The Hangman by Maurice Ogden

I was looking for the old quote attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller about the Nazi purges of the various groups perceived as threats to the Reich.

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First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

While looking for this quote, I came across a poem that speaks to the same subject.

I like both for their cautionary tones.

I’m worried that we are losing our way, in that we too easily choose a group to blame or demand compensation from.

I find myself asking more often these days, what defines a minority? Your first thought might be to say a person of color. That could be true.

But a minority is more than that. Wikipedia, provides this definition.

Which leads me to why I was looking for Niemöllers quote in the first place.

We as a country have apparently come to the conclusion that wealth is bad. We’ve arbitrarily decided that the “Wealthy” can pay more taxes.

The definition of  “Wealthy” is also variable and apparently chosen based on the needs of the state.

California has defined household incomes greater than $250,000 as wealthy and therefore subject to increased state taxation.

You realize that $250,000 could well be the income for a young Physician and his Stock broker spouse. Both of whom are trying to pay off $150,000 each in student loans.

The arbitrariness of the definition of Wealth begs the question for me.

If the State doesn’t solve it’s budget crisis… Will the politicians decide $100,000 in household income is Wealthy? Where does that line of reasoning end? $50,000?

We have politicians in Washington DC making similar statements about the “Wealthy” being able to pay a little bit more…

I’m concerned that this kind of thinking is a very slippery slope.

Don’t get me wrong… the Wealthy people that have sold our country out from under us, and off shored jobs, who’ve raped, pillaged, plundered, and employed slash and burn techniques on the American economy that MADE them wealthy.

Oh, they richly deserve punishment!

BUT Their punishment shouldn’t come at the sacrifice equal taxation and representation. Let the wealthy peoples tax breaks expire but levying higher taxes on a minority group is certainly as unfair as the tax breaks this group enjoyed.

Presented for your consideration by a centrist Republican who is interested in equality and even social justice.

So long as those things happen… Justly.

The Hangman by Maurice Ogden

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Into our town the hangman came, smelling of gold and blood and flame. He paced our bricks with a different air, and built his frame on the courthouse square. The scaffold stood by the courthouse side, only as wide as the door was wide with a frame as tall, or a little more, than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered whenever we had the time, Who the criminal? What the crime? The hangman judged with the yellow twist of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were with dread, we passed those eyes of buckshot lead. Till one cried, “Hangman, who is he, for whom you raised the gallows-tree?”

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye and he gave a riddle instead of reply. “He who serves me best,” said he “Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree.”

And he stepped down and laid his hand on a man who came from another land. And we breathed again, for anothers grief at the hangmans hand, was our relief.

And the gallows frame on the courthouse lawn by tomorrow’s sun would be struck and gone. So we gave him way and no one spoke out of respect for his hangmans cloak.

The next day’s sun looked mildly down on roof and street in our quiet town; and stark and black in the morning air the gallows-tree on the courthouse square.

And the hangman stood at his usual stand with the yellow hemp in his busy hand. With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike, and his air so knowing and business-like.

And we cried, “Hangman, have you not done, yesterday with the alien one?” Then we fell silent and stood amazed. “Oh, not for him was the gallows raised.”

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us, “Do you think I’ve gone to all this fuss, To hang one man? That’s the thing I do. To stretch the rope when the rope is new.”

Above our silence a voice cried “Shame!” and into our midst the hangman came; to that mans place, “Do you hold,” said he, “With him that was meat for the gallows-tree?”

He laid his hand on that one’s arm and we shrank back in quick alarm. We gave him way, and no one spoke, out of fear of the hangmans cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise the hangmans scaffold had grown in size. Fed by the blood beneath the chute, the gallows-tree had taken root.

Now as wide, or a little more than the steps that led to the courthouse door. As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall, half way up on the courthouse wall.

The third he took, we had all heard tell, was a usurer…, an infidel. And “What” said the hangman, “Have you to do with the gallows-bound…, and he a Jew?”

And we cried out, “Is this one he who has served you well and faithfully?” The hangman smiled, “It’s a clever scheme to try the strength of the gallows beam.”

The fourth man’s dark accusing song had scratched our comfort hard and long. “And what concern,” he gave us back, “Have you … for the doomed and black?”

