A City Screams in Terror!

James Lileks discusses Halloween and has some neat horror movie posters.

Healthier Fried Chicken?

Business Week examines KFC's decision to change its recipe to get rid of trans-fat. An excerpt:

And given the direction American food habits have been heading in, getting rid of trans-fats is just one issue in the obesity debate. After all, research from the NPD Group shows that Americans are eating more hamburgers, doughnuts, French fries, and fried chicken than ever before. Harry Balzer, a noted food researcher at NPD Group, says "fried chicken is the fastest-growing fast-food menu item in the last decade" (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/9/05, "Fat Times for Fast Food"). No wonder fast-food chains like Hardee's of CKE Restaurants (CKR) have introduced massive portions such as the Monster Thickburger (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/29/06, "Fast-Food Chains Buck the Healthy Trend").

Hitchens on Exits

Christopher Hitchens writes on indecent exit strategies in Iraq:

Many of those advocating withdrawal have been "war-weary" ever since the midafternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, when it was discovered that the source of jihadist violence was U.S. foreign policy—a mentality now reinforced by the recent National Intelligence Estimate circulated by our emasculated, demoralized, and incompetent intelligence services. To this way of thinking, victory is impossible by definition, because any response other than restraint is bound to inflame the militancy of the other side. Since the jihadists, by every available account, are also inflamed and encouraged by everything from passivity to Danish cartoons, this seems to shrink the arena of possible or even thinkable combat. (Nobody ever asks what would happen if the jihadists had to start worrying about the level of casualties they were enduring, or the credit they were losing by their tactics, or the number of enemies they were making among civilized people who were prepared to take up arms to stop them. Our own masochism makes this contingency an unlikely one in any case.)

Read the entire thing.

[HT: RealClearPolitics ]

Discretion Needed

Employers are checking out job applicants by running their names on Google...

and for a sizable number, that proves to be fatal.

[HT: newsvine ]

Creative Advertising

Via Neatorama, one of the Pedigree light dog food ads.

Carnival of Business

The Carnival of Business is up at Mine That Data.

Like the Carnival of Capitalists, it has a collection of posts on business, management, and financial topics.

Both Style and Honesty

Any professional team that apologizes for poor performance has scored a lot of points - sorry - in my book.

The above ad, which I learned about via Adfreak, was placed by the Golden State Warriors.

Quote of the Day

An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.

- The Duke of Wellington, following his first Cabinet meeting as prime minister

Economics and Then Some

Michael Barone talks to M&B about good news and a train wreck:

I was off the campaign trail for an interview late last week with Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman on the budget. He has good news and bad news. The good news is that the budget deficit has gone down far more than any model has predicted and seems headed to go down even further. The bad news is that in the longer term, we face a "train wreck" with rising spending on entitlements–Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Read the rest here.

Fresh from Thailand!

Actor and comedian Larry Miller was in a less than pricey restaurant when a special guest appeared on the Larry King Show.

A guest so special that now Mr. Miller wonders about our culture.

How He Started: Roger Angell

In an interview, Roger Angell talks about both his writing career and editing for The New Yorker.

An excerpt:

I first contributed fiction to the magazine in 1944, when I was in the Army. My first fact piece for The New Yorker, the following year, was about a Seventh Army Air Force bomber mission—I wasn’t on it, thank God—from Saipan to Iwo Jima, in which the plane, a B-24 bomber, was hit by flak and fighters. The guys on the plane were wounded, and the plane fell through the air eight hundred miles back to the Marianas, and broke in half on landing. Everybody survived. It was basically a story about eleven really terrified guys.

Success?

The executive had heard Randall, one of her peers, make some inappropriate comments of a sexual nature.

"It wasn't anything approaching a proposition," she told the Human Resources specialist. "I'd say it was more of a tasteless remark but I think someone should let him know that comments like that just aren't professional."

The HR specialist replied, "Well, I agree that it is pretty mild but it could fall under our anti-harassment policy. We'll launch an investigation."

"I don't want an investigation," the executive replied, "and I don't want Randall to get into trouble. If you drag me into an investigation, I'll resign."

"I'll check with my boss," the HR specialist muttered.

