The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Smile! You're on Ravenstahl Camera

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...

Friday, April 02, 2010

Smile! You're on Ravenstahl Camera

And then there's this:

The city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon Unviersity, and Community College of Allegheny County this morning announced that they're jointly seeking about $14 million in federal stimulus money to install 220 additional video cameras throughout the city.

The cameras would operate on a wireless network and "dramatically enhance the city's public safety and homeland security capabilities" Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said in a statement.

The city, CMU, and CCAC are hoping to tap part of the $2.6 billion available in the second round of the broadband technology opportunities program. Applications were due March 26. The grant program is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Security. Terror. Crime. Blahblahblahblah.

The only way that I think that I'd be comfortable with this is if the cameras were available for public viewing on the internet. Now, while I realize that this would open up the cameras to public mooning, I'd feel a lot better if I could see what Howard Stern was seeing alone in the dark of his office without wearing pants.

Not that I think that Howard's doing that, but I can't speak for all of his pantless staff. And by "staff" I mean his employees not his...

Anywho, I just want to have a group mooning of Pittsburgh security cameras that I can record and watch repeatedly in my basement away from prying eyes.

Is that wrong?*

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*Yes, probably.

4 comments:

NutellaonToast said...: I can do better than being able to see the footage...
http://www.tour.pitt.edu/cl_cam.html

as usually, UPitt leading the way.; 11:22 AM
Ms. Monongahela, Ms. Chief Editor said...: Yes, that is just what we need. $14 million worth of cameras. Yep. That will curtail crime and make us all safe. Keep spending our money to make us safe from ourselves. Draw our attention to the guy who flashed his dangling participus at the camera, so we won't notice that you robbed us of $14 million dollars to buy cameras.; 11:36 AM
Mark Rauterkus said...: I have no problem with the pointing of cameras at citizens AFTER all the politicians have cameras pointing at them, 24-7.; 11:04 AM
Lady Elaine said...: It's not for us, it's to keep track of Luke since his press secretary has no idea where the hell he is all the time.

BTW, the mechanic in the Department of Public Works is left in charge of the city this weekend (he will be paid overtime to be sure). He's been here all his life and thinks DVE ROCKS!; 12:51 AM