October 03, 2005

• This is a great idea! Especially the term "Brownie". It is sooooo fitting.
• Candidate: Vice-Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Credentials: charter member and a chairman of GOPAC, the Republican fundraising group used by Newt Gingrich to engineer the GOP takeover of the House in 1994. Interior decorator by training. Wow! Total scum on the first try! This is better than a nougat filled candy bar!
• I nominate any government position with the term deputy undersecretary. They all sound like nests of bureaucracy.
• Oh, never mind... we're supposed to find individual people... that's even better.
• um, the new scotus nominee?
• I found Brownie! He's here at Get Your War On
• Credentials: Interior decorator by training. Hey you got yer idiot on my nougat!
• Oh wait, he's supposed to be a *chairman*, so actually interior design is very appropriate.
• StoreyBored, a decorator is a far cry from a designer. Interior designers get offended when the two are mixed. Trust me, I know from experience ;o)
• Does Chimpy himself count?
• Well, sometimes he gets stuck after seven.
• I got one for ya. Matt A. Mayer. Acting director of SLGCP. What is SLGCP? Well, it's a big part of our Homeland Security office. "SLGCP is the primary office responsible for terrorism preparedness in Homeland Security. SLGCP provides training, funds for the purchase of equipment, support for the planning and execution of exercises, technical assistance and other support to assist states and local jurisdictions prevent, plan for, and respond to acts of terrorism. SLGCP also is the primary point of contact for state and local governments with Homeland Security." Wow, that's an important job! He's the Director. What is is experience for this monumental task? Was he a General in the Army? Did he work for some agency that responded to major disasters? Nope, he was the Deputy Director for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies Gee, what does a Deputy Director do? "Mr. Mayer co-developed Colorado's Regulatory Notice system that utilizes electronic mail to notify stakeholders of all proposed regulations before those regulations become final" Great, when the terrorists strike we'll all get an email telling us exactly what to do. I am so comforted.
• I just got the E-mail, Argh.. you didn't get yours yet?
• Interior designers get offended when the two are mixed. Sorry my bad! But uh, what is the difference between the two?
• Well, an Interior Designer uses AutoCAD to produce as-built drawings, construction documents, square footage calculations (measuring the space by hand comes before that one, though), company or building-wide standards development, and finish & furniture selection. There's a lot more, but that's the gist of it. An Interior Decorator chooses finishes & layouts and is not qualified to do any technical work. I have the impression that being a Decorator is more fun, but being a Designer pays more.
• Sorry for the derail :o/
• Oh.My.God! Am I the ONLY one who got the google ad at the top that says "Meet Republican Singles"????? If so, the rest of you are forgiven for not mentioning it...if you all got it SHAME ON YOU! And...other than that, are we really surprised by this? this has been going on forever, by both sides... George is just a bit more stupid then past presidents and does a better job of matching idiots with overpaid jobs...this may be, in fact, one of his greatest skills! We should support this hobby of his...oh, wait.... we do!
• Thanks for clarifying. I've been mistakenly thinking the designer was doing what you say is the decorator's job... We now return to previously scheduled programming..
• Wait a second, him being an interior decorator makes him an even *bigger* brownie.
• Actually, it's a she. But there you go.
• I know the perfect example! First Lady Laura Bush. I mean really, if she wasn't married to George W, she never would have gotten the appointment to First Lady. Does she have any formal training in cookie baking? Was she ever trained in moral boosting? Has she ever lied for her husband? What's her stance on Iraq? Really, George W should have appointed someone with a little more foreign policy experience if he wanted to go mucking around in other countries as President. He should have picked someone like Condi, she at least has some relevant experience.
• Heh, moral boosting.
• The New York Times was a bit more blunt: "Ms. Sauerbrey has zero experience in emergency management and refugee resettlement." Zero experience. That's an astounding benchmark, impossible to beat. There is no less-than-zero level of experience. What kinds of disasters and refugee situations does the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration address? Rwanda. Darfur, Sudan. Kosovo. Iraq. Gaza Strip. Southeast Asia tsunami. Pakistan earthquake. It's the last place anyone wants to see a director with zero experience.
• /. says "George C. Deutsch, who tried to muzzle top NASA climate scientist James Hansen and ordered NASA web designers to add the word 'theory' to every mention of the Big Bang, has resigned. The New York Times reports that NASA declines to discuss the reasons for his resignation, but that it came the same day that Texas A&M University, from which Deutsch claimed on his resume to have graduated, revealed that he had attended the university but did not complete his degree." The New York Times reports it today, but as of yesterday, it was the Times that had unquestioningly passed along the falsehood of Deutsch's graduation, and it was the blog Scientific Activist whose investigation revealed he'd left before graduating to work on the Bush reelection campaign. For more on the 24-year-old political appointee's interesting viewpoints, see World O' Crap; on Monday, we covered the anger over his attempts to squelch science -- something that, sadly, Jim Hansen has gotten used to. Yes folks, the hits keep on' comin!