For the people in government, rather than the people who pester it, Washington is an early-rising, hard-working city. It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.
P.J. O’Rourke, “The Winners Go to Washington, D.C.”, Parliament of Whores, 1991
July 24, 2009
QotD: Government waste
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July 20, 2009
I’ve always been really bad with names
. . . so this xkcd webcomic really hits me where I live:
For those of you who don’t normally read xkcd . . . hover over the image: the hidden joke is often as good (or better) than the one in the base comic.
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July 18, 2009
Not for Ayn Rand fans
Brian Doherty links to this totally unfair and hilariously funny flowchart on how to succeed as an Ayn Rand character.
True Randians will find that “red curtain of blood” descending by step 5 . . .
They’re publishing a magazine just for me!
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July 17, 2009
eBay sellers hidden profit source?
Jon, my virtual landlord, has had a love-hate relationship with eBay for a while. This morning, the “love” phase seemed short and under-used:
Bought a magazine yesterday. Four bucks. Seemed like a good deal. Auction notes that out-of-USA losers should ask for an invoice to get their shipping rate. Thinking that shipping would be, oh, I don’t know, another four bucks or so, I figured what the hell, and use the Get Reamed Up The Ass Now button to buy the thing.
Shipping?
Twelve bucks.
Frig.
Thinking that this was, perhaps, a one-time thing — just a spot of bad luck — I looked around today for another book that I would like to have. Found the book. Brand-new reprint of a rather old book for twenty bucks. Again, a decent deal. Shipping to Canada? Twenty. Two. Dollars. So, no book for me.
No wonder there’s a recession, the dumb wankers.
Speaking of wankers: I took at look at the new Schwarz plane book and thought “what the hell.” So I started the online ordering process. Shipping to Canada for the book and a set of DVDs (on a topic that shall remain nameless)? Thirty. Two. Dollars. Cap-and-trade this, wood-boy. I did not proceed with the order.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Humph.
I’ve found some eBay sellers like this: they seem to feel that the extra labour of filling in a customs sticker requires them to make a profit of 2-3 times the actual cost of shipping. After getting burned that way once, I’ve always been careful to check shipping costs before bidding.
When I requested Jon’s permission to use his email on the blog, he replied with this:
I guess so. What I sent is not nearly as memorable as the first draft, though. I originally had something in there about how, after Obama nationalizes their health care, I hope the eBayers all get scrofula and schistosomiasis and itch for the rest of their lives; but then I looked up scrofula and schistosomiasis to confirm the spelling and decided that wishing those on anyone, no matter how much they distend my rectum with their take-it-up-the-ass shipping rates (Rectum?! Damn near killed him!), was just a bit over the top.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005593.html.)
How addicted to the internet are you?
Lore Sjoberg provides you with an easy checklist to discover how bad your addiction may be:
If the ancient Egyptians had the internet, there would have been 11 plagues in Exodus, with “unreliable DSL” tucked in between the frogs and the lice.
It’s a pain when your DSL goes down, but the bright side is that it gives you a chance to rate yourself on the Internet Dependency Scale. Just compare your actions to those listed below and you’ll know what sort of pathetic digital symbiont you really are.
Stage 1 Internet Dependency
Immediate reaction: Check the wires, see if you can steal a neighbor’s Wi-Fi, then get up and do something else.
What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Read a book, watch a movie, go for a walk. Is this a trick question?
If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then go back to whatever you were doing.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005592.html.)
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Tall photographer/Swedish girl gang mashup
Trust The Register to be on top of shocking stories like the “tattooed Swedish devil girls who jumped a cyclist”:
Well, by an amazing coincidence, El Reg had its roving snapper on the streets of Örebro on 8 July, and although he was able to capture the action, his images were subsequently lost – for reasons which will become evident.
We did, however, get in touch with the Great Satan of Mountain View which, by an even more astounding coincidence, happened to have an Orwellian black Opel prowling the leafy suburbs of the Swedish town on that very day.
Google eventually agreed to provide its original uncensored Street View images of the assault, which we have forwarded to the appropriate authorities in the hope the merciless vixen attack pack might be brought to justice.
With bonus linkage to yesterday’s photography story.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005591.html.)
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