The Bureauacracy Rampant...

I had occasion to accompany Tess to the New York City Department of Vital Records, yesterday, in an effort to recover some very important and necessary documentation, and was treated to a first-hand experience of just how stupid and quite redundant most public union...ahem...workers...are.

That picture on the left? That's a Rube Goldberg. For those who were born under rocks -- or after X-box, which is sort of the same thing -- Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who used to create images of the most outrageous machines that performed the simplest of everyday tasks.  The point was to go to an extreme to avoid doing something simple and mundane. This one shows a machine that wipes somebody's mouth without them having to dirty their hands. This fairly describes the Bureaucracy of the City of New York: why work efficiently when you can add so many complicated steps to the process? And employ a lot of seemingly useless people while you're at it?

After all, it's only TAXPAYER MONEY, right?

Apathy Explained...

My apologies for such a long absence. I normally would not have gone this long without making a post of any kind, but truth be told, I'm in a phase where I could really give a shit.
Sure, I could have posted 500 of the Obama/Pelosi/Liberals/Feminists/Muslims-Are-Stupid-type articles over the last month and a half. Heck, I can do that in my sleep. The problem is that it gets repetitive. One can only make the same self-obvious statements (well, to anyone with a pulse and a baboon-level IQ, that is) before one begins to feel as if there is no point to it. That is to say, there is no point in making the same points.

A Tale of Two Kitties...

I have to do it this way, Kiddies, because otherwise Libtards don't understand. I've discovered recently that a Libtard manages to just barely grasp a simple notion if you present it graphically, and if you can include cat pictures, they love it even more.

Now, I know that people are not the same as cats, but bear with me, because I have to explain a thing or two about these animals before I make my argument. Perhaps after this little explanation, the analogy will start to make sense. The cat on the Left  (below) is a pampered housecat. The one on the Right  (below) is a feral cat, and yes, my use of Left and Right does have a specific point, and that will become crystal clear as I get to the end of this little screed.

The pictures of the two felines below are a metaphor for American Life:

The GROFT Principle...

Back in the days when I was a young computer operator, I had a supervisor who, for lack of a better term, was a southern redneck. I mean a real hillbilly plowboy, a tobacco-chewin’, country-music singin’, flannel-wearin’, swaggerin’ farmboy from the inbred regions of South Carolina (which covers about 96% of the state). Why, he was so Southern he pissed moonshine and crapped fried chicken.

But that’s beside the point. In retrospect, nearly 30 years later he turns out to have been one of the smartest people I have ever met. He typically would use a colorful turn of phrase to get a point across (“Why, that boy looks as nervous as a whore in church…”, “That generator ain’t turnin’ out enough power to pull a greasy string from a whore’s ass…”. Harry was obsessed with whores, but this was how he talked), but that was only ever a means to an end. He knew that if you wanted people to remember something, you had to give it them in a way that they would remember it -- so that it would stick.

The Bureaucracy Strikes Back...

Sometimes, you just have to wonder what the fuck it is that we're getting for our tax dollars.

If you live in the State of New Yorkistan, I would say you're getting jack shit. And when I say this, I should clarify:

1. We are NOT getting a government that works smoothly and efficiently.

2. We ARE getting a government which is apparently run by rhesus monkeys who, on a good day, might be able to find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight..

The long, sordid, and all-too-sickening tale of this Lunatics battle with the mindless bureaucracy of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles seemed to have the proverbial light at the end of that tunnel. But, alas!, the rhesus monkeys have found a way to annoy me yet again.

If you haven't heard this story before, then I suggest that you read this, this, and this, and then you'll be up to speed with this entire tale of woe.

And then you'll probably want to either laugh or vomit. Probably both.

Mr. Orwell, Please Pick Up The White Courtesy Phone...

The handsome devil to the left is one Eric Arthur Blair, better known to the world as George Orwell.

Mr. Orwell was the author of some of the greatest anti-authoritarian novels of all time. Books like 1984 and Animal Farm will stand the test of time as classics, and he was also an accomplished essayist, book reviewer, and journalist. Orwell, despite the fact that he was a Socialist, is one of my heroes.

As if that were a secret? I only bust out an Orwell reference about every thirty seconds, sometimes.

