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March 26, 2008
Humour and Anti-Humour
I'll start with the non-humourous tidbit, so the humourous one can cheer you up.
The Government Printing Office (GPO), has begun to outsource the printing of American passports.
The Washington Times uncovered this, along with the alarming fact that one of the companies now working on the passports is based in Thailand and was targeted by Chinese espionage efforts. The GPO also has been charging the State Department more than is required to print these passports, in contravention to the charter that set up the GPO in the first place, which required that costs billed to agencies using them would only be sufficient to cover the cost of printing, and not result in profit for the GPO.
Mr. Man and I ran out and got sandwiches and sat in the truck listening to Sean Hannity. Sean said something terrific, which sums up what we feel with regard to government. It was good to hear him say it and I know I won't do him justice, but he said it as well as I've ever heard it.
A black woman called the show and said that people like Wright are hypocrites; she was obviously unhappy with what he and Pastor Manning had said. She pointed out that they claim there is injustice and yet they live in these nice homes and lead successful lives while they are preaching all this. Sean went on to expound on this and went further, transitioning into a dialogue on government in our lives.
To paraphrase, he said government should be simple and easy. Fight the people who want to kill Americans; they don't care about race, but about killing members of the American family. Keeping our country safe, securing the borders, cut taxes, free market solutions to healthcare and energy independence and that's it. He said "Tell the politicians to take a vacation". Maybe it's just me, he reiterated, but government should be that simple.
It should. There are a few things the Federal government should do but it takes more licence than it is entitled to. The GPO trying to make a profit on passports is just one more example of a government gone mad with agencies and organisations. One year I got a PJ O'Rourke tear off calendar and it has 365 days of wasteful government programmes; some small (a few million), others quite large. Subsidies, studies, grants, matching funding... and for what? So that someone can barter the favour of that business or funding for personal gain. We subsidise farmers and the government claims if we don't that it's the end of the American farm, but the cost of complying with onerous government regulations coupled with imports from other countries that don't have the regulations we do sure doesn't help. Unions jack up the cost of manufacturing so things go over seas; permits that companies have to apply for and high taxes they must pay hurt burgeoning businesses. The way government can solve this problem is not by doling out money but by having sensible regulations and not onerous ones.
I'm not talking about going back to the Victorian days of a Tonic salesman on every corner, but what we have now is a lumbering bureaucracy, not a well oiled machine and THAT - more than anything - is an impediment to greater success for the American businessman. Tax season is coming up and we've sent our taxes off to the accountant and I'm sure we'll see another 15 page return. With a few investments, 401k and now the Jersey house, there are so many worksheets (if you have funds that invest in foreign based corporations that is one two page form there), its maddening. Why do we do this? Probably so some school in upstate New York gets Federal money so it can pay for a film student to go to the Sundance film festival next year, or so some politician's home state will get money for the national Fly Fishing Museum. This is the kind of stupidity that no citizen oversight of government breeds.
Before I get too wound up, I should post my promised humour item.
There is a small software game company called Stardock that has published some pretty decent titles like 'Galactic Civilizations II'. Not crazy stuff like EA's Command & Conquer with voice acting by Tricia Helfer (of Battlestar Galactica fame), or Sid Meier's Civilization IV featuring Leonard Nimoy, but a company that makes titles with good gameplay and are very responsive to fans.
They're working on 'Political Machine 2008' where you get to run the campaign of a Presidential Candidate. Run ads, get funds, use intimidation... the whole she-bang is going to be there.
The forums for Political Machine is here while the dedicated game site is here.
I particularly liked this forum comment by dogfish10:
Can you create fictional scenarios like Hillary Clinton running around Bosnia while under sniper fire?
Enjoy!
Posted by hanyap at March 26, 2008 1:58 PM