these windmills say they are
environmentally friendly. That depends on how you see it. The
facts show they are noisy as all hell. They whine day and night.
They also interfere with the light patterns and cause a strobe
effect over the land they dominate. This is not only disturbing
to the humans who have to live in the area, it is bound to be
disruptive of the wildlife. In addition, if you check into the
facts of windmills, as I did, you might come to suspect that
windmills are not economically viable. That was my conclusion.
They cost a fortune and they really don't deliver much power,
especially in an area, like Ubly, where constant unidirectional
wind is not just unlikely, it is impossible. Who do you suppose
is subsidizing these guys? Could it be us?
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2006 Archives
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