He’s a hero to me because, unlike most writers of his day -- a good many of whom are given the honorific of ‘great’ for little to no reason beyond that they appeal to pansy academics -- he dared to speak the truth, plainly and as he saw it.  He did not apologize for his political positions, but did do his best to convince you of their veracity and utility with a command of the language that has been matched by very few. Compared to Orwell, in terms of the use of the English language, Shakespeare was a drooling idiot.

Of Bicycles and Horny Moose...

Two totally unrelated stories that I will quickly...ummm...relate...for you by the time this is finished.

Really, I promise!

The first story has to do with the rank stupidity of government here in New Yorkistan. Our Reichsfuhrer...err, Mayor, Michael Bloomdouche...errm...Bloomberg is known to be a freak when it comes to bicycles. In fact, Mayor Mind-Everyone's-Business is a freak, period, but that is beside the point.

Lunatic: 1, Bureaucracy: 0

Oh, happy day! It has finally happened! I have finally been able to prove to the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing,  unionized high school dropouts at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles that I, your humble correspondent, do exist!

I have just received my brand, spankin' new New York State Photo identification card. The one I've been seeking like it was the Holy Fuckin' Grail for five years now. If you're not familiar with my trials and tribulations on this subject, you can read about them here and here.

I'll wait until you're up to speed....

Dear Government: Please Save Us...Not!

I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, paraphrasing, "Those who would surrender their Liberty for Security, gain neither...". And he was right.

It's a lesson we seem to have forgotten in these here United States. I mean, after almost 80 years of New Dealism, Great Societism, and a host of Wars on everything from Drugs to Common Sense, Americans have become accustomed to creeping government -- empowered to 'do something' by it's own citizenry who keeps voting for complete self-interested douchebags -- taking a more active role in their lives, personal security, and nowadays, even their healthcare.

The Presidency of Because I Said So...

Remember when you were a child, and you asked your parents a question they didn't want to answer, or maybe you were forbidden to do something, and this circumstance confused your tiny little brain to the extent that you were actually motivated to ask that most-innocent and eternal of questions:

Why?

And your parents, flummoxed, perhaps impatient, could not bother to give you a reasonable facsimile of a definitive, logical, coherent answer, and would simply retort in a brusque tone:

Because I said so....

The subject, at that point, was assumed to be closed.

As you got older, you got another version of this dodge, this inability to answer a direct question with a measured argument, and it went something like this:

You'll understand when you grow up...

And this dialectic, more than anything else, I believe, describes the last four years of the Obama Administration to a tee.

Fuck Big Bird...

The last time I looked, Big Bird was something on the order of a billion-dollar-a-year business.

Which brings us to the question:

"If Sesame Street is so successful, why does it require -- or at least the television network it appears on require -- a taxpayer-paid infusion of cash every goddamned year?"

And that's in addition to the proceeds from a concentrated program of organized, professional begging (hey, hope you enjoy that $1,000 plastic tote bag, and the Liza Minelli CD's!!) that according to PBS. itself, brings in almost as much as the federal subsidy (somewhere in the neighborhood of $400-500 million bucks).

So, let's do some basic math:

ObamaCare in One Sentence...

Video of a real-life doctor summing up ObamaCare in ONE FUCKING SENTENCE.

Pass it on!

This Just In: New York STILL Has the Dumbest Congressional Delegation in America...

Brooklyn democrat claims Slavery persisted in America until the 1890's.

You have to watch the video to believe it (can't embed it for some reason). As someone who was actually raised in Brooklyn, I'm both embarrassed, and totally unsurprised, since the neighborhood went to shit years ago -- just a soon as the Caribbeans began moving in in huge numbers.

Yeah, I said it. 

You know, It has gotten way past the point where one can still have hope for certain segments of American Society. The proof of this is reflected in the people these subsections of the population elect to important posts.

We apparently have one of those segments which has sent someone who is fundamentally confused about  rather significant parts of American History, going on television and announcing her ignorance to the world. I'd go as far as to wager that not only is this Congresswoman totally unaware of her ignorance, but that even after it had been pointed out to her, she'd still wear and embrace it like some sort of special commendation, because it is better to feign grace under pressure than to actually admit that you have brain damage..

After all, her job as a Congresscritter is not to have any specific knowledge, of anything, or to display some sort of basic competency; it's to find a way to keep the Welfare taps open for her 'constituents' (i.e. the professional beggar class), who are probably even dumber (and unconcerned about real issues) than she is.

