The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: State of the Union 2007

The Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #O: "The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not."
Rule #1: "Document everything you do; if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."
Rule #2 [The Sixty Minutes Rule]: "Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew."
Rule #3: "Nothing Simple is Ever Easy"
Rule #4: "It's about the money; follow the money."
Rule #5: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Rule #6: "Politics is the enemy of good government."
Rule #7: "The biggest detriment to public service is the public."
Rule #8: "The second biggest detriment to public service is the service."
Rule #9: "There's a reason; there's ALWAYS a reason."
Rule #10: "The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good."
Rule #11: "Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you're a dickhead."
Rule #12: "No one really knows what you do."
Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]: "No one ever acts like the bastard they really are."
Rule #14: "Bureaucracy endures."
Rule #15: "The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction."
Rule #16: "Politicians are not smarter than you."
Rule #18: "Money is not created equal."
Rule #19: "Mediocrity is normalcy."
Rule #17: "Within any bureaucratic structure, resources (e.g. people, money, knowledge, etc.) are not distributed uniformly."
Rule #20: "Don't assume a fiduciary liability without a committed resource allocation."
Rule #21: "If you do your job and obey the law, they can't reasonably fire you."
Rule #22: "The Budget will always be wrong."
Rule #23: "Always sign in blue."
Rule #24: "A Bureaucrat must be able to explain and justify his/her actions to laymen without resorting to the phrase 'because the Rules say so.'"
Rule #25: "Never voluntarily relinquish control of an original document."
Rule #26: "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw the rules'"
Rule #27: "Change sucks."
Rule #28: "Sometimes the answer is 'No.'"
Rule #29: "It is very easy to make difficult decisions when no one has a clue what's going on."
Rule #30: "If you hang around long enough, eventually you will become an expert in something."
Rule #31: "Data, technology, and automatic processes can never completely supplant human interaction."
Rule #32: "Cover thine own ass."
Rule #33: "It's not real until it has its own acronym."
Rule #34:There is nothing more dangerous than an elected, resourceful idiot.
Rule #35: It will always take longer than expected.
Rule #36: Coming Soon...

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

State of the Union 2007

Some thoughts on last night's State of the Union:

The "Madame Speaker" thing at the beginning was a nice touch. It doesn't hurt to suck up to the hostess. Although, it's not really nice to co-opt large chunks of her agenda, pretend that you really intend to do something about it, and present some lame ass version of your own. Emily Post says that's rude. Next time, George should just bring Jello salad.
Pelosi, it appeared, was sending out Morse Code messages via blinking. I didn't catch all of it, but I think it spelled out B-U-L-L-S-H-I-... something.
Cheney's left side of his face looked odd; I couldn't tell if he was smirking or if he was having a stroke. Maybe both.
At one point it looked like Pelosi was kicking Cheney under the desk... and Cheney liked it.
"The Economy is on the move", but so is a brick tossed out of an airplane.
President George Bush telling us to increase fiscal discipline is like 30 yr old George Bush telling us we have "a bit of a drinking problem".
Notice that both Cheney and Bush drank water at the same time.
What the hell does the President have to do with eliminating earmarks? Pardon me a moment, but isn't that the job of, let's say, the legislative branch? Separation of powers? Hello?!? School House Rock Georgie-boy!
How did the Junior Senator from Pennsylvania score a seat next to Hillary and behind Obama? That's primo TV space, and it went to Bob Casey Jr?
Global warming is now a problem? Next they'll be telling us that the Earth isn't 6,000 years old.
The Iraq portion of the speech was like the 20 minute drum solo in the middle of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, except the drum solo can be entertaining.
John Warner and Arlen Specter looked less amused than usual.
"Civilian Reserve Corps" or as they used to call it: Haliburton.
Things seemed to be going along well until the special guest star appearances, when it seemed that the White House segue writer had been sacked.
Dikembe Mutombo needs to sit the fuck down before he goes over the railing.
This State of the Union brought was brought to you in part by Disney and "Baby Einstein." Wha?
Wesley Autrey sends much love to the POTUS and a shout out to all his peeps.

And for those of you that were counting, here's the final score:
Terror/ist/ism/izing or some variation thereof: 22 Occurrences
September 11th or 9/11 reference: 5 Occurrences
Al Qaida: 10 Occurrences
Freedom: 3 Occurrences
Democracy: 4 Occurrences
Osama bin Laden: 1 Occurrence
Saddam Hussein: 0 Occurrences

Good Night, and may God bless America.

Additional: Sen. Webb needs a neck.

Tag(s): 2007 State of the Union

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

State of the Union 2007

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