Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
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Since today is "Icon Day" at Castle Argghhh! let's have another powerful one - The Great Escape.
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The NYT publishes the resignation letter of an AIG exec, Jake DeSantis:
Keep in mind this bit, as you ponder the congressional peasants with pitchforks and their populist demogoguery: Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
Congress and those Attorneys General aren't even shooting at the correct target. -the Armorer
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Ah, Representative Waxman, he of the awful moustache, and a pol I love to loathe. Now he wants to play games with servicemembers in order to generate an accounting dodge that he can then use to fund a pet project. Greyhawk has the details. This is as bemusing as the moving payday from the last day of the month to the first day of the following month, for the sole purpose of shifting one month of DoD payroll into the next fiscal year, so they could claim some savings in the current year, for an accounting dodge. Of course, there were some real impacts as people had automatic withdrawals set up and such that would cause overdrafts, etc. But hey, that's okay. We need the money more than you do, and besides, we do it because we can. -the Armorer
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Today is National Medal of Honor Day. Go. Read. Watch. Remember.
Maggie
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From the PNW - More cracks in the facade? -the Armorer
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Since today is "Icon Day" at Castle Argghhh! let's have another powerful one - The Great Escape.
Read the rest of the story here, in the Telegraph.At a memorial at the mouth of Tunnel Harry, carved from the sandy soil under Stalag Luft III under the noses of the German guards, the men who helped those who fled only to be shot dead by the Gestapo toasted their absent comrades.
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The NYT publishes the resignation letter of an AIG exec, Jake DeSantis:
I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down...
The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press...
I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”
Keep in mind this bit, as you ponder the congressional peasants with pitchforks and their populist demogoguery: Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
Congress and those Attorneys General aren't even shooting at the correct target. -the Armorer
**********************************
Ah, Representative Waxman, he of the awful moustache, and a pol I love to loathe. Now he wants to play games with servicemembers in order to generate an accounting dodge that he can then use to fund a pet project. Greyhawk has the details. This is as bemusing as the moving payday from the last day of the month to the first day of the following month, for the sole purpose of shifting one month of DoD payroll into the next fiscal year, so they could claim some savings in the current year, for an accounting dodge. Of course, there were some real impacts as people had automatic withdrawals set up and such that would cause overdrafts, etc. But hey, that's okay. We need the money more than you do, and besides, we do it because we can. -the Armorer
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Today is National Medal of Honor Day. Go. Read. Watch. Remember.
Maggie
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From the PNW - More cracks in the facade? -the Armorer
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires. Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute. Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is. The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now. Of course, now I have to call them UAS's, because someone got a Legion of Merit for the name change.Anyway, I call the post H&I Fires because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is Free Fire Zone.
"Congress and those Attorney's General aren't even shooting at the correct target."
A Navy buddy of mine once told me, "A target is a target." That comes from their frame of reference, there are their ships, and there are targets. Can't really do much to the people that left town unless a criminal investigation is started, so the least we can do is to make sure those who are still in the building are, you know, acting responsibly, since the govt owns them now. I don't think the AIG execs and other similar financial "wizards" ought to believe that they are irreplacable. Please, please let me have the job for one year at a starting salary of $200K plus bonuses. I promise not to do worse than those who held the job last year.
Let's be cynical. It's scapegoat time. Long overdue, delayed just long enough to let the real crooks get away.
You promise you won't do worse. Strikes me, we're looking for someone who will promise, and deliver, on doing better.
But yeah, I have - I do most of the grocery shopping.
Psssst! Hey John - take a look up at the top of this post and see if you notice anything... familiar about this post as compared to yesterdays.
Why people think it is ok for an executive to work 12-14 hour days including weekends for free but it is not ok for them to be asked to do the same??
Usually, executives who do not deliver do not stay in that position for long and do not get paid.
Plus, if the company went bankrupt, the majority of those contracts with $1 annual compensation and retention bonuses at the end of the contract period would have been affirmed by the bankruptcy judge and those executives would have got their bonuses before AIG's bond holders, anyway.
I understand why this guy is pissed - the obvious lie has been disseminated (sp??) about those contracts and bonuses but neither Liddy nor AGs (who had the actual contracts) were willing to stop this lie from spreading, for the political reasons...
Echoing Jason, there are ships and there are targets.
Liddy and the AGs must keep in formation with the lie, because if the truth sidles out of the convoy into the open, Liddy et. al. cease being ships and become targets.
Pardon me for being paranoid and too sensitive about the current flow of events.
Help me out speaking of MOH winners .... I forgot Charlie's last name. Does he still hang out in the Fort area?
It is, however, a sign of deeper troubles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5055868/UK-recession-mistresses-are-the-credit-crunchs-latest-victims.html According to a certain Huey Driver, it isn't a thread unless relationships are dragged into it.