Logic & Sanity

Allegations are short on truth?

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while probably remember this midget story. It has been a while, but now there's a new development. Check this twist out:

The teen midget who testified that her Brooklyn neighbors were heartlessly tormenting her and her mom - likening them to munchkins from Oz - now claims her mother paid her to lie.
"The truth is, my mother paid me $500 to say Joey and Liz [Izzo] did these things to us," Concelean "Corie" Pegues told The Post.

The 17-year-old said she's 'fessing up now "because I feel bad I had to lie."

Both Pegues, who is 3-foot-6, and her 3-foot-8 mom Debra Shea, testified that the Izzos threatened them and mocked them by chanting, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go."

Whatever the truth is, I say they deserve their own reality show.

'Tis the season to be jolly

Sorry for the lack of updates. I am off from work till January 3rd, so I've been doing a lot of going out, drinking and womanizing Tanyanizing. Surely any one of the above reasons is good enough on its own to at least mitigate the wrath of an angry loyal reader or a bored nine to fiver who checks up on this blog once in a while out of boredom (you user!).

... and speaking of drinking, here is what I like:

Vodka.

I am not a huge fan of mixed drinks. Once in a while I can have a screwdriver or a vodka cranberry, but usually I like my vodka straight up. The smoothest vodka I've ever had is Citadelle. The smoothness is unreal, and you've got to try their apple vodka. Amazing. Unfortunately, Citadelle is hard to come by around here, so I just settle for Grey Goose at the bar. Kettle One is decent, as well.

Cognac

Sure, pounding down shots of vodka will warm you up, but there's absolutely nothing like sipping cognac on a cold winter night. The popular VSOP's like Hennesy and Courvoisier will do the job, but if you want something more special you have to try either Camus or Pierre Ferrand. I recommend trying both, cause for me, this one is a tie.

Camus is exceptionally smooth on the palate, Pierre Ferrand is smooth as well, but also has a distinct flavor due to the fact that its not blended accross districts.

Gin

I am just beginning to appreciate gin n' tonics and while Bombay Saphire has nothing to be emberassed about, Tangueray holds a slight lead here.

Champagne

Champagne, Asti Spumante, semi sweet sparkling wine or whatever they call it now days to get around the Champagne trademark... Always nice to have a bottle of it in the fridge. Girls dig it, and I won't shy away from downing a bottle of this stuff myself, as it gives a nice light buzz. I am not a big champagne connoisseur, and since you are bothering to read this, then you are probably not, either. So, I recommend you pick up a bottle Nando Asti Spumante. At under $10, it won't break the bank.

So, if you haven't done your New Year's Eve liquor shopping, yet, or are just a lush like me, keep those in mind.

It's starting...

The strike is over, but we should not forget what has happened and just let it go. TWU members are already grossly overpaid and their continuing demands are an insult to us, their customers, who have to pay the rising fares.

I am not an expert on how these things are done, but there should be a campaign to do away with the transit union and let MTA hire non-union workers from now on. Collective bargaining is nothing more then extortion, backed up by a threat of a strike. It's a form of price fixing - a practice that is illegal for business and should be made illegal for labor - in both cases it hurts the consumer.

MTA surplus explained..

Michael Goodwin exlains the MTA surplus:

The MTA has always been a wizard at making money disappear, but it entered contract talks showing a surplus of $1 billion. The union bosses saw the pile and dreamed of getting some, to the tune of 8% annual raises. That's a laughable demand, and they compounded their mistake by claiming such big hikes were earned because the workers created the surplus.

Not true. In fact, that honor goes to taxpayers. They shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to subsidize the MTA. Portions of two fairly obscure state taxes - the mortgage recording tax and the property transfer tax - are dedicated to the MTA, and both turned in far higher than expected collections because of the real estate boom.

Another contributor is the sales tax, with one-eighth of a penny in the city going to trains and buses. Altogether, higher tax income provided $733 million, or 70% of the surplus. Lower interest rates saved the agency an additional $170 million, or 17%, according to the state controller's office. Still, the union will get a huge chunk of the surplus. Almost half - $450 million - is being spent on pensions and it was offered salary hikes of 10.5% over three years.

Interesting. The union's claim to the surplus is irrelevant in any case, ofcourse, as the union members are not shareholders or partners.

They have royally screwed themselves with this strike. Imagine you have a job which barely requires a high school education, that pays $55k+, that has insanely amazing benefits and an absurdly low retirement age of 55 and you take an average of 13 sicks days a year! If you are a reasonable person, you keep this sweet deal to yourself and hope to cruise right to your retirement before someone realizes that this is a bullshit deal for the public.

