That's Bureaucracy!

All the articles that relate to "That's Bureaucracy!"

Article	Published	Author	Comments
Lese Majesty of Intrusive Laws When was the last time you broke the law? No, not the last time you committed a felony; most of us have never murdered anyone or done Grand Theft Auto. Breaking any law at all is a different story: it's hard to go more than a few hours or days betwee...	Sep 3, 10	Petrarch	2
What Price for Jobs? 2 The first article in this series discussed the amount of capital a business must invest in order to be able hire just one person. That's the amount of money a business has to shovel out the door to set up a store, or restaurant, or office in which to ho...	Aug 17, 10	Will Offensicht	1
The Fundamental Problem with All Government Agencies Two centuries of American governance has revealed one small idea on which both liberals and conservatives can agree: all government employees, regardless of their individual political views, seek to have their agencies' budgets increased. Regardless of ...	Aug 3, 10	Will Offensicht	3
The Would-Be Judge Who Would Not Read Solicitor General Elena Kagan is spending this week under the Klieg lights of Senate hearings concerning her appointment to the Supreme Court. Thus far, like most modern Supreme nominees, she has artfully avoided saying anything at all while the Senator...	Jul 1, 10	Petrarch	8
If We Can Get to the Moon, Why Can't We.... Ever since the Apollo moon landing in 1969, technical folk have been asked, "If we can get to the moon, why can't we ..." with the questioner filling in his or her favorite cause. I've heard this asked about fighting poverty, cleaning up the cities, bui...	Jun 11, 10	Will Offensicht	0
Beam Me Up, Barack! Much as jazz is the most versatile of music forms, science fiction and its cousin science fantasy offer near-infinite scope for an author's imagination. A good SF writer can create a world that not only does not exist, and has not, but almost certainly ...	May 27, 10	Petrarch	1
The Pill: 50 Years of Unintended Bureaucratic Consequences The birth control pill was approved on Mothers' Day 50 years ago. Although there was a great deal of controversy about the pill's effect on morality, sexual behavior, and family structure, nobody seems to have realized at the time that the pill represen...	May 19, 10	Will Offensicht	1
Public Watchdogs Ogle Privates The New York Daily News tells us on what's really going on in government agencies who're supposed to guard our financial markets against fraud, deceit, and the next boom-and-bust cycle: The country's top financial watchdogs turned out to be horndogs w...	Apr 29, 10	Will Offensicht	1
Brain-Dead Mixing of Science and Politics In "Trawling the Brain," Science News reports the latest instance of peer-reviewed scientific gimmicry: The 18-inch-long Atlantic salmon lay perfectly still for its brain scan. Emotional pictures —a triumphant young girl just out of a somersault, a d...	Apr 23, 10	Will Offensicht	3
The Forbidden Silver Bullet Against Infection Mankind has known for a hundred years that there are two basic mechanisms by which you get sick - you can be infected by bacteria or you can be infected by viruses. Bacteria are living cells which reproduce themselves; most bacteria multiply by splittin...	Apr 16, 10	Will Offensicht	9
Our Government's Policies Promote Obesity Food labels and the issue of what constitutes a healthy diet have been contentions ever since the Food and Drug Administration was given the power to regulate what businesses could say about their products. Whenever an advertiser wants to say that eatin...	Apr 8, 10	Will Offensicht	1
Angel Bureaucrats vs Business Devils? It's hard to imagine amidst the pageantry of Toyota's executives being called on the carpet in front of pontificating Congressmen because of a supposed manufacturing defect that has yet to even be definitively found, but there was a time when this would ...	Mar 22, 10	Petrarch	1
Obama Goes Off The Deep End, Bans Fishing? Appalling news from Washington is coming so thick and fast these days that it's impossible to keep track of it all. What's more, some reports are so outlandish that they seem like they must be from the Onion, yet are perfectly true. For instance, who w...	Mar 11, 10	Hobbes	4
Why Uncle Sam Can't Google The New York Times reports that the Air Force's Predator drones generated some 24 years' worth of video last year, even more video than all The Simpsons reruns put together. While every second of the live video was watched as it was collected, there's ...	Feb 1, 10	Will Offensicht	0
Why The Dots Won't Connect It's become painfully obvious that our multi-billion dollar intelligence agencies are not sharing information well. We had enough dots to know about the panty bomber in advance, but nobody could connect the dots because they weren't being shared. The ...	Jan 22, 10	Will Offensicht	1
Yes, Virginia, A $2.98 Hammer REALLY Costs Our Government $100 When criticizing government plans to take over health care on the spurious basis that government control will make it more efficient, Scragged has often referred to the government paying $100 for a $2.98 hammer or $600 for an ordinary toilet seat. It oc...	Jan 15, 10	Will Offensicht	4
The Kiss That Stopped the World For a century or more, Hollywood has made countless billions marketing romance. We've all seen the scenes: the swelling music, the handsome hero and beautiful leading lady, the heart-stopping smooch that seems to go on forever as the world stands still...	Jan 14, 10	Hobbes	2
