Sinkhole Swallows a Man in His Bed...

This is a frightening scenario that actually happened last night.  You're asleep in bed, and all of a sudden an enormous sinkhole opens up underneath your bedroom.  Your entire bedroom – including you! – is swallowed up.  You scream for help, and it arrives – but they can find no sign that you ever existed. 

Definitely the stuff of nightmares...

How to Spot a Bureaucrat Who Needs to be Fired...

I'll give you two answers:

1. (only slightly facetious): Any bureaucrat you spot.
   
2. (more seriously): Any bureaucrat who thinks that borrowing $2.5 million under terms that required over $35 million is a “good deal”.  And that's not even the worst example!  Oh, and the examples are from California, of course.  And it's so bad that even NPR is reporting it!  I originally heard this on the radio (I listen so my readers don't have to), and almost drove off the road in shock...

Bureaucrats and your money:

    Rope
    Tree
    Bureaucrat
    Some assembly required

U.S. Post Office Tries to Get With It...

The U.S. Post Office (USPS) loses billions of dollars each year, and each year Congress agrees to allow taxpayers to cover that shortfall.  The tale behind how the USPS manages to “stay in business” is one of the great stories of dysfunctional government.  And now that paragon of inefficiency has decided to take advantage of an opportunity to leverage its vast, union-crippled, calamitously-managed assets: they're going to work with national retailers to let them provide same-day package delivery.

If the USPS were an ordinary business, unencumbered by union work rule problems and with competent management struggling to make a profit...then I might have some faith in a positive outcome.  Given the pathetic reality of the USPS, the only faith that I have is that they will bungle this opportunity in a spectacular fashion.  They will find a way to lose even more money, and we the taxpayers will bail them out once again.  Meanwhile, they will succeed in making it more difficult for some competent private sector organization to enter the business.

Unions: 1
Taxpayers: 0

Again.

Close Call?

This is kind of scary – some scientists think that a billion ton comet may have missed hitting the earth by just a few hundred kilometers, in 1883.  If it had hit the earth, that would have been called an “extinction event”.  Yikes!

Obama's Big Problem...

I suspect that this is the main reason why Obama finds his re-election for a second term ... challenging.

Yikes!

In Guatemala City...

Doomsday Seed Vault...

The so-called “doomsday seed vault” project (intended to provide a way to replant the world in the event that some catastrophe wipes out a large amount of plant life) has been underway for years.  It's open now, and at the links are a couple of fascinating looks at it...