The NRA is pulling out of its plans to host their 2007 convention in Columbus, Ohio after the Columbus City Council enacted a ban on assult rifles. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said,

Hundreds of exhibitors will not fill your halls with the latest guns, outdoor gear and hunting accessories.

Wayne, remind me again why that’s bad…

It’s a widely held opinion in my line of work that people who work in Human Resources are dumb. With the exception of our friend who is “chewin’ bubblegum” in Maine, my experience has supported this opinion. Also suspect are the people that hire HR staff. From what I’ve seen, high hair trumps high IQ.

Exhibit A
At the organization where I work, our HR department consists of one person. And she’s a moron. Today she asked me a question about a program she uses because, as she said, “I heard you’re good at like computers and stuff.” Bear in mind that this program (ADP) is a payroll and administration application, so it’s designed for users that are not expected to be tech-savvy. Oh, and she’s the only person that uses it. Here’s our conversation verbatim (or as close to it as I can recall):

Her: “When I run the annual staff report in ADP it doesn’t show the new titles of the people who have been recently promoted; it still shows their old titles. Why?”
Me: “When did you change their titles in ADP?”
Her: “Do I actually have to do that?”
Me: “That is your job.”
Her: “I don’t mean keep track of that stuff, I mean enter it into ADP.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure that’s how you’re supposed to ‘keep track‘ of that data. How did you think it was going to get in there?”
Her: “I thought it would just know.”

Exhibit B
At a prior job, the director of HR mistakenly sent out an email to the entire staff of the company with this subject line:
“CONFIDENTIAL – Staff salaries, stock options, and bonuses”
It contained precisely that, plus social security numbers and birthdays. Everyone from the janitor to the CEO was on there. About an hour later she sent a followup:
“Please delete my previous CONFIDENTIAL email immediately!”
Idiot. That’s like putting yellow police tape around it. So for those few that hadn’t looked at the email by then, they did now. In more ways than one it was obvious that she was vastly overpaid. Ironically, she got a promotion a few weeks later. Justice prevailed a few months after that when the company folded.

Exhibit C
An acquaintance of mine is in the HR field. As diplomatically as possible I asked her if she was aware of the reputation her field has, and elicited her thoughts on the matter.
Her: “There is a perception that the job we do is not particularly difficult.”
Me: “Is it?”
Her (giggling): “No.”

Anyone else have other examples (or counterexamples, but the former are more fun to read)?

I just added a Recent Comments section on the sidebar. This should make it easier to see if there are any new comments without having to check each post, and remember how many comments the post previously had. It’s currently set to display links to the five most recent comments. That’s a value that’s easily changed, so if you find it’s too many or too few, let me know, and I’ll ignore you.

From here:

The Pee Goal consists of a green base, goal post and a little football on a string. Take aim, shoot and see if you can score a goal.

Minature drunken hooligans not included.

ReadyMade has instructions on building a chia-couch.

Even though they’re not technically selling it, they are promoting it deceptively. It doesn’t come with, nor attract, hot chicks. In reality, it will be inhabited by gophers and periodically adorned with steaming dogpiles.

Google Maps added a feature where you could seamlessly switch to a satellite view of the map that you’re looking at. Looking at my old digs in Foggy Bottom, I noticed that there were several intentionally obscured areas:

• White House, Old Executive Bldg, Treasury Dept.
• Capitol Hill – Capitol Bldg, Senate office bldgs, but not Library of Congress or Supreme Court. They used the Japanese vaj method of obscurity here.
• Pentagon was strangely left unadulterated. Guess they don’t keep their SAM launchers on the roof.

I’m curious if there are examples of this in other cities.

There’s an event going on in NYC that’s a city-wide watergun assasination tournament called StreetWars.

At the start of the game you will receive a manila envelope containing the following:

• A picture of your intended target(s)
• The home address of your intended target(s)
• The work address of your intended target(s)
• The name of your intended target(s)
• Contact information of your intended target(s)

Upon receipt of these items, your (or your team’s) mission is to find and kill (by way of water gun, water balloon or super soaker) your target(s).

You can hunt your target down any way you see fit; you can pose as a delivery person and jack them when they open the door, disguise yourself and take them out on the street, etc.

If you are successful in your assassination attempt, the person you killed will give you their envelope and the person they were supposed to kill becomes your new target. This continues until you work yourself through all the players and retrieve the envelope with your (or your team’s) picture(s) and name(s). Then you win. Cash…but first live in fear.

This is highly recommended for people who feel they have insufficient stress in their lives.

This is just like the Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates burbclave in Snow Crash… but far lower-tech.

A group called Christian Exodus is calling out to conservative Christians across the country to move to South Carolina. There, they will concentrate their rectitude and political power and secede from the US.

I have only one question…

What can I do to help?

They call themselves conservative, but a little perspective is warranted here. The group has a:

distrust of President Bush — they believe he’s been soft on abortion and homosexuality