Mammograms, Money, and Medical Power Plays As the health care debate wore on, a tempest flared up when a committee which had been examining the results of decades of examining women's breasts for cancer reported that women were being given too many mammograms. The New York Times quotation of the...	Jan 7, 10	Will Offensicht	1
TSA Lying (Down) On the Job By now, we've all heard the sorry tale of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, who tried to ignite a bomb stashed in his undies while on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, celebrating Christmas in what's fast becoming customary Islamic fashion...	Dec 31, 09	Hobbes	2
News Flash! President Obama Created 20 New Jobs! It didn't make the press here in America, but the Canada Free Press reports that President Obama did, in actual, indisputable fact, create more than 20 new jobs, right there in Washington, DC. Lest you doubt that these jobs assisting Mrs. Obama with her...	Dec 23, 09	Will Offensicht	6
Survival of the Fittest - How Liberals Are Killing Themselves Off Today I was confronted once again by what Ann Coulter calls “the Austrian efficiency of DMV.” She uses that line in several articles, so like me, she’s ticked. The somewhat raspy-voiced female on the other end of the line told me to “call back in 72 hou...	Nov 23, 09	Benjamin Caliban	2
There Are No Natural Limits to Regulation We at Scragged have written over and over about the inability of government regulation to get things right. Recently, we discussed the current conundrum of the city of Des Moines, Iowa: its sewers, strongly built in days of old by long-departed honest...	Oct 28, 09	Will Offensicht	3
Our FDA Wants More Power to Kill Sick People There are many reasons to oppose greater government influence over our lives. We've pointed out over and over that government doesn't do anything efficiently from delivering mail to running railroads. Government waste has been with us since the dawn of...	Oct 1, 09	Will Offensicht	0
Why Labor When You Can Take Rent? There are almost as many jokes about economists as there are about lawyers. Economist jokes are not nearly so nasty because people don't feel nearly as threatened by economics. Confused, befuddled, and generally perplexed, but the dismal science is not...	Sep 7, 09	Petrarch	1
Taxing Citizens By Height? Part of our motivation for writing for Scragged is that we like to counter as much of the ongoing liberal nonsense as we can. Once in a while, we run across a liberal idea that so utterly blows our minds that we have trouble believing that the writers a...	Sep 2, 09	Will Offensicht	6
More Unintended Side Effects of Cash for Clunkers The "Cash for Clunkers" program (CfC) ended ahead of schedule because it ran out of money, but it crammed a lot of auto sales into July and August. It's obvious that some customers delayed buying cars because they heard the program was about to start an...	Aug 31, 09	Will Offensicht	1
Cash, Clunkers, and the Value of Broken Windows - Zilch! The billion dollars the US House and Senate allocated for the "Cash for Clunkers" program ran out in a week; it seems that the government will chip in another 2 or 3 billon. Big-government folks are waxing lyrical about the program's "success," forgetti...	Aug 11, 09	Will Offensicht	4
Contempt of Cop: Crime? or Right? Our ongoing national debate over the behavior of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates continues apace with the good prof hopefully enjoying his brewski in the company of the President, arresting officer Sgt. Crowley, and our one-and-only Vice President Jo...	Aug 3, 09	Petrarch	3
The Wrongs of Rights 5: The Forgotten 10th Amendment In this series, we've examined the difference between core natural human rights and civil rights; seen how so-called positive "rights" are not rights at all but rather an anti-right that destroys real rights, and looked at the devastating consequences th...	Jul 27, 09	Petrarch	1
TSA Wastes Tax Money Studying Science Fiction Just when we think we couldn't possibly hear anything sillier from the TSA than what they've done before, they prove us wrong. USA Today reports: WASHINGTON - A $36 million anti-terrorism program designed to detect bombs on airline passengers by shoo...	Jun 16, 09	Will Offensicht	4
A British Final Solution to Excessive Health Care Costs As part of Barack Obama's "solution" to America's health care crisis, our government is trying to reduce costs wherever it can. We've previously examined one way our government is trying to trim health-care spending: by making it more difficult to get ...	Apr 22, 09	Will Offensicht	3
War on Poverty Attacking the Wrong Target President Barack Hussein Obama, clearly reading his own press, no doubt believes himself to be a great speaker; he's been running all over the country giving speeches. Unfortunately, every time he opens his mouth, the stock market drops. At this rate, ...	Mar 24, 09	Petrarch	10
At Last! A Workable Government Solution to our Pension Problem Our government has finally taken an effective step to deal with our ever-expanding pension liabilities. As is now widely recognized, essentially all American pension systems are grossly under-funded, even state pension systems whose contributions are re...	Mar 20, 09	Will Offensicht	1
Government Power and Obama's 40 Thieves Q: What's the difference between Jesus and Mr. Obama? A: Jesus could put together a cabinet. By hook or by crook, Mr. Obama has finally succeeded in cobbling together something resembling a Cabinet - though as the British have written, he seems to b...	Mar 13, 09	Petrarch	4