But what do these fuckers do? Not only do they demand more, but they extort the whole city and then make good on their threats by shutting down the transit system. What they don't realize, though, is that in the process they just advertised the details of their sweet deal. Oops!

Next time there's a need for a fare hike, the MTA will look at other options:

In Paris, the Meteor Project was launched in 1998, with an automatic piloting system that controls the train line’s traffic, regulates speed, manages alarm devices, and allows for traffic of automatic and traditional conductor trains on the same line.There have been no serious accidents reported since this system deployed in the late 1990s, and more than a billion people have been transported. Computers make the trains run on time and they don’t threaten to walk off the job.

Indeed! And the MTA will have the public's support.

NYC transit strike

Am I affected? Hell yes! I got more sleep, get to work in my pj's, and going to grill a filet mignon for lunch. Many are not as lucky, as they absolutely had to get to work. MTA TWU [oops, was posted before my first cup of java] overplayed their hand here. According to the NY Daily News:

Since 1999, transit worker salaries have more than kept pace with inflation, rising to an average of $63,000 for train operators and $54,000 for conductors. The MTA proposal would have boosted those numbers to $68,000 and $59,000 while opening the door to substantially more. Toussaint responded by demanding raises totaling more than 25% and refusing what he called givebacks.

Holy crap, that's more then plenty of college graduates make! I already had several debates with deluded supporters of the strike. These are the same people who will be the first ones to whine and bitch when MTA raises the fare.

I'ld rather give an amnesty to a limited number of illegal aliens, train them to be conductors and fire the current spoiled brats we got striking. The train operators would stay, cause they wouldn't want to share their fate.

$54k + benefits, to look left and right before the train pulls out of the station is not enough?

UPDATE

The statement from Transit Worker's president, Roger Toussaint, starts off with:

With a one billion dollar surplus contract between the MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100 should have been a no brainier. Sadly that has not been the case.

What does MTA's surplus have to do with anything? Is he actually implying that if the MTA had a loosing year, then all the union workers would chip in to make up for the deficit?

The rest of it is predictible bitchin' and moaning until you get to this pile of blatantly steaming BS:

To our riders, we ask for your understanding forbearance. We stood with you to keep token booths open, to keep conductors on the train and oppose fare hikes. We now ask that you stand with us. We did not want a strike. Evidently the MTA, governor and the Mayor did.

In other words "To our dear suckers...". Right, cause insisting on keeping people, whose tasks can be automated, on the payroll is opposing fare hikes.

Mary J Blige - a sell out

In an inteview with UK's Guardian, Mary J Blige offered up this gem:

"The blacker you are, the worse it is for you. If you're mixed, you've got a shot. If you cater to what white America wants you to do and how they want you to look, you can survive. But if you want to be yourself, and try to do things that fit you, and your skin, nobody cares about that. At the end of the day, white America dominates and rules. And it's racist."

Mary got balls! Not only is she black and surviving like a madefaka, but she essentially admits that the only way she could get there was to sell out. Kudos for honesty!

Curiously, her skin is pretty damn light on the cover of her last album. She should be careful, as Michael Jackon's misfortunes progressed as his skin got lighter, but then this conflicts with Blige's assesment of how things work. So confusing.

:(

House of Flying Daggers

This is one amazing movie! House of Flying Daggers is a must see. This movie has it all - martial arts, a love story, twists in the plot, gorgeious cinematography, etc... Even if you are not a fan of the genre, this one is a feast for the eyes if you have a high definition set (a 5.1 dolby digital sytem won't hurt, either). I believe they are still showing it on StarzHD, but I am glad I got it on my dvr where it's going to stay for a long, long time.

My jaw was on the floor all the way to the end of the credits, where I found out that the movie was shot in Kossiv National Park, Ukraine, which is in the Carpatian region, if I am not mistaken. That explains all the birches and beautiful foliage.

Vicente Fox is mui loco

Mexican President Vicente Fox denounced as "disgraceful and shameful" on Wednesday a proposal to build a high-tech wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants.

Yea disgraceful and shameful for Mexico, cause they can't keep their border and economy in check, but do check out the full quote:

"The disgraceful and shameful construction of walls, the increasing enforcement of security systems and increasing violation of human rights and labor rights will not protect the economy of the United States,"
Ah, yes... Because sneaking over our border is a human and labor right.

Clemency denied!

That's a big corpse!

NY Daily News does the right thing

The paper redeems itself.