Bureaucrats...

Via my mom, this letter to the U.S. Passport Office:

Dear Mrs. Ms. Or Sir:

I'm in the process of renewing my passport and still cannot believe this.

How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a cable TV from them in 1987 (23 years ago), and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? Ever heard of computers?

My birth date you have in my social security file. It's on EVERY income tax form I've filed for the past 30 years. It's on my Medicare health insurance card and my driver's license, it's on the last eight damn passports I've had, it's on every stupid customs declaration form I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane for the last 30 years. And it's on all those census forms that we have to do at election times.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Maryanne, my father's name is Robert and I'm reasonably confident that neither name is likely to change between now and when I die.

Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bureaucratic bulls…!

You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my #*&#%*& address.

What is going on? You must have a gang of bureaucratic Neanderthal morons working there!

Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? And "No," I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for s… sakes. I just want to go and park my a.. on a sandy beach. And would someone please tell me, why you would give a damn whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days?

If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now because I have to go to the other end of the city and get another #*@&#^@*@ & copy of my birth certificate to the tune of $100.

Would it be so difficult to have all the services in the same area so I could get a new passport the same day? Nooooo, that would require planning and organization. And it would be too logical for the @&^*^%@% government.

You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off. Then, we have to find some a..hole to confirm that it's really me in the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile... Hey, you know why we can't smile?

We're totally pissed off!

Signed

- An Irate Citizen.

P.S. Remember what I wrote about getting someone to confirm that the picture is me? Well, my family has been in the United States of America since 1776. I have served in the military for something over 35 years and have had security clearances up the ying yang. However, I have to get someone important to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor....... WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN INDIA !

And you assholes want to run our health care system?????

Yes, they do want to run our health care system...

The Country Has Gone to Hell, So...

Via my mom:

George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, and Vladimir Putin all die and go to hell. While there, they spy a red phone and ask what the phone is for. The devil tells them it is for calling back to Earth.

Putin asks to call Russia and talks for 5 minutes. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is a million dollars, so Putin writes him a cheque.

Next Queen Elizabeth calls England and talks for 30 minutes. When she is finished the devil informs her that the cost is 6 million dollars, so she writes him a cheque.

Finally George Bush gets his turn and talks for 4 hours. When he is finished the devil informs him that the cost is $5.00.

When Putin hears this he goes ballistic and asks the devil why Bush got to call the USA so cheaply.

The devil smiles and replies, "Since Obama took over, the country has gone to hell, so it's a local call."

Yes, Please...

Via reader Jim M.:

Obama Administration's Intelligence Leaks...

No, I'm not talking about Joe Biden.  I'm talking about the numerous leaks of operational intelligence, the pattern of which strongly suggests that the leaks are intentional and have the objective of enhancing the Obama administration's prestige with the U.S. public.

Some of our retired U.S. Navy SEALs, other special forces, and CIA folks are unhappy enough about this that they're doing some thing quite uncharacteristic of that crowd: they're complaining, publicly and loudly:

Essence of Cat...

Anyone who owns a cat will instantly recognize this behavior.  Anyone who doesn't own a cat will add one more item to their list of reasons to continue not owning a cat :-)

Hieroglyphics...

Via my mom:

Written across the wall of the cave were the symbols at right. It was considered a unique find and the writings were said to be at least 3,000 years old.

The piece of stone was removed, brought to the museum, and archaeologists from around the world came to study the ancient symbols. They held a huge meeting after months of conferences to discuss the meaning of the markings.

The President of the society pointed to first drawing and said: "This is a woman. We can see these people held women in high esteem. You can also tell they were intelligent, as the next symbol is a donkey, so they were smart enough to have animals help them till the soil. The next drawing is a shovel, which means they had tools to help them. Even further proof of their high intelligence is the fish which means that if a famine hit the earth and food didn't grow, they seek food from the sea. The last symbol appears to be the Star of David which means they were evidently Hebrews."

The audience applauded enthusiastically.

Then a little old Jewish man stood up in the back of the room and said, "Idiots! Hebrew is read from right to left. It says: 'Holy Mackerel, Dig The Ass On That Chick'"

Faster Than C, Safer Than Java, Simpler Than *sh...

Even the title of this post raises all sorts of questions and red flags!  What on earth are they talking about?  A programming language I'd never heard of before: ANI...

How Did Harry Reid Get Rich?

That's a damned fine question, as he's been a “public servant” nearly all his life – and the sum of all his salaries are far smaller than his net worth today.  How'd he do it?