Obama Appointee Recommends More Vigorous Atrocities If there is one element of received political wisdom afloat today, it's the belief that George W. Bush and his minions are torturers and war criminals who deliberately inflicted pointless death on thousands of Americans, countless millions of innocent I...	Mar 4, 09	Hobbes	3
Our Perpetual Government-Sponsored Food Fight Anybody who follows nutrition advice in the popular press can be forgiven for thinking that dietary advice is unreliable and uncertain. We've heard that caffeine is bad for the heart, then that it's good for the heart, then that it's bad in certain cas...	Feb 23, 09	Will Offensicht	5
Bureaucrats Try Herding Cats Our government employees famously insist on helping us whether we need it or not. Logically, sooner or later, there must come a time when all real problems are receiving government attention leaving only imaginary problems for bureaucrats to sink their...	Jan 15, 09	Will Offensicht	4
I'm From the Government; I'm Here to Help There are three legendary lies which are told so often that they've become jokes in a sick sort of way. Lie #1, which was going around back when I was in high school, is, "Of course I'll respect you in the morning." Comedian Johnny Carson put it, "I'...	Dec 29, 08	Will Offensicht	3
Bureaucracy Stalls Green Cars The blogger network Green Options published an article "Upstart Chinese Car Company BYD Releases Plug-In Hybrid. See What You Can Do With No Regulations?" The article started: China-based BYD has introduced a plug-in hybrid that can be plugged into...	Dec 23, 08	Will Offensicht	5
Joe the Plumber and the Myth of Privacy We recently received a message headed "Joe the Plumber and the Ohio cretins who tried to wreck him." The message referred to an article written by Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher which said: It wasn't more than twenty-four hours after the debate when ...	Dec 2, 08	Will Offensicht	1
Labor Going Out Of Style Back in August 2007, it was clear that health care would be a Presidential issue. Scragged published "The Only Health Care Question" to remind everyone that any health care system must include some way to limit demand. There are limits to the amount o...	Sep 1, 08	Will Offensicht	8
The TSA Outdoes Itself, Twice Every time we think that the TSA can't get any sillier or any less effective, they surprise us. In an article "Airlines may face fines over mistaken terrorist IDs," USA Today reports: The Transportation Security Administration is threatening to fine...	Aug 22, 08	Hobbes	4
The Mystery of the Empty Stands All round the world, every eye has been glued to the television for the world's greatest sports spectacle: the 2008 Olympic Games. Almost anything else can, and has, happened without distracting viewers; John Edwards took the opportunity to finally 'fes...	Aug 20, 08	Will Offensicht	0
Bureaucracy Causes Evil? The question of good versus evil has been debated endlessly over the millennia. Up until the last hundred years or so, Western thought was based on a clear distinction between good and evil. The Chinese philosophy of Taoism, in contrast, popularized t...	Aug 19, 08	Will Offensicht	15
Will Bureaucrats Let Detroit Save Itself? We all know that the US operations of all our auto manufacturers are in deep trouble, but things aren't quite what they seem. Their troubles in the US market are all too real. The New York Times reports: In the latest sign of the deepening trouble...	Aug 11, 08	Will Offensicht	3
Down the Potty The New York Times reports: After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. The taxpayer cringes at the revelation that the City of Seattle spent one million dollars per toilet before giving up. No wond...	Jul 24, 08	Will Offensicht	2
Government Of, By, and For the Bureaucracy We've pointed out that the Civil Service Act of 1883 made it effectively impossible to fire any government employee, no matter how incompetent, unless they're actually convicted of a crime, mere moral turpitude is insufficient. Once past the probation p...	Jul 18, 08	Will Offensicht	0
News Flash: Chinese are Black On June 18, 2008, BBC News reported that Chinese citizens of South Africa have "become black." Although readers of the American national media might be forgiven for thinking that government-mandated race-based programs such as affirmative action are s...	Jul 11, 08	Hobbes	1
You Are What You Won't Eat Scragged often pokes prose at bureaucracies which exceed their authority, lean on people, give bad advice, and generally cost society far more than they're worth. We've uncovered yet another case of bureaucratic excess which will not only cost society ...	Jul 9, 08	Hobbes	8
What's A Driver's License For? In times past, everybody understood the purpose of a driver's license - it certified that the holder knew how to drive a vehicle of some sort. Over the years, driver's licenses evolved into something for which they were never really intended: a formal,...	Jul 2, 08	Will Offensicht	2
TSA Misspells R-E-S-P-E-C-T As any American who has flown in the last five years knows, the TSA, whose staff harass everyone who desires to board an aircraft, is rightly the butt of ridicule. From causing insufferably long lines (Thousands Standing Around) to their keen eye for le...	Jun 19, 08	Hobbes	1
In Praise of Incompetent Bureaucrats Hardly a day goes by without another news report of a bureaucrat doing something stupid. Whether it's removing a child from his home because a vendor gave the kid a bottle of alcoholic lemonade by mistake; or State Department diplomats refusing to go to...	Jun 2, 08	Petrarch	4
