Be humble

It just occurred to me that Maine is the only single syllable state.

Robots.txt protocol
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The robots exclusion standard or robots.txt protocol is a convention to prevent well-behaved web spiders and other web robots from accessing all or part of a website. The information specifying the parts that should not be accessed is specified in a file called robots.txt in the home directory of the website.

The robots.txt protocol is purely advisory, and relies on the cooperation of the web robot, so that marking an area of your site out of bounds with robots.txt does not guarantee privacy. Many web site administrators have been caught out trying to use robots file to make private parts of a website invisible to the rest of the world. However the file is necessarily publicly available and is easily checked by anyone with a web browser.

The robots.txt patterns are matched by simple substring comparisons, so care should be taken to make sure that patterns matching directories have the final ‘/’ character appended: otherwise all files with names starting with that substring will match, rather than just those in the directory intended.

There is also a convention for HTML meta tags that may be used to exclude robots according to the contents of web pages. Again, this is purely advisory, and also relies on the cooperation of the robot programs.

Firstly, YELLING LOUDLY this is not an anti-Catholic muse.  It is, rather, an honest appeal for understanding.  Yesterday, a colleague who is a self-described practicing Catholic was competing for an account.  He got the business.  When informed of his success, he commented, “well, that is going to cost me.”

When I asked him why that was he told me that he had made a deal with God, that if he got the account he would sponsor two more starving African children.  I was appalled at the thought of brokering a deal with God (tho some underwriters do refer to me as the broker from Hell).

It occurs to me that my ignorance of the Catholic faith may be colouring my judgement.  Perhaps this is an accepted procedure and being an open minded and humble lad, I should not be offended.

I confess (pun intended) that I find the whole idea of making deals with God somewhat unseemly.  Can someone set me straight?

I have spent 40 years in the work place.  Most of this time has been spent as an employee and a lesser part of my career has been spent as an employer.  One of the fundamentals of business that I have lived by, is total (and sometime brutal and unpleasant) honesty.  If an employee of my company wants to be immediately fired, lie to me or one of our customers.  In my role as an employee, I have always anticipated immediate dismissal if I lied to my employer or one of my employers customers. 

Thus the question that is bothering me; who is the employer and customer of government bureaucrats?  In a perfect world, bureaucrats are employed by the taxpayer - and at the same time the taxpayer would seem to be the customer.  After all, at least in the Federal arena, they are called public servants.  Add to the mix - the worthy politician.  What is the politician’s role as it relates to the bureaucrat?  Is the politician a customer too? Is the politician an employer?  Does the Politician have any roll?>

Locke seem to be saying they can’t be fired.  How can this be?.  ::hb::

If a bureaucrat is caught in a bold dishonest statement - made both to the politician and the taxpayer, and presuming there is agreement to my suggested policy of honesty, how do we fire the bureaucrat?  Should the taxpayer have a roll in firing the dishonest bureaucrat?

By the way - when I say fire, I mean it.  Not a transfer to another area which is out of the public eye - I mean a total dismissal for the bureaucratic gravy train - including baring receiving any ‘distance removed’ relationship.

I am in such a pissy mood it is best not to put anything here tonight.

People who know me and my colleagues and friends often hear us musing about the explosion of mp3 music files and the implications to the music industry.  Micro billing, the holy grail of on-line shopping has yet to come - but when it does, hold on Sony!

Kalsay Consulting has commented on this subject and point to one of their clients who is giving away their music.  It makes perfect sense. 

Poor beer - most of what the LCC sells.
Fine beer - some of the selections at the H&T
Excellent Beer - made in a certain basement in New Glasgow

Then again, a contributor to this blog points out that like all things in life, beer should be studied carefully.

Below is an actual letter sent to a bank. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the New York Times:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire salary, an arrangement which, I admit, has only been in place for eight years.  You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.  My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.

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Consider:

If you were an overbearing, obnoxious, loud, opinionated boor who totally lacked empathy, unlike people around you, you could not get up and leave.
Consider what that must do to the head.

Can someone puuuleze explain to me why Canadians (including those articulate talking hair styles on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) insist on pronouncing NASA as NASSAU?