The fifth, the sixth, and we cried again, “Hangman, hangman, is this the man?” “It’s a trick”, said he, “that we hangman know for easing the trap when the trap springs slow.”

And so we ceased and asked no more as the hangman tallied his bloody score. And sun by sun, and night by night the gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide until they covered the square from side to side. And the monster cross beam looking down, cast its shadow across the town.

Then through the town the hangman came and called through the empy streets…my name. I looked at the gallows soaring tall and thought … there’s no one left at all

for hanging … and so he called to me to help take down the gallows-tree. And I went out with right good hope to the hangmans tree and the hangmans rope.

He smiled at me as I came down to the courthouse square…through the silent town. Supple and stretched in his busy hand, was the yellow twist of hempen strand.

He whistled his tune as he tried the trap and it sprang down with a ready snap. Then with a smile of awful command, He laid his hand upon my hand.

“You tricked me Hangman.” I shouted then, “That your scaffold was built for other men, and I’m no henchman of yours.” I cried. “You lied to me Hangman, foully lied.”

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye, “Lied to you…tricked you?” He said “Not I… for I answered straight and told you true. The scaffold was raised for none but you.”

“For who has served more faithfully? With your coward’s hope.” said He, “And where are the others that might have stood side by your side, in the common good?”

“Dead!” I answered, and amiably “Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me. “First the alien … then the Jew. I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky none before stood so alone as I. The Hangman then strapped me…with no voice there to cry “Stay!” … for me in the empty square.

Here’s an exercise in spin for you… Be warned your head may hurt.

Before my Liberal friends form a lynch mob… I’m playing here… It’s a Joke… Well a half joke… 

In truth, I wrote this just to stir the pot. I think that anyone with little effort can spin anything any way they want.  This is my attempt at proving that “Facts” are just a matter of spin. I hope you enjoy it.

The banking collapse was in fact caused by Liberal Democrats, not Conservative Republicans.

Lets look at the facts.

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Many liberals believe that it’s wrong to deport illegal workers (This is a term that I use to mean inclusively any person who has entered this country illegally. )

That the term illegal workers has come to be synonymous with Illegal hispanic workers is a discussion for another time. I will say this… if a term has come to be redefined as descriptive of a situation, well perhaps you need to ask how that came to be…

Many liberals believe that housing must  be equal opportunity no matter what. (I also believe that housing should be equal opportunity, meaning that if you can afford a home or apartment you shouldn’t be denied access to that home or apartment based on race, color, creed, sexuality, or religion.)

Many liberals believe that  higher education is a right, not a privilege and as a result have enacted a multitude of affirmative action policies nationwide.

Many of those affirmative action laws, regulations, and policies have been expanded to apply to more than education and now apply in a variety of other aspects of our society including banking.

Having worked in the mortgage banking industry approximately 4 years before the collapse (I got out because I saw it coming) I got to see some things from the inside.

Remember No document loans?

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How about reverse amortization loans?

These “products”  were a direct result of mortgage lenders complying with affirmative action regulations. 

The mortgage bankers I worked for felt that they couldn’t deny a loan application because affirmative action regulations demanded a certain percentage of what was called “B & C” paper be accepted by a bank. Think of it like “Assigned risk in insurance.”

Essentially, these “B & C” designations were loans to people who were far more likely to default than the so called “A” paper loans.

Sadly the “A, B, & C” paper loans shook out along largely racial lines due to underlying aspects of our society. 

This meant that someone like myself (A paper) who was employed, had a mortgage, had never been late on a payment, was making more money than I ever had in my life, and who wanted to refinance my house at a lower percentage rate without taking any money out of it, and who provided documentation to all of the above…

Would be scrutinized to a maddening degree and even had to answer questions like “Why has your income increased?

No Shit! The fact that I was making more money was actually a bone of contention between me and the underwriter. It pissed me off to the point that I told her I’d quit my job if that would make it easier on her then we could average my income over the past decade.

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The mortgage lender I was working for at the time did not hold my mortgage… but over lunch one day I asked WTF? of an underwriter I knew well.

His answer was that since I had a history and had provided all kinds of documentation, the underwriters had to do a full process where they, by banking regulations checked everything about the loan they were going to fund.

He went on to say that if I’d gone for a new house instead of a refi, and the loan had been a “Jumbo Loan” I could have gone with a no document loan and been approved within a week.

