Pet Peeves

In no particular order, I present to you my pet peeves, themes that may repeat themselves in this blog:

1. Inconsistency. Are you pro-life and pro-death penalty? How can this be? Are you pro-choice but anti-death penalty? So I guess its only innocent life you wish to see killed. Inconsistency, wherever it can be found, should be surfaced and evaluated. Sometimes, there is a case for inconsistency. But these cases are rare.

2. The Press. I don't want to be one of those ranting bloggers who denigrates the Mainstream Media (MSM), but I do have a particular problem with one aspect of the press...when it covers itself. The orgy of sympathy to accompany the death of Tim Russert (good guy, but c'mon, was all that necessary?), and the Washington Post's front page coverage of the retirement of its own editor....these offenses are worth pointing out.

3. Don Imus. No, not because of his celebrated on-air miscues. Because he is a pompous, all hat no cattle wannabe cowboy jerk.

4. Reality TV. I simply cannot abide by it.

5. Coffee served in clear glass mugs.

6. Annual stories in the press that attempt to: 1) show that women make 70 cents on the dollar compared to men and 2) what a stay-at-home mom is worth in the marketplace. These old saws have been well fillet-ed elsewhere, so I'll just say they are invariably stupid and annoying.

7. Tax policy that "gets the rich to pay their fair share". The rich do pay their fair share; in fact, they pay a ridiculously disproportionate share.

8. Banal conversation with strangers. I'm a bit of a curmudgeon (ask my family). If you come across me in a train station, airport, doctor's office, metro car, or any other place where it is generally good form to quietly attend to your own business, you will find me doing just this. I am socially gregarious, but usually where I know my interlocutors. Almost as bad as being dragged into banal conversation with a stranger is being trapped (like in a metro car) with two strangers who enjoy banal conversation, and who have just now discovered each other's existence.

9. Anthony Kennedy and David Souter. The other seven justices are OK by me; we got what we expected out of them when they were nominated. Kennedy and Souter are different. With Souter, George Bush the Elder turned to someone with no baggage and he got a pig in a poke. Kennedy on the other hand, has decided that from his position on the court of last resort, he will look at every case that comes to him on its own merits, and devise law as he sees fit. I'm still seething over the extension of habeas corpus rights to the vermin in Guantanamo.

10. Corporate Human Resources offices. I have been trolling for employment lately, spending a good bit of time interacting with HR types. A greater group of no-talent mouth-breathers I have never seen. Staffed largely with folks who can't cut it in profit/loss capacities, these folks have such a strangle-hold on the process that the line types simply sit back and shake their heads. Don't complain though, because the folks in HR are the MASTERS of grievances and petty responses to your complaints. Someone ought to get these folks under heel.

Ok. There are more, but this should be enough to chew on for now.