Hello…Sara Lee!

I decided to re post this today, two years afterwards, three years after I got laid off. This is the reason I got laid off.

Laugh All You Want, iDorks, But It Worked Like A Dream For Half A Century

Best of all, it was built, operated by and controlled by American Workers. Half the engineering and almost all the call centers are in India these days.

True story. In my last position I was running a legacy phone system at the biggest bank in Boston and the consultants decided to move the help desk (Which used to be fifty Plus operators in Dorcester) to India.

Well the move didn’t go over well with the people in the bank. Finally the Indian manager of the new call center called their bank contact and asked if they could help with a bit of American slang that they didn’t understand. It seemed that they were getting a lot of calls that as soon as the caller heard the voice of the Indian agent they said,“Ahshit” and hung up. What’s “Ahshit” they wondered.  Soon someone got the bright idea that if the agents answering the phones responded using a American sounding name the callers might stay on the line and talk to them. So they made up a list of American sounding names and passed them out to the agents.

Soon after I got a call from a bank supervisor I often worked with. He wanted to tell me that he had called the new help desk and when the new agent answered the call, they said,”Hello… Sara Lee!“.

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Pledge of Allegiance

Brookline group: Wave bye to Pledge of Allegiance in school

I thank God, I grew up in the fifties.

Red Skeleton and the Pledge of Allegiance.

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Thursday News

How Our Brains Got Big and Our Penises Lost Their Spines

Lost DNA controls our differences from Chimps. And who knew Chimps had spines on their…thing.

Many baby boomers don’t plan to leave their children an inheritance

Surprised? They also don’t plan on leaving their children a free country.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): New jobless claims rise to 414,000 last week. “New U.S. jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week, further evidence of a weak labor market just hours before President Barack Obama delivers a major address to Congress on the issue.” Unexpectedly!

I can’t find the link now, but somebody was criticizing this feature a while back as “juvenile.” Well, I am quite deliberately rubbing it in, as the ridiculously inflated expectations for Obama are regularly and repeatedly exposed as . . . ridiculously inflated. But what’s really juvenile is expecting that an inexperienced former community organizer could successfully execute the office of President of the United States. And if I’m peeing all over the wave of hope-and-change hype that got him into office despite his obvious unsuitability, it’s to help ensure that nothing this disastrous happens again in my lifetime. I realize that it’s painful for those who fell victim to the mass hysteria to constantly be reminded of their foolishness, but I hope it’ll be the kind of pain that results in learning. . .

by Glen Reynolds

FBI raids solar firm Solyndra

More cronyism as we saw in the GM bankruptcy, standard bankruptcy laws of subordination were reconfigured to aid Obama’s fundraiser who invested in this turkey.

Video: Newt wins the debate … against the moderators

We cannot let the media pick the candidate (again) that will run against Obama.

James Lileks on why we need to reduce federal spending:

“A half-century experiment in draping steam­ship anchors around the necks of the productive class and expecting them to run a four-minute mile has ended in failure”

 

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Wednesday News

U.S. Army Orders First Suicide Drones

A robot cannot suicide.

Our species may have bred with a now extinct lineage of humanity before leaving Africa

Or Ancient Astronauts?

Obama’s whopper of a claim on tax cuts

He’s a liar.

When Jimmy Hoffa threatens to take you out, should you be worried?

Jimmy Jr. runs the Teamsters now, and in Detroit on Monday he loudly declared war on Republicans: “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches out.”

Second amendment looking like a good idea again?

2 Cops Among 67 Shot in Weekend Violence

All in NYC, on one weekend. Most violence came during West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn. This is Bloombergs New York City, no other city has more draconian gun laws than NYC.  Citizens are unarmed and living in fear, thugs rule the streets.

Brookline group: Wave bye to Pledge of Allegiance in school

We have nothing in common with these scum.

 

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Tuesday News

Does this jerk understand that he is the President of the United States and Leader of the Free World?Can someone buy this idiot a tie and show him how to tie it?

French Man Ordered to Pay Ex-Wife Nearly $12,000 in Damages for Lack of Sex

Less than $50 a month over the course of their marriage.  Since, seventy percent of women would rather have chocolate than sex. (Poll taken in a 1995 popular women’s magazine), then one deluxe assortment of chocolates a month should render a man judgement-proof.

Ikea ‘used political prisoners in GDR as slave labour’

I knew it! Then they designed their stores like the prisons their furniture was made in.

“Maine A Mecca For Gay Couples” Trumpets Newspaper Unclear On Exactly What Happens To Gay Couples In Mecca »

So much hoopla over such a small percentage of the population. Even if that includes my baby sister, in the end it will mean nothing.

Three dumb jokes

Maggies Farm

Praying for Marizela: Month 6

Many people have worse problems than we do.

Dick Cheney was relentless and unapologetic in pursuit of his policy goals—and Americans are safer for it.

And I for one say Thank You.

Muslim protesters “will make as much noise as possible” during 9/11 moment of silence

Pity we can’t bring the Dark Lord back to finish the job.

Admiral Defends Use of Elite Unit in Calamitous Raid

Lot of comment on this at American Digest, Ann Barnhardt called out the Admiral in the NYT story for wasting the elite Seals in that way and the comment thread is a real S***Storm.

My question is, “Why give the enemy a propaganda victory by identifying the dead troops as members of Seal Team Six?”

