Totally Me» public trough

The Traffic Barrel Monster master criminal caught

Jim — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:32:18 +0000

Through the diligent efforts of the fine boys in blue in Raleigh the creator of the Traffic Barrel Monster has been apprehended. Joseph Carnevale, a junior at NC State was charged with misdemeanor damage to property and larceny. It seems thatthe authorities are claiming that there was $360 in damamge done to the 3 barrel that were cut up. Stop. Read that last sentence again (No, not the one that says ‘Stop’, the other last sentence). Three barrels were damaged and unless my calculator has gone batshit that workd out to $120 each. For little plastic barrels. Perhaps now we understand whyroad construction companies winning contracts in NC do such sub-standard work…. they’re spending all the contract money on orange barrels. Here’s a deal for the fuckwits at Hamlett Associates, I’ll personally supply you with all the orange barrels you care to purchase at $90 a piece.

Here’s another thing – NC has a budget shortfall of something in excess of $1 billion. Wake County’s budget increased by 5.8% and included a 2.5 cent property tax increase part of which is to be used for increased law enforcement. I’d love to hammer on Raleigh too but they’ve taken the congressional tack and made their budget completely unreadable. At any rate, I find it moderately offensive that this has wasted clearly non-infinite government dollars. Seriously, make him pay the $360 and move along. Or better yet have him replace the barrels by buying them from me for $270. As if the fucktards feeding at the public trough weren’t making enough money. What I want to know really is why none of these asswipes every get charged for anything when they milk government contracts?

The actual artist is uliveandyouburn (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) chronicles this and many other exploits at his blog NoPromiseOfSafety.com

Republican ideologues or This is what I meant

Jim — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:37:35 +0000

I am a stupid, stupid man

So yesterday I wrote about the dangers of allowing ideologues to run your political party. To help me out a little bit Michael Steele, of the RNC, gave a speech in which he said,

“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

What he was talking about was gay marriage and I assume that he’s talking about some fictional small business owner but it’s so obtuse that I’m not really sure what he means. However, if you read it as it stands it applies to hetero marriage to, doesn’t it? So are the Republicans now so opposed to gay marriage that they’re willing to do away with their precious family values to stop it? It also shows the sort of disconnect that the professional ruling class has with real people. I don’t remember ever working anyplace that paid for the insurance for my spouse or children. Most of them don’t fully cover the employee anymore but you might now know that if you’ve spent you entire adult life feeding at the public trough.

Of course, Steele isn’t known for his clever analogies either since he claimed that the refutation of global warming is that Greenland was called Greenland for a reason. Which it was…. it was Erik the Red’s own personal marketing campaign. FWIW, I’m not sold on the whole global warming thing but that’s just stupid.

At any rate, as far as gay marriage goes, I don;t really understand why they’d want to but as far as I’m concerned there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be as miserable as they people who haven’t gotten divorced yet.

Dear Governator, This is beyond stupid

Jim — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:08:37 +0000

Let me start I by saying I love California. I’d seriously consider moving there if it weren’t for goofiness like this reported over at TechCrunch. The short version for those that don’t want to read is that CARB is considering regulating the color of cars sold in California to minimize the increased energy requirement of cooling black cars. Because black paint doesn’t reflect sunlight well. Really. The best and brightest of the California Air Resources Board. That’s what they came up with.

See, the problem is (for anybody who has every worked around bureaucrats*) that they feel like they have to “do stuff” to justify their continued feeding at the public trough. Apparently that’s what they’ve done. The chief of the Paint Reflectivity Studies Section, Heating and Cooling Branch, Research Division of the Office of Living Like Cavemen (sorry Cavepersons) has convinced somebody that black cars contribute to air pollution in some way. So they got a grant to study the problem which means more money and personnel for the PRS section which will eventually mean a cushy new job as branch chief for something or other for the PRS section chief.

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*As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this also applies to middle managers and politicians.