Upon getting the news, the HR director contacted the company's attorney who, thinking of cases in which employers failed to have a prompt investigation, advised, "Too bad about the executive's feelings. Go ahead and investigate it."

The HR director said to the HR specialist, "We have no choice. Investigate it."

The HR specialist launched the investigation and scheduled interviews with several of Randall's co-workers..

Two days later, the executive who'd surfaced the problem resigned.

The HR director and the attorney discussed the matter and agreed that they'd had no choice.

Were they correct?

When is a Curmudgeon Lovable?

What is the difference between a lovable curmudgeon and a cruel abuser?

I ask this because you can find some individuals who are cranky and hard to handle but are revered and others who are simply abusive and mean.

An example: Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked with a retired criminal investigator who was in charge of background investigations. He was a rough old guy who never hesitated to tell you, in words of one syllable, how he felt about various matters. He would get angry and stomp off but he always came back. As far as I know, we all liked him.

What distinguished him from the classic workplace weasel?

• He was blunt but never cruel.
• He didn't pull rank. He'd argue with all levels and he never kissed up to gain favor.
• He was tough but professional. The idea that he might tell inappropriate jokes or single someone out for harassment was unthinkable.
• He was fair. He applied the same standards to himself that he'd apply to anyone else.
• He was open to other opinions. If he felt your ideas had merit, he'd seriously consider them.
• He put the mission above himself.

No wonder we liked him.

Protect the Cardinals

St. Louis is ranked as the most dangerous city in the United States.

Check out its competitors.

[HT: Drudge Report ]

Diversity in Iraq

Economist and ethnic studies scholar Thomas Sowell sees the main problem in Iraq has been diversity without assimilation.

In short, the melting pot is better than the salad bowl.

Searching for Insult

If you've been in the workplace any sizable length of time, you have probably encountered people who search for insult.

They listen carefully for every intonation and word that might signal a slight and are eager to label others as insensitive or bigoted. Usually, they are not disappointed in their quest, if only because their benchmark is so delicately calculated, the innocent and well-meaning are lumped in with the malevolent.

My guess is they don't care if their dragnet is too wide. Their game is not about spotting danger or discourtesy but instead is designed to establish their own superiority and, yes, innocence.

Unfortunately, many of these bitter souls work in the diversity field. There are diversity programs that promote practical ways of managing a mixed workforce that can be truly beneficial.

The ones that are conducted by zealots who seek to find racism, sexism, and homophobia under the corporate bed will divide your workforce far more than unite it. I continue to be surprised how often such practitioners are invited to facilitate diversity sessions at major organizations. Perhaps they aren't the only ones suffering from guilt.

Quote of the Day

Don't let your sorrow come higher than your knees.

- Swedish proverb

7 Fast Tips on Files

1. If you can't find a file quickly, it is as good as gone. Eliminate files or make them easy to find. Keeping hard to find files only clogs up the filing system.
2. You don't lose things in fat files. It's when you become too clever and have minifiles that you begin to lose things.
3. Remember this variation of the 80/20 rule: 20 percent of your files are related to 80 percent of your projects. 80 percent of your files only relate to 20 percent of your projects. Why do you have them mixed in together? Set aside your hot files.
4. Beware of using both Word and WordPerfect. WordPerfect generously lists Word documents as well as its own. Word swinishly lists only Word documents. Unfortunately, since most people use Word, it has the advantage.
5. Devote at least 30 minutes a week to eliminating files or else the jungle will start to grow back.
6. Complete your email filing once a day. Don't let email messages pile up. Delete them, act upon them, or put them in files.
7. Ask associates not to copy you on emails unless your participation or review is absolutely necessary.

Old Blogger Trick

Blogger has been acting strange again today. I'm posting this to see if it drags some of my other posts along with it.

Old blogger trick. Sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

Stopping the Mullahs

Arthur Herman, writing in Commentary, believes there is a viable military option with regard to Iran and it involves going after their gasoline refineries.

Lighten Up Out There

A New York Times article - via Ann Althouse - on people who break up or never start relationships after learning the political views of the other person.

Wow. You mean they don't agree with me?