Who Would Rob A Corpse? In an article “Mother denied daughter's organs,” BBC News told of Rachel Leake’s problem with impending kidney failure. Mrs. Leake’s daughter wanted to donate a kidney to save her mother's life, but the daughter died of asthma before she could start the...	May 28, 08	Will Offensicht	5
Bureaucracy on Autopilot The media have recently exposed two cases of blatant injustice: An employee of Tim Horton's coffee shop was fired for giving a toddler a 16-cent donut hole; and a child was removed from his home when a refreshment counter employee accidentally gave the c...	May 14, 08	Will Offensicht	4
Child Protection and the Confucian Cycle The media have made much of police removing some 460 children from an isolated Texas ranch. The authorities received a telephone call which purported to come from a 16 year old girl in the compound who said she had been forced to marry a 50 year old aga...	Apr 28, 08	Will Offensicht	40
TSA Rings Up Another Pyrrhic Victory Any American who has traveled by commercial airline in the last few years knows that, far from the exotic and uplifting experience of yore, our air transportation system more closely resembles the seventh circle of Dante's Inferno. From "customer serv...	Apr 4, 08	Hobbes	3
Think Bigger, Bill Gates The Economist reports that if Microsoft ends up actually paying the fines which have been assessed by the EU Anti-Competition bureaucracy, it will make a bigger contribution to the EU budget than many member countries. The article points out what happen...	Mar 25, 08	Will Offensicht	10
Rats! to Socialized Healthcare In a story "Dead rodent stops operation," Reuters reported: Andrew Cowper was due to have an operation at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Hertfordshire when staff "were made aware of a dead rodent in the single storey unit's roof space," the hospit...	Mar 18, 08	Will Offensicht	9
Failed Government Monopoly Strikes Back The Los Angeles Times recently panicked California home schoolers by reporting that a California appeals court had ruled that California parents did not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children. As noted below, the teacher's union tried ...	Mar 12, 08	Will Offensicht	0
McCain Shoots Himself in the Wallet Among the many, many reasons conservatives are leery of Senator McCain is his longstanding advocacy for government restrictions on free political speech, otherwise known as "campaign finance reform." He feels so strongly on this subject that his name is...	Feb 25, 08	Petrarch	9
A Modest Proposal for the War on Drugs The "War on Drugs" simply isn't working. The street price of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and other illegal substances keeps going down as suppliers become more efficient in response to customer demand. Selling drugs is so profitable that the FARC and ...	Feb 19, 08	Demosthenes	74
Labor Law Lunacy The Wall Street Journal on February 1, 2008 had a page one article In a French Twist, Infamous Trader Gets Hero Treatment. The article continues the saga of a low-ranking bond trader named Jerome Kerviel who cost the bank $7.2 billion by making unauthor...	Feb 11, 08	Will Offensicht	2
Bad Government is Worse than a Bad Santa Reuters reports trouble at the North Pole: Canada's post office and police are trying to track down a "rogue elf" who wrote obscene letters to children on behalf of Santa Claus. The Ottawa Citizen said at least 10 nasty letters had been d...	Dec 17, 07	Hobbes	5
Dedicated Public Servants? The United States has a long tradition of referring to government employees as "public servants." This is in contrast to the royal traditions of Old Europe, which, the Founders observed, were more liable to create public masters. Not only does this eth...	Nov 2, 07	Petrarch	2
Goose-Stepping Raccoons Germans call raccoons "Waschbern"--washing-bears--because of their habits of washing their food. Raccoons are not native to Germany, but someone was raising them as a fur source for a while over there in the 20's and 30's. The idea didn't pa...	Oct 12, 07	Pukka Sahib	1
Show Your Handgun, Not Your ID Government employees check your ID before you get on a plane. The government tells us that's why nobody has taken an aircraft since 9-11, but that's a typical self-serving government lie. How often do we read about people smuggling something o...	Oct 1, 07	Hobbes	8
War on Poverty Over: We Won! For years and years, Democrats have asked us to let them raise taxes so they can take care of "the poor." They want us to think they're all warm and fuzzy and altruistic, but it's just another scam. It's a scam because there are no poor ...	Sep 19, 07	Will Offensicht	12
A Tale of India My wife is from Bombay, and when we were a-courting, she would tell me, "If you want to see what England was like fifty years ago, come to India." When the time came that we got married, I saw that this was true. Both the Church and the U.S. Governm...	Aug 31, 07	Pukka Sahib	0
Jet, Washed An American aircraft carrier is a small city. With over 2,000 residents, and all the necessary technological equipment to keep them alive, well-fed, comfortable, occupied - oh yes, and fighting enemies too - a modern nuclear carrier may be the most comp...	Aug 24, 07	Von Hayek	0
Wooden Ships and Paper Tigers In the early 1800s, England was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Napoleon's French empire. The Imperial armies had conquered most of continental Europe; but England was protected by the English channel, and the Royal Navy. From the great ships...	Aug 24, 07	Will Offensicht	0