Your Future Under Obama...

Your Healthcare. Nationalized, government-run healthcare is rationed healthcare, as the first responsibility of the bureaucracy is to itself, and not to the patient. The money will first be spent on staff, facilities and public relations, and if there's any left over, the resulting "care" will be doled out in thimbles.

If you doubt what I've just written, then read this. The government, particularly the Obama Administration, changes the definition of what is and isn't considered "healthcare" as it suits it's political purposes. What makes you think it wouldn't, should it find it necessary to do so, use the healthcare system it creates as a political tool/weapon, too?

Your Finances and Freedoms. Have you noticed the tendency for every department of government, no matter how insignificant it may seem, eventually gets an Enforcement division? This whole thing is not about the government being able to keep wealth inside this country -- it's about the government being able to take your wealth the very second Washington finds that necessary, and intimidating those who might protest.

Need I say more?

The Government and Your Storm Door...

One of the loudest battle cries of the modern Republican is Get The Government Out of People's Lives. The logic behind this motto is that over several decades -- some would say as far back as the Woodrow Wilson administration, but in any case, at least as far back as FDR's tenure -- that government has taken it upon itself to "do things" that government, strictly speaking, has no Constitutional Right to do.

Typically, this slogan is applied to specific areas of American Life,  like the Social Welfare patchwork, the regulation of commerce and Environmental regulations, that are often onerous, nonsensical, contradictory, and sometimes just plain dumb. I happen to agree with much of this sentiment, but for the purposes of this screed, it will not be necessary to talk about the Cradle-to-grave aspirations of some sectors of Government at all levels. That's for another conversation.

What we're talking about  today is the questionable level of government interference in something as simple a putting a new goddamned storm door on your house.

The Metamorphosis, Part Two...

RE: My seemingly doomed quest to get myself a New York State-issued photo identification card.


I left this tale, oh gentle reader, in that most precarious of states; at a point where I had planned to pin my seemingly ever-fleeting hopes to the possibility that it would be possible to use the bureaucracy in order to fight the bureaucracy.

Here's what has transpired since.

The Metamorphosis...

It has been years since I read Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, but damned if I don't feel as if I'm living it, these days.

If you've never read this classic tale of bureaucratic stupidity and the dehumanizing oppression often exerted by governments, I'll give you the going-from-memory-nutshell version:

The main character is continuously being told by members of the bureaucracy that he is guilty...they just never get around to telling him what he's guilty of, mostly because no one is quite sure, but the paperwork all seems to be in order.

Eventually our hero is stripped of his humanity, becoming smaller and smaller after each encounter with the mindless bureaucracy until he literally transforms into a cockroach.

I was reminded of the overriding theme of Kafka's masterpiece yesterday, when, for something like the fourth time in the last three years, I found myself standing in line at the NY State Department of Motor Vehicles in yet another futile attempt to prove that, yes, I do fucking exist, you Assholes!

Totalitarianism Comes To America...

Bearing yesterday's shocking and somewhat mystifying Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare in mind, it has become apparent that our government -- at all levels, county, state, and all three federal branches -- is atrociously out of control.

Without getting too far into the weeds on the 2,400-page (and counting) Affordable Care Act (because I'm not a lawyer, thankfully) the gist of the 6-3 decision is this:

Congress has the constitutional authority to impose any tax that it sees fit, for any reason, whatsoever, despite the fact that a) The Bill itself was passed in anything BUT a Constitutional manner, and b) the Obamatard lawyers did everything in their power to portray the costs of the Individual Mandate as anything BUT a tax. Somehow six Justices sat there and listened to months of "it's not a tax, really, and we don't want to make the argument that it is" and came to the conclusion that it was up to them to make up their own arguments in favor of calling it a tax.

There Are No Poor People in America...

...only poor excuses for people.

Georgia woman reports theft of $400 handbag and $200 wallet containing $800 in cash and food stamp EBT cards.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Mooch...

The Obama Campaign Presents: The Life of Julia.

I’m certain this was the aim of feminism all along; creating a woman who is completely and utterly reliant upon the government to supply her with everything. Even a baby, apparently, because with no obvious husband in the picture one is left to wonder where the hell little Zachary came from.