News flash: Your co-workers can be liberal, conservative, moderate, Democratic or Republican without being:

• Evil
• Greedy
• Ignorant
• Unsophisticated
• Poorly informed
• Unpatriotic
• Bigoted
• Warmongering
• [Fill in the blank]

Same Sex Marriage in New Jersey

Law professor David M. Wagner on the New Jersey same sex marriage decision.

The Man Who Didn't Shout

I once knew a supervisor who didn't shout.

He was polite and soft-spoken. He didn't rush to judgment and when he reached a decision, it was after carefully considering a wide range of alternatives.

He drove many of his associates nuts.

Why? Because they thought he had a hidden agenda. The deadline he gave couldn't be a real deadline, it must be a negotiable one, and the standards he set must be open to haggling.

His rationality was a problem for them. He sought calm, order, and accuracy. They wanted emotion, loose arrangements, and rough estimates.

Both sides, of course, needed to understand the other, but the associates had the greater burden. Their supervisor was not going to engage in emotional pyrotechnics. He would never explode in rage or be abusive. But he was going to be disappointed if they did not learn his low-key lexicon. If he said, "I really don't like that option," that was his equivalent of throwing a lamp across the room.

He didn't have a hidden agenda. He just had a different language.

Ads That Repel

We know about commercials and ads that don't attract customers but what is shocking is how many businesses pay for advertising that actually repels potential buyers.

Do law firms realize that the "actual client" testimonials in their television ads are made by people who look guilty as hell? [But perhaps that is the client base they hope to attract. "Hey, if those fast talkers can get that clown off, they should be able to get my drunk driving charges bounced."]

Do the car dealers who feature their most stereotypic sales men (for some reason, they're always men) ever consider that Mr. High Pressure shouting their bargains might not present the best image? And having some speed reader rapidly recite the reservations, caveats, and disclaimers only adds to the impression that you're going to be taken?

Do political campaign managers know that placing a smarmy candidate in a commercial with a phony script and a doting wife only increases the sleazoid sensation? [I often suspect many of the campaign managers subconsciously do so to save the nation from such creeps.]

Quote of the Day

The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

- Douglas Jerrold

Just How Reliable Are Laptops?

What's the difference between a Sony or IBM or Toshiba laptop computer and one made at Gateway when it comes to reliability?

According to a Consumer Reports study, not a whole lot.

Lose Weight, Save Money

Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight. That's the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage.

Using recent gas prices of $2.20 a gallon, that translates to about $2.2 billion more spent on gas each year.

"The bottom line is that our hunger for food and our hunger for oil are not independent. There is a relationship between the two," said University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson, a study co-author.

Read the rest here.

The Story That Doesn't Go Away

Neither prosecutor Mike Nifong nor any of his assistants have interviewed the accuser in the Duke lacrosse players rape case. They are relying solely on the police investigation.

Amazing.

[HT: Instapundit ]

Cyber-recruitment

Josh Manchester, writing in Tech Central Station, notes that the world is divided into two groups: the hunters and the hunted. An excerpt:

There are hundreds of websites featuring dozens of professionally produced videos of violence against US forces in Iraq. Dubbed with loud monotonal music for an extra creepy effect, at the point of the attack, the filmers usually erupt into cries of "Allahu akbar!"

The US might film its own missions for forensic or debriefing purposes sure, but that is a far cry from reveling in them. So what might motivate someone to be so twisted as to film and celebrate death?

One answer: recruitment.

Dalrymple on Crime

Theodore Dalrymple, in New Zealand for a meeting on crime, mentions some points that will surprise most of us:

But even if I had not been invited to New Zealand by the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I would have been alerted by reading the daily press to the existence of a dark side of New Zealand life: For every day there were stories of criminal brutality to which the official reaction seemed inadequate, or even casual.

On one day, a young man accused of murder made a vulgar and menacing gesture, in the very court in which he was being tried, to the sister of his alleged victim. Such a gesture could only have been indicative of the deepest possible contempt for the law, a contempt that was no doubt the fruit of long experience.

The day before, I had read of a young man who had attacked an old woman viciously, fracturing two of her facial bones and causing her other injuries from which it is unlikely that she will ever make a full physical or psychological recovery. For this, he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that New Zealand is a country in which young men may with impunity attack old ladies with a murderous intensity; indeed, the government might as well issue them with an invitation to do so.