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Labor Day thoughts

There’s work to be done on immigration

Starting with Barry’s illegal relatives.

Rainforest Fungus Naturally Synthesizes Diesel

But beyond the biofuel implications, Strobel said that because the fungus can manufacture what we would normally think of as components of crude oil, it casts some doubt on the idea that crude oil is a fossil fuel.

“It may be the case that organisms like this produced some — maybe not all — but some of the world’s crude,” Strobel said.

Oldest Advanced Civilization

This would be 8,000 years before Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids were built!

Seven Miracles That Saved America

“No man is perfect,” write the authors. “And neither is any nation. Yet, despite our weakness, we are still, as Abraham Lincoln said, the best nation ever given to man. Despite our faults, this nation is still the last, best hope of earth.” In short, God still cares what happens here. This reassuring message is a bright light in a world that longs for such hope.

I don’t get any ad revenue from this, I just agree with the sentiment.

 

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Sunday News

In China, having children is no longer a given

China’s demographic time bomb

Cambridge English Test Recognized by UK and Australia

You can now take this test to confirm your English language ability when applying for a student or immigration visa.

 

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Saturday News

Obama solicitor general: If you don’t like mandate, earn less money

We are all just peasants to them. Worst President ever.

Question of the Day: Why NOT Own a Fully-Automatic Rifle?

In Massachusetts, the high cost of getting even a license to carry MACE let alone any firearm caused me to put off getting back into gun sports until after I get out of this state. But as the comments for the above post say, the second amendment is really about military weapon ownership by the citizen.

“Kelo v. New London”: An Ignominous End for One of the Supreme Court’s Worst Decisions

In 2005, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Kelo v. New London, using the powers of eminent domain to seize property from one private owner and hand it over to another private owner — a developer who promised more than 3,000 new jobs and $1.2 million in tax revenue.

And now, as they say, the rest of the story:

. . . the city’s project has been a failure, with 91 acres of waterfront property sitting there empty and overgrown by weeds.

Now, we learn from the local newspaper, The Day, that following the hurricane Irene, the city has designated the Fort Trumbull redevelopment site as a place to dump vegetation debris. For a video of locals dumping that stuff on the site, click here.

Connecticut taxpayers have thus been soaked tens of millions of dollars, not just for nothing, but for making things worse — for transforming a nice local neighborhood into a dump.

Pfizer and Kelo’s Ghost Town

Pfizer bugs out, long after the land grab.

Wall Street Journal, November 2009. Kudos to Justice Thomas, who wrote the dissent.

Obama shelves EPA smog rule in huge defeat for environmental groups

Thank the GOP Speaker of the House, his demand of the President of a list of upcoming regulations that could cost American Businesses money and jobs showed this EPA rule could cost up to $90 billion a year in additional expenses.

The shocking truth about electric cars

“Here’s another catch: Electric cars aren’t necessarily green at all. Electric vehicles require large amounts of electricity – so much that Toronto Hydro chief Anthony Haines says he doesn’t know how he’d get it. “If you connect about 10 per cent of the homes on any given street with an electric car, the electricity system fails,” he said recently.”

Plus the $20,000 extra for a vehicle that’s smaller, slower, with less range and built by Obama’s union buddies.

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From Peggy

FOR ALL THE LADIES I KNOW THAT DRIVE
ALONE!

I had a flat tire on I-65 yesterday; so I pulled over, got out of the
car and opened my trunk.

I took out my cardboard men, unfolded them and stood them at the rear of my car facing oncoming traffic. They look so lifelike you wouldn’t believe it!

Just as I had hoped, cars started slowing down looking at the men which made it much safer for me to work on the side of the road.

People honked and waved, and it wasn’t long before a  police car pulled up behind me.

He wanted to know what the heck I was doing so I calmly explained that I was changing my flat. He told me he could see that, but demanded to know what the heck my cardboard men were
doing standing at the rear of my car.

I couldn’t believe he didn’t know!
Well, I explained to the angry Policeman …
Continue reading

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Friday News

The Stimulus that Dare Not Speak Its Name

“According to the latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters, Americans support the repeal of Obamacare by a margin of 20 percentage points (57 to 37 percent), with 46 percent “strongly” supporting repeal. To put that into perspective, more than twice as many Americans “strongly” support repeal (46 percent) as “strongly” support Obama (22 percent — the poll’s tally for the past week).”

Hello, GOP, are you listening??

McCain Full of Crap

“So let’s dispense with this perfect record crap. This guy has made a career out of not being as bad as the other guy, and that’s about the best you can say about him. If he had been running against, say, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in 2008, it would have been a completely different story.”

The ten films that changed the world

Interesting to see a list like this with films I’ve never heard of.

The energy-efficient lightbulbs that keep us in the dark

From England, same pain, same leftist cause.

“As for the mercury that the energy-saving bulbs contain, I have always found it a most beautiful metal, aptly named quicksilver, shining like the moon. Certainly, the effects of mercury poisoning are no fun: shedding of skin, loss of teeth and hair, salivation, sweating and forgetfulness. Yet anxiety about such matters is soon dispelled by the FAQs on the Energy Saving Trust website. “Energy-saving bulbs contain only tiny traces of mercury,” it says soothingly. “Imagine a pellet smaller than the tip of a Biro.” Yes, I’ve imagined that. It sounds ideal for the tip of a blowpipe-arrow or a Bulgarian secret service umbrella. ”

 

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