garry’s subposthaven

I'm not anyone's employee. I'm not subject to the Two-Hour Rule. I work on this website at least twelve hours a day.

Like everyone else who is on their own, we work like crazy. We get no vacations or sick days. We don't know what a "weekend" is.

If we can't work a day, it costs us. The life and mind set of people who work on their own is 180 degrees opposite from anyone who has a job.

When I had a job, a day of vacation was like finding a pot of gold. Today, a day off costs me a day's pay. Always.

Great essay by Ken Rockwell: The Two Hour Rule in American Business. He's usually telling people what kind of camera stuff they should buy, but here he deviates and passes on a little secret that you may have already realized.

As you move through the world your actions cause or reduce suffering, and many times you can’t control which result you’ll get. If you live a life where you cause everyone around you nothing but suffering, you’ll eventually get it back on you.

Ironically, if you live a life where you do nothing but reduce everyone’s suffering, you’ll also live a fairly horrible life full of your own misery. The important thing is that Buddhism balances between reducing your own suffering and that of other people, while still understanding that none of this is really permanent or that important so you avoid attachment (but not too much).

I haven't been to a town hall, but from the accounts I've heard on NPR and elsewhere, there are some serious hooligan tactics being engaged by those either a) brainwashed by right-wing talk radio, or b) corporate shills paid for and organized by the health insurance cabals.

Where's the decorum? Lets talk about this like human beings, and talk about the issues, instead of calling Obama "Hitler." That's just absurd.

Good to know what packs the biggest punch!

During World War II the English sent daily bombing raids into Germany. Many planes never returned; those that did were often riddled with bullet holes from anti-air machine guns and German fighters.

Wanting to improve the odds of getting a crew home alive, English engineers studied the locations of the bullet holes. Where the planes were hit most, they reasoned, is where they should attach heavy armor plating. Sure enough, a pattern emerged: Bullets clustered on the wings, tail, and rear gunner's station. Few bullets were found in the main cockpit or fuel tanks.

The logical conclusion is that they should add armor plating to the spots that get hit most often by bullets. But that's wrong.

Planes with bullets in the cockpit or fuel tanks didn't make it home; the bullet holes in returning planes were "found" in places that were by definition relatively benign. The real data is in the planes that were shot down, not the ones that survived.