Monday, November 11, 2013
What big projects has the government ever done well?
What big projects has the government ever done well? And in less time than ObamaCare had for their website? Here are four well-chosen examples – well-executed despite having huge bureaucracies associated with them. Of course, these “projects” had, like real leaders associated with them...
Yay, IRS...
Yay, IRS... Just think: the ObamaCare bureaucracy will be hundreds of times bigger than the IRS. From Reason's Hit & Run blog. The lede:
Here's the good news: the Internal Revenue Service believes it's not handing out quite so many billions of dollars to identity thieves as it used to. Yay, IRS. Your government at work: hectoring you about your supposed obligation (and even delight!) to cough up the goods to Uncle Sam while handing out free money to con artists. And the feds are still doing their best to prove that crime does pay. The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says the latest figures have the IRS paying out $3.6 billion in bogus tax refunds in 2011.Oh, goody. Every time I mentally estimate the federal bureaucracy's impact on my future healthcare ... I start wondering what other options I have for a place to live...
Mark Steyn's 2001 Veteran's Day essay...
Mark Steyn's 2001 Veteran's Day essay... It's an excellent piece that I'd not seen before, as I didn't know about Mark Steyn in 2001. Here's a sample:
Actually, most Americans are already "aware" of their veterans, it's the elites who need reminding — like the chaps at The New York Times and other big papers who carry (by my estimation) less than a tenth of the military obituaries Britain's Daily Telegraph does. True, NBC's star anchor, Tom Brokaw, has found himself a lucrative franchise cranking out books about "The Greatest Generation" — the World War Two generation — but Brokaw's designation is absurd and essentially self-serving. The youthful Americans who went off to war 60 years ago would have thought it ridiculous to be hailed as "the greatest". They were unexceptional: they did no more or less than their own parents and grandparents had done. Like young men across the world, they accepted soldiering as an obligation of citizenship, as men have for centuries. In 1941, it would have astonished them to be told they would be the last generation to respect that basic social compact.
They understood that there are moments in a nation's history when even being a teenager is about standing up and declaring who you are by wearing a uniform. When we — their children and grandchildren — ennoble them as "the greatest" and elevate them into something extraordinary, it's a reflection mainly of our own stunted perspective.
The Montana ranchers wanted to see this for themselves!
The Montana ranchers wanted to see this for themselves! Via my mom:
Nancy Pelosi called Harry Reid into her office one day and said, "Harry, I have a plan to win back Middle America in 2014!"I think this is actually quite unrealistic. There's no way those ranchers would have missed the real meaning...
"Great Nancy, but how?" asked Harry.
"We'll get some cheesy clothes and shoes, like most Middle Class Americans wear, then stop at the pound and pick up a Labrador retriever. Then, we'll go to a nice old country bar in Montana and show them how much admiration and respect we have for the hard working people living there."
So they did, and found just the place they were looking for in Bozeman, Montana with the dog in tow, they walked inside and stepped up to the bar.
The Bartender took a step back and said, "Hey! Aren't you Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi?"
"Yes we are!" said Nancy, "And what a lovely town you have here. We were passing through and Harry suggested we stop and take in some local color."
They ordered a round of bourbon for the whole bar, and started chatting up a storm with anyone who would listen. A few minutes later, a grizzled old rancher came in, walked up to the Labrador, lifted up its tail, looked underneath, shrugged his shoulders and walked out.
A few moments later, in came another old rancher. He walked up to the dog, lifted up its tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and left the bar.
For the next hour, another dozen ranchers came in, lifted the dog's tail, and left shaking their heads.
Finally, Nancy asked, "Why did all those old ranchers come in and look under the dog's tail? Is it some sort of custom?"
"Lord no," said the bartender. "Someone's out there running around town, claiming there's a Labrador Retriever in here with two assholes!".
A disabled Iraq war veteran needs a suitable home...
A disabled Iraq war veteran needs a suitable home – his town provides...
Life with animals...
Life with animals... So this morning I was doing all my morning “animal chores”. There are quite a few, and I'm on my own (Debbie is in Indiana helping care for her mom, who is recovering from a fall and broken leg). We have an ancient cat that needs special care, nine other cats (some of whom also need some special care), four dogs that need walking and attention, and the hummingbirds that we feed.
As I was mixing up another batch of “hummingbird juice syrup” (concentrated sugar syrup with a little color), I heard a sound out in our hallway. It's a sound that any cat owner knows well: that special “pre-retching” sound that immediately precedes the forcible, high-velocity ejection of either a hairball or a partially-digested meal (cats do this a lot for some reason). I knew I had only seconds to act, and that the best I could hope to do was to move the cat to an easy-to-clean surface before the mess erupted.
So I ran into the next room, and quickly located the cat. It was Maka Lea, our sweet little guy with psycho-motor problems, who has no idea he's handicapped. But that's not why I located him quickly. What gave him away was the four dogs. All four muzzles were within an inch of Maka Lea's mouth. The four dogs and one cat were arranged in a perfect five-pointed star, all heads at the center. Doggie tails were wagging, and doggie faces were excited about the “treat” they knew was immediately forthcoming.
Sure enough, before I could get there, Maka Lea blew chunks (of the partially-digested cat food variety) at high velocity. Very little of this hit the ground – four attentive dogs with their amazing tongues and gaping maws made a very efficient and hyperactive collection system. What few tiny particles escaped and hit the carpet were soon dispatched by multiple passes of eager canine tongues. The dogs' initial expressions of pleasure and satisfaction soon turned to disappointment, when they figured out that their warm food dispenser was empty.
Maka Lea walked (to the extent that his form of locomotion can be called “walking” – it's really more like wobbling) to the water fountain and had himself a nice drink. He looked quite happy, even pleased with himself. The four dogs headed back to their doggie beds, happy for the unexpected treat, but disappointed that there wasn't more.
I can't even find the spot on the carpet where this happened...
As I was mixing up another batch of “hummingbird juice syrup” (concentrated sugar syrup with a little color), I heard a sound out in our hallway. It's a sound that any cat owner knows well: that special “pre-retching” sound that immediately precedes the forcible, high-velocity ejection of either a hairball or a partially-digested meal (cats do this a lot for some reason). I knew I had only seconds to act, and that the best I could hope to do was to move the cat to an easy-to-clean surface before the mess erupted.
So I ran into the next room, and quickly located the cat. It was Maka Lea, our sweet little guy with psycho-motor problems, who has no idea he's handicapped. But that's not why I located him quickly. What gave him away was the four dogs. All four muzzles were within an inch of Maka Lea's mouth. The four dogs and one cat were arranged in a perfect five-pointed star, all heads at the center. Doggie tails were wagging, and doggie faces were excited about the “treat” they knew was immediately forthcoming.
Sure enough, before I could get there, Maka Lea blew chunks (of the partially-digested cat food variety) at high velocity. Very little of this hit the ground – four attentive dogs with their amazing tongues and gaping maws made a very efficient and hyperactive collection system. What few tiny particles escaped and hit the carpet were soon dispatched by multiple passes of eager canine tongues. The dogs' initial expressions of pleasure and satisfaction soon turned to disappointment, when they figured out that their warm food dispenser was empty.
Maka Lea walked (to the extent that his form of locomotion can be called “walking” – it's really more like wobbling) to the water fountain and had himself a nice drink. He looked quite happy, even pleased with himself. The four dogs headed back to their doggie beds, happy for the unexpected treat, but disappointed that there wasn't more.
I can't even find the spot on the carpet where this happened...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)