Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Workers’ job skills criticized in report: Those hired at entry level found to be unprepared:

Written communications ranked highest of all deficiencies among new employees. More than 80% of the respondents said the high school graduates they hired had insufficient writing skills, compared with 47% for two-year and technical college graduates and 28% for four-year college grads.

About 70% of the employers found recently hired high school graduates lacking in personal accountability and effective work habits, including punctuality, time management and being able to work productively with others. At the same time, the HR executives said they’re seeking higher skills in foreign languages, creativity and problem solving.

It’s imperative that we raise the minimum wage because it’s inhumane to…. aw, I cannot even fake a good snarky rejoinder. Somehow, though, it always comes out sounding From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check your number and dial again:

Since June, area Muslims have become increasingly uncomfortable and even fearful not because of overt attacks or threats against them, but because a sequence of incidents have built upon each other to form an intense, low-grade foreboding.

Beginning with the monthlong Israel-Hezbollah conflict through Pope Benedict XVI’s inflammatory lecture last month, American Muslims say they feel more uneasy in their own country. Local incidents, including the August screening of a controversial anti-terrorism movie and an FBI raid on the home of a Muslim in Columbia, Mo., have heightened the anxiety, according to dozens of St. Louis Muslims interviewed over the last few weeks.

“Muslims are feeling like the world is closing in on them,” said Orvin T. Kimbrough, executive director of the Interfaith Partnership of Metropolitan St. Louis. “They feel like they’re being targeted.”

When our leaders call for your extermination and members of the population start killing you for being Muslims, call us back.

Until then, forebode quietly like the rest of us.

Cue the violins: 16 horses killed in trailer crash on I-44.

The grisly toll:

Officials say 26 of the 42 horses in trailer survived but nine had to be put down and the other seven died at the scene of the accident.

The authorities are taking heroic measures to save the survivors:

The surviving horses were taken to an arena at the St. Clair Saddle Club, where veterinary personnel were working on them. The highway was reopened to traffic about 11 a.m.

Cole said she did not know what would happen to the horses that survived. She was looking for places for them to stay until their status is cleared up.

“The Highway Patrol made them our responsibility,” she said. “The Humane Society is footing the bill for all of this. We are looking into the legalities as we go along.”

The bureaucracy and its attendant veterinarians are no doubt working through the night to make sure the survivors are healthy and can continue on their journey.

The horses were on their way to Cavel International Inc., a horse processing plant in DeKalb, Ill., authorities said. In a statement today, Cavel said even though the horses were bound for the slaughterhouse, “where they would have been euthanized under the supervision of federal inspectors and USDA veterinarians,” the horses belong to the horse trader who bought them until they reach the plant.

That’s right: these horses are being healed so that they’ll reach the slaughterhouse in prime shape.

Michael J. Fox to host McCaskill fundraiser:

Michael J. Fox will be in St. Louis next week to host a fundraiser for Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill.

Well, he is an actor, and so his political thinking skills were suspect from the start.

Apparently, some people are still seizing the air, feeling it, et cetera. How quaint; pirate radio stations when all the cool kids have podcasts.

The CDC recommends regular AIDS testing for people 13-64.

Federal health officials Thursday recommended regular, routine testing for the AIDS virus for all Americans ages 13 to 64, saying an HIV test should be as common as a cholesterol check.

Because you’re just as likely on any given day to eat eggs and cheeseburgers as you are to have sex with an intravenous drug-using homosexuals who trades sex for drugs.

Oh, right, like I’m the only one who tosses that coin every morning.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells another heartwarming story of someone with a personal preference who would probably not mind government enforcement of his preference. This time, it’s car restraining systems for pets:

Since then, Rodriquez has beome an advocate for having all dogs in cars secured in the back with safety restraints.

Ad absurdum used to be a logical fallacy. Now, it’s standard operating procedure.

Hasbro is using brand name products for token in its new Monopoly Here and Now game:

Five of the eight tokens in the new Monopoly Here and Now edition will be branded, offering players the chance to be represented by miniature versions of a Toyota Prius hybrid car, an order of McDonald’s french fries, a New Balance running shoe, a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Motorola Razr cell phone.

Hasbro Games senior vice president for marketing Mark Blecher assures us:

Hasbro chose not to brand all the new tokens, Blecher said, to minimize concerns that the new edition would be too commercialized.

Apparently, in Blecher’s world, 62.5% commercialized is acceptable, whereas 62.6% is not. However, as I am in marketing myself (obliquely), allow me to translate what Blecher really means:

Hasbro chose not to brand all the new tokens because it couldn’t find cross-promotional deals with an airline, a dog breeder, and a computer maker.

Mandating $15 ID to vote, restoring some measure of faith and legitimacy to elections by making it harder to vote fraudlently? Bad.

Ordering citizens who would procreate (nowadays, that’s Republicans and the poor) to add a $49.99 (minimum) booster seat after the mandated $99.99 (minimum) infant car seat and the mandated $99.99 (minimum) toddler car seat on the off chance that the child will be in an automobile crash? Good.

Someone call me and ask me if I have faith in my government so I can add a couple hundredths of a percentage point to an inconvenient poll that our venal government betters will ignore.

D.C. man charged with stealing desktop with info on thousands:

Authorities have charged a 21-year-old Unisys Corp. subcontractor with stealing a desktop computer with billing information on as many as 38,000 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical patients.

Khalil Abdulla-Raheem of Washington was charged Wednesday with theft of government property. He is the employee of an unnamed company that “provides temporary labor to Unisys,” according to a statement released by the VA’s Office of Inspector General.

The computer was stolen in late July from Unisys’ Reston, Va., offices. It contained records on about 16,000 living patients who had received treatment at VA medical centers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well has information on another 2,000 who are deceased. Data on an additional 20,000 patients may have been stored on the computer, according to the VA.

The VA said these records may have contained Social Security numbers, addresses and insurance information. The FBI is analyzing the computer to determine whether the information was compromised, but investigators do not believe that Abdulla-Raheem was after the VA data.

Still, forgive us our sensitivity to fellows with Arabic names. No, probably, we won’t be forgiven; instead, we’ll be told to pay no attention to criminals of a certain faith.