Politics, Thumb Wound, Gaming Updates, Organisational Quality

[tcpip]

It's been an interesting week in anglophone politics. Jeremy Cobryn was elected leader of the British Labour Party with almost 60% of the vote, a conclusive mandate in anyone's language. Whilst conservatives are having an aneurysm, a further 30,000 people have joined since his win. Meanwhile on the other side of the Big Pond, Bernie Sanders continues to go from strength to strength - one speech that really caught my attention was to Liberty 'University', a conservative religious institution where he emphasized the morality of economic justice. Finally in Australia the ultra-conservative and deeply unpopular Prime Minister Tony Abbott was overthrown in a party-room coup by the more liberal Malcolm Turnbull, who nevertheless has committed to existing policies.

On a completely unrelated personal note, last weekend I hit my thumb and broke the skin under nail causing some bleeding. A day later it was clear that it was infected. The day after that I was at the doctor's who prescribed some antibiotics. Alas, the infection continued and my thumb swelled, creating something like a felon infection. It was quite painful to say the least with significant pressure; not as bad a root canal, but lasting longer, and getting worse. So it was back to the doctor who promptly drained the wound by piercing the thumbnail and wound entrance with a paperclip heated by a lighter. Such are the wonders of modern technology.

On the gaming side of the week, I've reached level 15 in Ingress and will make 16, the top level, in a couple of weeks at the current rate. Thursday night was our regular Laundry files game, finally finished dealing with Deep Ones in the Bass Strait and the escaped Shoggoths. An order was also received to purchase my entire Torg collection, a game which I quite liked but really wasn't using, and that was shipped today. Also had a number of reviews published on rpg.net this week, previously from RPG Review; RuneQuest Pirates, Pirates of the Vistula, En Garde!, 7th Sea Players Guide and Game Masters Guide, Freiburg, and Freeport.

Finally, in some work-related news I've resigned my position as Quality Management Coordinator, one of the many hats I wear. I was going to run an internal audit this week, but the managers weren't interested which is consistent with their behaviour in the past year of ignoring reports of various standard breaches and improvement requests. I was particularly frustrated by this in a business sense, because the empirical evidence is utterly overwhelming that continuous improvement, controlled documentation, procedural transparency, etc, are the foundation of success over ad-hoc decision making which perhaps counter-intuitively, is more time consuming. I foresee naught by doom and gloom as a result of this disengagement of the QA process. Resignation was indeed a very appropriate word choice.

Comments

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

And in my little podunk backwoods part of the South, Alabama schools are now finally required to teach evolution and climate change. They finally relented because they realized that this "science" stuff might be important to children who might go to college or have plans for science-related fields.

They also didn't ban marriage licenses for everyone, just because The Gays could get them.

Patricia Todd (only gay member of the state Lege) has threatened to expose her fellow lawmaker's affairs if they don't quit with the anti-gay stuff. I hope she does.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

> Alabama schools are now finally required to teach evolution and climate change

I heard about that! It used to amaze me when I encountered people from that part of the world who were in university and were learning about evolution for the first time...

> I hope she does.

It's not so much outing of their affairs, but an outing of their hypocrisy.

Also, just so I don't get my sense of perspective completely broken... What's your sense of the presidential campaign so far? Will the lunacy of Trump defeat Bush etc? Would Americans vote for a socialist Jew named Sanders?

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

I...have no idea what's going to happen. But both sides are so sick of mainstream politicians that I'm starting to wonder if we won't wind up with Trump vs. Sanders. I thought I was the only person who couldn't stomach voting for Hillary Clinton just so the R's didn't get in office. Sanders is playing to the youth vote hard, and it might work-youth voting went up last election and Obama was re-elected.

I literally would not count anything out this election, from blatant fraud to Trump punching someone. It's WWE politics now, hold on.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

> I'm starting to wonder if we won't wind up with Trump vs. Sanders

That's exactly what I am expecting.

The issue with the Republicans is that they have relied so heavily on the wingnut right as an activist base that the lunatics have now taken over the asylum.

Something I have been watching carefully over the past several years is the demographic changes. US politics seems so heavily based on race-driven politics (rather than class) that if it is pitched at this level - and Trump certainly does this - that a loss is almost ensured.

This is an article which I've held onto for years... I am yet to be convinced that it is fundamentally incorrect.

http://nymag.com/news/features/gop-primary-chait-2012-3/

> Sanders is playing to the youth vote hard, and it might work-youth voting went up last election and Obama was re-elected.

That's a very interesting an important point in a voluntary voting environment.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

You know, I said the bit about Trump punching someone halfway joking. But the husband just told me that one of Rand Paul's aides said that one of Rubio's aides punched him in a bar after the debates.

...Holy shit!