I still didn’t get it. 

My underwriter friend explained,  because of equal opportunity lending regulations and HUD rules, and half a dozen other regulations designed to prevent discrimination,  the no doc loans had become known as the Housekeeper loans and I’d have qualified easily for one of those.

He’d seen 800,000 loans approved for gardeners in Orange County. After the loan was approved, typically within 120 days the first payment was late.

Then another department in the company we worked for would start calling and asking for payments to be made including late fees.

The late fees were always paid first and the remainder of whatever payment we got was sent to the mortgage holder. This was called “servicing” a loan. It was / is a very profitable enterprise. This is especially true when only a partial payment gets sent to the mortgage holder because the cycle can repeat several times a month on the entire amount that is in arrears. The late fees keep stacking up and the profit for the loan servicer keeps increasing.

It was the interaction of protections for the poor, affirmative action,  the lack of proper identification requirements, the right to privacy about where you obtained your income, and other liberal progressive factors that created the no document loan in the first place.

The banking industry simply made all of these regulations profitable!

These loans were given  to people who sometimes didn’t understand what they were signing and at other times actually couldn’t write their own names.

Then the loan was packaged up as an investment portfolio that was mandated by law to have a specific % of A, B, & C paper loans. The completed portfolio was sold to a wall street firm.

Back to my original statement…

It was the liberal demands for equality in lending, and housing, their insistence on not deporting illegal workers, the bleeding heart progressive agenda, and complete lack of concern or perhaps the liberal demonization of profit and business, that is in fact responsible for the banking collapse.

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By forcing the banking industry to approve a percentage of questionable loans that the banking industry normally wouldn’t have approved, the liberals created the housing bubble. Simultaneously making it far more difficult for honest citizens to carry on with their lives and pursuit of the American Dream.

The evil banking industry was just following orders.

 

 

I guess it’s just my lot in life…

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve been a technology guy for almost 30 years.

Now I’m unemployed and have been looking for a new job for the better part of 18 months.

Usually I can’t get the time of day from the places that I apply to. Those placement firms that do contact me are often not much more that one step above spammers.

Got a call from one of these guys the other day, He was obviously Indian and his English pronunciation was so poor that I had no idea what he was saying. I finally got him to send me an email with the job description. His written English was only marginally better, which explains why he was trying to match me up with a position that was almost completely NOT anything I can do.

I find myself wondering things like why can’t I get any decent leads.

I’m still working on that one… but I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not paying back some seriously big karmic debt.

Many of the companies that I’ve applied to, I also do occasional business with. This morning I was looking around online for a decent six or seven port USB Hub. 

As I wandered through the myriad websites I kept seeing one defect after another.

These are major, nationally known companies who advertise and sell their products on the web and yet I was seeing things like;

Dead links,

Typos,

Dialog boxes that were blank, (I mean… just a white box with nothing in it.)

Check boxes that appear unchecked yet if you do check them, to narrow your search you actually destroy your search results.

Oh, and these companies… all have either flat out told me that I wasn’t good enough to work for them, or they simply have never responded to my inquiries.

While I many not be good enough to work for them, clearly their existing staff sucks!

Part of the problem is this. 

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All of these companies want someone that has long list of software development methodology certifications. To date I’ve worked with virtually every methodology.

However, I’ve never bothered to get certified in any of them, for the following reasons;

1) The certifications are very expensive and often required me to burn my vacation time and pay for the seminar and the hotel & food costs. Often as not just sitting through the seminar got you the certification.

I don’t believe in buying certifications. If that’s what I’m doing… then let me send you the $1000 and you send me the paper with my little name printed on it, and we’re done.  

I think that there should be something a little more structured and some accountability or grading must be built into the system.

Then there’s this thought… I have one miserable week of vacation. Do I spend it at an expensive seminar in a hotel conference room or do I spend that week on a beach somewhere? Let’s think about this for all of a nano-second! If I’m going to spend my vacation time and have to pay for a hotel and transportation… I’m going diving in the Caribbean!

2)  These methodologies are ever changing and in fact I’ve worked for companies where the methodology changed as frequently as the upper management did. It was simply impossible to keep up with the method du jour and as a result, the certifications were pretty much pointless.