Of course, terrible things have always been reported in newspapers, for the reason first that they are interesting and second that they have always happened. In this sense, there is nothing new under the sun. But the statistics, as well as daily experience, tell the same story: Despite New Zealand's relative prosperity, it has the doubtful honour of being among the most violent and crime-ridden societies in the West.

Boxers or Briefs?

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A Canadian city under pressure for alleged sexual harassment within its fire department has ordered firefighters to wear only boxer-style underwear.

Richmond, British Columbia, will spend $14,200 to buy six pairs of underwear for each firefighter in a bid to make firehalls in the suburb of Vancouver more gender neutral, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.


Read the rest here.

I have a feeling that changing the style of underwear may miss the main issue. It is similar to the old story about the wealthy man who came home one evening and discovered the maid and the butler making love on the sofa. The man was very upset. A week later, he came home unexpectedly and discovered his wife and his best friend making love on the sofa. He then decided to take action. He got rid of the sofa.

Justice Thomas Speaks

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has an interesting post on some candid comments by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Among them: He doesn't like aggressive and hurtful questioning by judges and has some nice things to say about briefs filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Must Reading

Late last night - very late due to my insomniac dog - I finished Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within.

It is not just a good book; it is an essential one if you want to understand what is happening in Europe. It also provides a great view of European anti-Americanism and how it thrived long before the Bush administration.

Bawer, who is gay and a liberal, writes a far more scathing indictment of the failure of Europe's leadership than anything I've seen from the Right.

The Tip

WaiterRant tells about a customer who left an unusual tip and then, something ethical happens!

Diva Update

Business Week looks at the reinvention of Martha Stewart:

Stewart, naturally, prefers not to talk about what the company would be like without her. At first, she will only express the hope that her name will have the longevity of Coco Chanel's or Walt Disney's. When pressed, she does say that "if I played a lesser role, the company could still do extremely well."At 65, though, she considers that prospect to be far off. She has no intention of pulling back her looming presence over the brand. She saw the damage that downplaying the Martha Stewart name caused for her company during "the legal problems," and she won't let that happen again. "I never agreed with that strategy because I believed in myself," says Stewart. The goal now is to take her brand as far as it will go and return her company to profitability (it hasn't made money since 2002 and in 2005 lost $76 million). "It's not like I'm an absentee founder, holed up in my château in France," she laughs. "I'm working every day."

Novels About Terrorism

Gerald Seymour gives his top five list of novels dealing with terrorism.

I'd add:

Harry's Game by Gerald Seymour

Quote of the Day

Reform always comes from below. No man with four aces asks for a new deal.

- The Irish Digest

Jargon Abuse

This CareerJournal article about people using corporate jargon at home is enough to make me scream:

When Michael Schiller, a management consultant, wanted to talk with his 15-year-old daughter about where she was going with her friends, he told her, "You have to recognize your ARAs and measure against them."

If my father had talked like that I might have recognized LSD and measured a rainbow.

His wife rolled her eyes, knowing that he was using HR speak to address accountability, responsibility and authority. His daughter, he says, "looked at me like I was from outer space."

That's because he is from outer space.

Sprawl Beyond Sprawl?

Joel Kotkin is high on suburbs and on America’s population growth:

Despite the desires of some new urbanists and "smart growth" activists to cram people into dense cities and regions, the America of 2050 — contrary to the contention of some demographers — also will likely be far more dispersed. A combination of new telecommunications technologies and rising land prices will accelerate the shift of population beyond the current suburban fringes and into the countryside. The demographer Wendell Cox calls this "sprawl beyond sprawl." It is driven by the simple fact, according to most recent surveys, that the vast majority of Americans — upward of 80% — still prefer single-family homes over apartments, while no more than 10% to 15% want to live near the central core.

Unless there is some sort of cultural revolution, most people, particularly families, are likely to continue migrating to places where they can acquire a spot of land and a little privacy. And despite the much ballyhooed "return to the city" by aging boomers, most experts suggest that most are either staying in the suburbs or moving to towns farther out in the hinterland. At least 30% of Americans, according to surveys by the National Association of Realtors and the Fannie Mae Foundation, express the desire to move to the country or a small environment, far more than live there now. The scale of this dispersion depends largely on urban governance. If cities cannot, due to economic or regulatory constraints, provide sufficient job opportunities, people and businesses naturally will flee elsewhere. Other factors, such as preserving family-friendly neighborhoods and stamping out a nascent resurgence in crime, will also be critical.

