The Thanksgiving Non Surprise

There's bad weather this Thanksgiving. Its' all over the news. It is not like it happens all the time.

Oh, wait, it does.

Every year at Thanksgiving there is bad weather which fucks up traffic and flights all over the country. There are stories all over the news with reporters standing out in the cold, the rain and snow all to prove that winter is indeed snowy and as luck would have it, it effects travel.

Shocking.

The news should all agree to not report the bad weather in such doomsday terms. The would be allowed to run a weather story on Thanksgiving only if the conditions are awesome and beautiful. Something along the lines of, "It's a bright sunny day on Thanksgiving. The air is crisp and travel is going to be smooth." To report that there is bad weather in winter is just lame.

If the holiday were moved to April or May these yearly problems would not happen. Isn't thanksgiving a holiday to celebrate the pilgrims surviving a bad winter? Wouldn't it make sense to have it after winter and not during the beginning or middle?

I should start a petition for the change of Thanksgiving to a time when it's easy to travel.

Smoke and Vapor

The E cigarette thing is odd. Every time I see someone with an e cigarette or vapor cigarette, they seem to have this attitude. There is something that comes off them that is defiant. If you said you couldn't smoke one someplace I think they would immediately say that they "aren't smoking. It's water vapor."

The way it is held is odd too. It's more like a small flute they are ashamed to be carrying around than a cigarette. It seems they are trying to hide it so there isn't a confrontation, but they are defensive.

I don't know if the health consequences are lessened by vapor as opposed to smoke, but nicotine is not a good thing to be sucking on. I don't think it actually helps people who smoke quit smoking. It seems just to be a transition of addictions. Don't you get more nicotine this way? Without the cancer causing smoke?

It will be interesting to see what happens with laws regarding this smoking technology. Is it really a civil liberties thing? We let people kill themselves in lots of ways. Why restrict a new one?

Humans are curious things...

A 40 Hour Work Week... For Congress.

Most people think Congress sucks. And it kind of does. They spend more time raising money for the next campaign and having dueling press conferences than they do in Washington DC doing things to make the country better. No wonder herpes has a higher rating in most polls.

An average Senator and Representative make $174,000 a year.

But they only work a limited number of days. The Senate had 132 working days this year. The House had 147 days. Your average working Joe has a potential of about 261 minus holidays, so maybe 256. That's without taking any vacation time.

So an 8 hour day of work in 256 days is 2048 hours.
The Senate had 1056 hours if you figure an 8 hour day.
The House had 1176 hours with an 8 hour day.
So basically Congress is getting paid a huge salary to work half the days most everyone else in the USA does. 

But then there's the salary. $174,000.
Again figuring an 8 hour day, the Senate is paying $164.77 an hour.
The House is paying $147.96 an hour.
If they kept the same salary but worked 256 days, the hourly rate is $84.96. Still a huge amount for an hours work.
If that $84.96 were the base line for their hourly rate, and Congress got paid by the hour, the days and hours they worked this year would earn them much less. $99912.96 in the Senate and $89,717.76 in the House.

Basically make the Congress work for an hourly wage with the promise of making $174,000 if they work a 40 hour week. I bet they would work on weekends for the time and a half, and they might even unionize to get better conditions.If they worked that many hours, some things might get done. Laws might get passed. Roads, education, immigration, healthcare, all the things stalled in the Congress might improve.

Not gonna happen, but some interesting, albeit depressing, math.