3) These methodologies claim in some circles to be a standard. But in point of fact they are really only the framework of a software development philosophy that allows for variable implementation based on the needs, desires, and whims of the corporation where the method is being used. 

The practical upshot of this is that a new employee starts out having to learn how the company has implemented a particular methodology whether they’ve got the certifications or not.

4) I have noticed through the years that regardless of the published “Methodology”, corporate “Procedures”, or even ISO standards all go right out the window when the project is late,  (Every Software Project ends up being LATE). Which means that Agile is pretty much the defacto standard of ALL software development regardless of the corporate sales pitch.

5) I’ve actually been involved in companies where the process was so complex that it actually impeded the development and testing processes. In these companies, I only got 3 hours of work done on software I was testing per day. The other 5 or 6 hours of my day were spent in meetings, explaining what testing was being done and WHY the testing was going so slowly

REALLY?

In point of fact it wasn’t the methodology, it was the implementation.

I’ve always thought it was funny how almost anything begins to take on the worst aspects of religion. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Agile,SCRUM, PC vs. Mac, iPhone vs. Android…

None of them are inherently bad ideas or philosophies but all of them suffer from problems introduced by zealots.

I guess now it’s time for me to pay for some stupid seminar where the badge of honor is that I have a certificate saying I sat through the seminar.

At least I could legitimately say I’m certified in one of these things…  That 30 years of experience is irrelevant but a silly certification in a software development methodology is annoys me beyond belief.

4246303 683742 cocktail a mix of various drinks sometimes alcoholic drinks

I could take my laptop and spend the time writing and half listening. God! The soul crushing boredom  of seminars like this makes me cringe. When I’ve attended these kinds of seminars in the past,  at the end of the day I headed straight for the hotel bar and worked on anesthetizing myself… All the while having to listen to other folks from the seminar gushing about the importance of the words of the presenter… aka The Prophet. 

Meanwhile, I’m looking for the nearest exit and wondering if I can find another convenient bar where I don’t have to listen to a rehash of the day faithfully regurgitated by those who’ve drunk the kool aid.

I suppose it’s jaded cynicism on my part. A large part of my inherent resistance comes from knowing these methods, don’t make me a better tester. It just means that I’m going to be better able to recognize when someone is wasting time in needless meetings.

Which leads me back to Karma…

Am I now paying the price for not drinking the kool aid? Are the errors I’m seeing on web sites the not so subtle reminders that my choice not to play the latest corporate mental masturbation game has left me on the outside?

I still stand 100% by my conviction that as a Software Quality Assurance Analyst, knowledge or lack thereof about these philosophies won’t change the quality of the software.

Actually testing the software will. 

My Karma is to be unable to ignore software defects, and to seemingly bring out defects simply by wanting to use software as a normal user. 

I guess, I was a serious asshole to someone in a previous life. 

Now where was that catalog of obscenely priced seminars????

Riddle me This?

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A recent report from Bloomberg reports that Oil Prices (Meaning Crude Trading) is currently at a Two month low, and that as the US output has risen, the Demand has eased.

So Why are we still seeing gas prices that are 4.99 for a gallon of regular?

Really?

The oil futures and price per barrel jumps if there’s the slightest change in the breeze, or a Congressman farts. Driving the cost of a gallon of gas up…

So why isn’t the converse true? More supply means that the cost of gas shouldn’t be as high, isn’t that economics 101?

This leads me to think, contrary to what the Oil Companies have reported for years… Gas prices are directly tied to the cost of crude and the anticipated supply that there’s really a far more insidious conspiracy of artificial controls actually keeping the gas prices up.

Lets see…

Obviously, Obscene Profits are a huge motivator.

Keeping fuel prices artificially high would play out nicely for Corporate America in an election year, since fuel / transportation prices directly affect every aspect of the economy.

Think about it, If a cabal of American or International businesses were to decide that they didn’t want a particular President in office, one way to get that president out of office would be to strangle an already weak economy.

When the preferred candidate was elected, then fuel prices drop and the economy spins up again. People go back to work, new jobs are suddenly created and voila… The new President has turned things around!

I don’t know if this line of reasoning is anything but a trip down conspiracy lane… but I do think that EVERY American should remember that regardless of what the press tells us, and regardless of what the Oil companies tell us…

There is no direct causal link between the cost of a barrel of crude, and the cost of gasoline at the pump… At least not anymore.