Light Amusement: Great Expectations

It's Friday. Time for some light humor.

A man and a woman eye one another in the lobby of a hotel:

Ignore the risque title. This is a brief and tasteful video about a rendezvous with a twist.

Bootlegging, Piracy, and Your Employees

Elizabeth W. Carroll, writing in the Oklahoma Employment Law Letter, on the dangers of employees downloading the property of others:

Employers are responsible for their employees' acts through a doctrine known as vicarious liability. In the same way that you might be responsible if your company truck driver slammed into the back of an unsuspecting bus full of children, you can be responsible if your mail clerk sits down at the computer and downloads bootleg copies of Pirates of the Caribbean.

"Quickie Time Tracking"

The cliche is correct: The simplest concepts are often the best.

From Work, in Plain English, "Quickie Time Tracking."

A very simple way to see how much remaining time you have on projects.

[HT: Political Calculations ]

Boo

Let’s say that your business is putting together “haunted houses” for the Halloween season and you need to know what will scare your customers. You’d do research, right?

Although the polling process did not adhere to scientific standards, Haskell, who lives in Brooklyn and is most scared of getting stuck in a cave, and Smithyman, an Englishman, who is afraid of being eaten alive, had ventured to draw a few conclusions. People from the Bronx and Queens, they said, tend to fear things that might actually happen, like being mugged (harpaxophobia), while Manhattanites are frightened of fantastical and unlikely occurrences (flying sharks, riding in an elevator that rockets through the roof of a building). “In Manhattan and Brooklyn, we heard ‘fear of the homeless,’ ” Smithyman said. “Then, in the Bronx, we heard ‘fear of becoming homeless.’ ” Staten Island residents apparently dread chemical spills and gas leaks.

Read the entire article from The New Yorker here.

Three Unspoken Interview Questions

The three unspoken questions of every job interview:

Can I trust this person?

How will this person fit in with my team?

Will this person embarrass me?

Token Support?

The controversy over whether German and French troops in Afghanistan are avoiding action in the more dangerous parts of the country is growing...and getting notice even in Germany.

British, Dutch, U.S., and Canadian forces are bearing more of the combat burden.

Quote of the Day

The nature of every bureaucracy is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them.

- Hannah Arendt

Oasis: Low Cost Flights

An airline that offers flights from Hong Kong to London for $128.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Many books on food and diet are boring. Reason examines one with an intriguing difference:

As any TV news junkie could tell you, American food is a world in disarray. We're fat, sick, and sick of being fat, thanks to partially hydrogenated soybean oil, hormone-laden beef, and pesticide-coated cauliflower. Every local news station runs a weekly horrifying food-related exposé—some true, some false, all accompanied by a B-roll of big bellies. And when our food isn't a threat to us, we're a threat to our food: Chickens and cows, we're told, are being mistreated nationwide. The proposed solutions run the gamut from big government to huge government: new labeling requirements, bans on trans fats and soda machines in schools, lawsuits against McDonald's.

In the midst of all the chaos sits Michael Pollan, calmly nibbling a piece of homemade boar prosciutto and ruminating, "Let them eat cake made with unbleached organic flour and fresh butter from the local creamery." Pollan is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, an irritatingly excellent book. The reporting is illuminating, the writing is clear and swift, and I'm furious at myself for not having thought of the concept first. In this "Natural History of Four Meals," Pollan traces the ingredients of four meals from field to table: an industrial fast food lunch at McDonald's, a "big organic" winter supper from Whole Foods, a "local" dinner from a small farm in Virginia, and a final meal that he hunts, gathers, and cooks himself.

Meathead

The top Muslim cleric in Australia is catching well-deserved criticism after providing an unusual spiritual message:

In a sermon marking the end of Ramadan, Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilali told worshippers in Sydney that women who display their bodies were like "uncovered meat". He said that women should stay hidden at home, or wear the hijab, or Islamic scarf, in public.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park ... and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it?

"The cats or the uncovered meat?"

[Note: See the prior post on The Dark Ages.]