podpolia

I don’t think I’ve written about this before, but applying for federal jobs can be a bit of a nightmare. There are so many different systems with different requirements, and not only can application requirements be different between agencies, but also between job levels, and sometimes seemingly for the sheer joy of it. This is one of the more entertaining examples of the questions that one is asked when filling out these applications (I came across it this afternoon):

An actual screen capture from "applicationmanager.gov".

UPDATE: Oh, and it gets better. Later in that same application:

Later in the same application...

Well, we’ve been having some lovely weather lately. The wind really started up after most of the snow already fell, so it’s going to be interesting to see what things are like in the morning…

Somebody needs to make California stop.

For some reason, they have this urge to put warning labels on everything, whether they’re needed or not. It wouldn’t be so bad, but companies that want to sell their products nationally have to comply with these stupid regulations if they want to sell their products in the major market of California, and no doubt it’s driving prices up for the rest of us as well. The most recent story about this is the mayor of San Francisco (and you know if he’s mayor of San Francisco, he’s definitely not representative of most of the rest of the country) supporting a requirement that cell phones come with radiation warning labels. Nevermind that there are federal requirements for the amount of EM radiation cell phones are permitted to put out. Nevermind that scientists haven’t even been able to confirm that there ARE significant health effects from cell phone use (apart from the obvious ones of stupid people driving while talking). California feels the need to regulate it anyway.

I bought a plumb bob the other day (for those of you who don’t know what that is, check wikipedia), and right on the back of the package was a sticker with the label “WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects, or other reproductive harm.” No, it’s not lead — it’s brass with a steel point, with a bit of nylon string. How are the normal uses of a plumb bob going to cause any of those problems? I can see health issues if you tried to EAT the plumb bob, but none of the ones listed are ones that I would worry about. If you’re going around eating 8 ounce brass spikes, you have more things to worry about than cancer, birth defects, and reproductive harm. In fact, it might be better if you DIDN’T reproduce. So why does California feel the need to protect its citizens from things like this, while inflicting higher prices and stupid warning labels on the rest of us?

This is the kind of angry, naked, armed old guy I want to be when I grow up.

You can tell that the interviewers in this video really got a very different interview than they expected. It’s like they think that government really WOULDN’T be concerned about possible invasions of their airspace.

Vladimir Ilych Lenin – crushing dissent since 1917.

Well, I’ve got to hand it to Charles Johnson over at LGF — he hit two good videos in one day. The first one was pretty amusing, but given my particular twisted and demented tastes, this one was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that I feel the need to repost it here. I mean, how often do you get to watch… to watch… um… this:

GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO – BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.

I was thinking about various meanings of words, and thought of the homophones ‘plain’ and ‘plane.’ From there it was only a short step to:
“Use the plane to plane the plain plane on the plane sitting on the plain.”

If you say it quicky, you sound slightly like a rapper.