When the Oil Barons are testifying before congress and poor mouthing that they have no control over the prices of fuel, I pray to GOD that at least one congressional committee member has the balls to stand up and call BULLSHIT right to the Oil Executives faces on CSPAN!

What would be even better would be if the Oil Executives were clapped in Irons and dragged out of the hearing chambers for lying to congress.

Hell I’d PAY to see that!

Occupy Wall Street should be Occupy EXXON, British Petroleum, Atlantic Richfield, ConocoPhillips, and all the other bastard Oil companies as well as Wall Street futures traders…

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM… and More SPAM! (Updated)

I love the SPAMBOT Postings (I had to stop reading political stuff)

So lately rather than immediately deleting the SPAM that people try to post to this blog, I’ve been reading it.

You’ve got to be kidding!!!

Do any of these things work at all?

These comments have all kinds of flowery speech and it’s obvious that some of them have been written by translation software.

Here’s a few examples;

I really enjoy this theme youve got going on on your site. What is the name of the design by the way? I was thinking of using this style for the website I am going to construct for my class room project.

It is rare for me to discover something on the cyberspace that is as entertaining and fascinating as what youve got here. Your page is sweet, your graphics are outstanding, and whats more, you use reference that are relevant to what you are talking about. Youre definitely one in a million, great job!

Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a really well written article. I will be sure to bookmark it and return to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I will certainly comeback.

Don’t get me wrong, I like compliments as much as the next person. But, I don’t like empty compliments that are supposed to make me approve a comment just so the commenter can “Build Links” or redirect someone to their sales site.

All of the above comments are linked to sales sites. Things like Gucci knock off bags, or shoes, or whatever Chinese knockoff someone thinks they can entice someone with.

The really scary part is that some of these links track to websites that are full of malware. Many of these sites are in foreign countries, The largest majority appear to be originating from Asia, at least that’s as far as I wanted to track them.

These messages come from SPAMBOTS, they apparently scan for new blog entries and then post a comment. If you’re not paying attention you’ll approve the comment and potentially give the spammer distribution of their website address and god forbid one of your readers will click on the link and it’s a malware website.

These comments end up in my deletion queue immediately. But sometimes they’re funny.

Then there are the tons of email SPAM I get.

RevoIution – home business (Followed by a web address that appears to be hosted in Amsterdam.)

Learn how to turn successful at home (Associated with a website hosted in France)

Up to $2,500 NOW. Bad or NO Credit OK. (This one actually came from an American Website)

The BIGGEST Auto Clearance of 2012 Is On NOW.  LAST CHANCE To Save THOUSANDS! (This one comes from the same site)

Then there’s my ALL TIME favorite! This one sets off the Virus detection every single time!

From: UPS Information

Subject: Delivery information # Error ID3122

Usually in the preview you’ll see something like;

I did disapprove of your following me here, for you know that

This one is a malware /virus laden email that originates on a juno site apparently in Russia.

I get about 10 of these a week on an ancient yahoo mail account. What’s interesting about this one is the rambling text that’s embedded in the message. It looks like random clippings from some kind of story / literary website. 

I can only assume that it’s a method to evade the spam detection software many servers and email programs use.

Then there are the SPAM Faxes;

Crap1

Crap2

Tell me does anyone actually call these people? 

I’ve set my fax machine to route anything it doesn’t recognize to a directory on my server. That way I’m not wasting ink printing stuff that shouldn’t be coming in to my fax machine unsolicited.

For a while, I dutifully reported junk faxes to the appropriate government authorities, but the faxes kept coming in. After a while I concluded that either the government authorities couldn’t care less or… they were simply overwhelmed.  I tried setting up an auto forwarding to the proper government authorities but they told me that would be spamming them.

Now I purge junk email, and faxes about every 3 months. That’s is exactly what I’m doing today and why you have the “JOY” of this random sampling of crap.

Just remember… YOU Came to this blog, I didn’t send it to you!

As always be careful opening emails, and make sure that your anti-virus software is up to date.

Have a great day.

 


Apparently, the SPAMBOTS loved this blog post. Since it was published, there have been a 127 spam comments attached to this one post. Who’d have thought…