Scragged

All the articles that relate to "That's Bureaucracy!"

Lese Majesty of Intrusive Laws

What Price for Jobs? 2

The Fundamental Problem with All Government Agencies

The Would-Be Judge Who Would Not Read

If We Can Get to the Moon, Why Can't We....

Beam Me Up, Barack!

The Pill: 50 Years of Unintended Bureaucratic Consequences

Public Watchdogs Ogle Privates

Brain-Dead Mixing of Science and Politics

The Forbidden Silver Bullet Against Infection

Our Government's Policies Promote Obesity

Angel Bureaucrats vs Business Devils?

Obama Goes Off The Deep End, Bans Fishing?

Why Uncle Sam Can't Google

Why The Dots Won't Connect

Yes, Virginia, A $2.98 Hammer REALLY Costs Our Government $100

The Kiss That Stopped the World

Mammograms, Money, and Medical Power Plays

TSA Lying (Down) On the Job

News Flash! President Obama Created 20 New Jobs!

Survival of the Fittest - How Liberals Are Killing Themselves Off

There Are No Natural Limits to Regulation

Our FDA Wants More Power to Kill Sick People

Why Labor When You Can Take Rent?

Taxing Citizens By Height?

More Unintended Side Effects of Cash for Clunkers

Cash, Clunkers, and the Value of Broken Windows - Zilch!

Contempt of Cop: Crime? or Right?

The Wrongs of Rights 5: The Forgotten 10th Amendment

TSA Wastes Tax Money Studying Science Fiction

A British Final Solution to Excessive Health Care Costs

War on Poverty Attacking the Wrong Target

At Last! A Workable Government Solution to our Pension Problem

Government Power and Obama's 40 Thieves

Obama Appointee Recommends More Vigorous Atrocities

Our Perpetual Government-Sponsored Food Fight

Bureaucrats Try Herding Cats

I'm From the Government; I'm Here to Help

Bureaucracy Stalls Green Cars

Joe the Plumber and the Myth of Privacy

Labor Going Out Of Style

The TSA Outdoes Itself, Twice

The Mystery of the Empty Stands

Bureaucracy Causes Evil?

Will Bureaucrats Let Detroit Save Itself?

Down the Potty

Government Of, By, and For the Bureaucracy

News Flash: Chinese are Black

You Are What You Won't Eat

What's A Driver's License For?

TSA Misspells R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In Praise of Incompetent Bureaucrats

Who Would Rob A Corpse?

Bureaucracy on Autopilot

Child Protection and the Confucian Cycle

TSA Rings Up Another Pyrrhic Victory

Think Bigger, Bill Gates

Rats! to Socialized Healthcare

Failed Government Monopoly Strikes Back

McCain Shoots Himself in the Wallet

A Modest Proposal for the War on Drugs

Labor Law Lunacy

Bad Government is Worse than a Bad Santa

Dedicated Public Servants?

Goose-Stepping Raccoons

Show Your Handgun, Not Your ID

War on Poverty Over: We Won!

A Tale of India

Jet, Washed

Wooden Ships and Paper Tigers