Curiosity: Where It Is...

The photo at right (or here in even larger form) shows a simulated 3D view of Gale Crater on Mars, using photos taken from orbit.

If you look at the enlarged photograph, you can see a faint blue ellipse (just below the center of the photo) with a green dot in it.  The ellipse shows the targeted landing area, and the green dot is where Curiosity actually is – very close to the center of the ellipse.

To anyone familiar with the history of robotic spacecraft, this is stunningly accurate placement.  The first such spacecraft in my own memory (in the '60s) were aimed at our moon – and not infrequently, they completely missed it!  There's been steady improvement in the 50 years since then, to the point now where we're plopping a car-sized rover down on Mars just a few meters off its bull's-eye.  Awesome!

National Wall of Shame...

I kind of like this idea!

Making Change...

I've blogged (months ago) about an experience much like this one.  Scary...

Investors Prepare for Euro Collapse...

It seems unlikely that this is a good omen...

The Pigs Are Flying!

Wolf Blitzer is the flying pig in this story.  Wolf's efforts at political reporting are noteworthy in the main only for their rigorous hewing to the progressive political narrative.  He must have skipped a day on his meds for this one, as he executes a very nice takedown of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic Party's National Chairman and acolyte of Nancy Pelosi.  In this segment, she wriggles very hard, trying to misportray Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare reform – and she appears to be very surprised that Wolf is not being the lapdog he usually is:


Wolf, you should try this more often.  After a few dozen such efforts, you might just be able to regain a little respect from your fellow citizens...

By the way, the comments on the YouTube site are quite funny.  The first one:

About effin' time a journalist kept the light on the cockroach.

Periodic Table of the Elements, Reimagined...

And awesome.

Ryan...

I'm not sure I've ever heard a politician's speech that I liked more:


This caught me completely by surprise.  I've never actually seen Paul Ryan deliver a political speech before; I've only seen him in action on the floor of the House, or in committee hearings. 

I'm surprised by how completely natural he sounds (and appears) while in front of a crowd.  I had the sense that I was hearing and seeing the real Paul Ryan, not his political persona.  It wasn't a performance, it was him.  Even Governor Awesome can't pull that off; when he's working a crowd, you know he's performing.  And Romney?  I've never seen him not performing.  I don't know about you, but I find the idea of meeting the person (vs. the performer) quite ... refreshing.

His spontaneous and natural interactions with the audience were particularly telling.  He reminds me of the very best teachers I ever had (those were, unfortunately, very few and far between).  He wasn't just giving a speech, he was actually listening and reacting with his audience.  He was having a conversation.  An adult conversation.

His ability to reduce some of the complex ideas around the financial condition of the country to short, easy-to-digest sentences, things that anyone could understand.  In that ability, he reminds me a bit of Ronald Reagan.  There's another Reaganesque quality about Ryan as well: the cheerful, optimisitic disposition, and his civility.  Even when he's ripping someone's argument to shreds (like the famous clip with Obama), he's smiling and friendly.  Yup, Reaganesque.

Really I can't find anything to criticize about this speech.  At least for this audience of one, it was everything I always hoped for in a political speech, but so seldom find: humor, drama, ideas, belief, commitment, and fire in the belly.

My estimation of Ryan as a political force is rising, and quickly.  I'm starting to feel optimistic despite my best efforts to remain depressed about our future.  I haven't quite risen to the heights that Rachel has obtained, though...

Watch This!

You'll feel smarter.  Unless you're one of the people in the video, that is...

Simple Home Remedies...

Via my mom and some additional sources on the web:

1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic. Simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat and presto. The blockage will be almost instantly removed.
2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.
3. Avoid arguments with the little woman about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink.
4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.
5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough.
7. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache.
8. You only need two tools: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
9. If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.
10. Some people are like slinkies: not really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when they're pushed down the stairs.
11. Never, under any circumstances, take a laxative and sleeping pills on the same night.

100,000 DPI...

I used to think that 600 dots-per-inch (DPI) color laser printers were fantastical, futuristic devices, printing 360,000 dots in every square inch.  Researchers at IMRE have completely blown that resolution away by inventing a technique for printing at 100,000 DPI (that's a trillion dots per square inch!).  Awesome!

Sloan Digital Sky Survey...

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has cataloged some 400,000 galaxies (each with billions of stars), including their locations in the universe.  Below is a video made by “flying” through a simulation created from this data.  It's the best 3D visualization of our universe that I've ever seen...

Notice...