From the "Blog Fodder" File

It's time once again to clean out the "Blog Fodder" file. Aren't you lucky?

My good friend and dance partner Leslie sent me this link yesterday: Men Stoned to Death for Adultery, Murder In Iran. Her comment was, "Finally, equal opportunity stoning for adultery." My comment is that I don't think this is what the man who wrote the spiritual "Gimme That Old-Time Religion" had in mind. Welcome to the Middle East. Set your watch back 1400 years.

Last Thursday, we got a good example of the passions for public service that motivate our elected reprehensives. In this article, we learned that Florida congressman Cliff Stearns, a Republican from Ocala, asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to move votes scheduled for last Thursday evening and Friday so House members from Florida and Oklahoma could watch the Bowl Championship Series national title game between the University of Florida and the University of Oklahoma. Speaker Pelosi did not agree to the request, in part because the measures to be considered Thursday afternoon included the certification of the Electoral College vote that gave Barack Obama the presidency. Your tax dollars at work.

Have you ever been caught in one of those spectacular e-mail storms that begins when some moron accidentally hits the "Reply All" button on a message with an addressee list the size of the Manhattan phone book? You know, where one person hits "Reply All," and then seven hundred other morons each hit "Reply All" to tell the original moron not to use "Reply All"? The State Department had one of those last week. Read about it here. I'll bet Hillary Clinton won't put up with that stuff when she gets there. Bill Clinton, of course, had a special e-mail function button on his White House account labeled "Reply All Cute Interns."

And finally, for those of you who can't quite understand how the government decides how to spend money (other than to just shovel it in the general direction of major campaign contributors), here is a handy summary one of my co-workers passed around to help us get a grip on the process. It's been around for a while, but it's still accurate:

Faced with a 20-year threat,
The Government responds with a 15-year plan;
Programmed in a 6-year POM (Program Objective Memorandum);
Managed by 3-year personnel;
Who develop a 2-year budget;
Funded by a 1-year appropriation;
Formulated over a 3-day weekend; and,
Approved in a 1-hour decision brief presented by an action officer who can lose his or her job in 2 minutes.

Got that?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo