Billmon on politics and bloggery

Whiskey Bar: My Back Pages: "It’s not, mind you, that I’ve changed my mind about the efficacy of blogging -- or the truth. I still think they’re both politically futile. The empire no doubt will continue mashing its way forward – until financial treads come off somewhere down the road. American democracy will continue to vegetate in the chronic ward, occasionally moaning or drooling or wetting itself, until someone in authority finally orders the feeding tube pulled out. The Republican Party no doubt will continue to metastasize into an unholy alliance of Christian authoritarians and nationalist xenophobes. Little Green Footballs uber alles. The world, in other words, no doubt will continue heading for hell in a hand basket."

Read the rest—he's dead-on.

Hiring

I might as well start getting this out there: some time this summer I hope to hire my first employee since returning to the United States in 1997. By then I should be out of the home office and into some more respectable digs. I'll be looking for someone willing to do grunt work at first, but with twice the intelligence and ambition and self-discipline of his/her boss. I want to hire someone to eventually become the core of a terrifyingly rigorous and efficient management team that will sooner or later push me out for being too damned lazy and moody and unfocused.

Austin's a great place to live, and I mean to be as generous with salary and bennies as I can afford to be at this tiny-company stage. I want someone with foreign-language skills, international experience, impeccable ethics and values, and at least some exposure to business. Mediocrities need not apply. Any takers?

Jack

(Reportedly from Samsung Electronics:)

Caller: "Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?"
Operator: "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about".
Caller: "On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?"

(Thanks to Paz!)

Arial Drones

t r u t h o u t || A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence: "just because 1,502 American soldiers have been killed looking for the 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is 1,000,00 lbs.) of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, arial drones to spray the aforementioned stuff"

Yeah, down with Arial; Helvetica's the real deal.

(Thanks to wildsoda!)