Annual Dilbert Post

Scott Adams, the cartoonist who created Dilbert, likes to say that there are only nine news stories, constantly re-written.

Every once in awhile I like to check the newspaper with his list in mind, to see if he is right. I'll start with his wording unmodified by examples.

1. EXTREME WEATHER BATTERS SOMEPLACE

2. IDIOTS KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE

3. POLITICIAN DOES SOMETHING ILLEGAL

4. PRIMATE ATTEMPTS INAPPROPRIATE SEX

5. EXPERTS WARN OF FINANCIAL CALAMITY

6. BIG COMPANY BUYS ANOTHER BIG COMPANY

7. FAMOUS PERSON DOES SOMETHING INTERESTING

8. A SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY MIGHT BE USEFUL IN TEN YEARS

9. GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ACHIEVE A GOAL

Does that break-down hold up for the news of the past week or so?

1. The extreme weather story. One word: Australia.

2. Idiots kill innocent people. Always too easy. I won't even include a link. Check your local paper this morning.

3. Politician does something illegal. For this one, I've got a cool link, and it brings us in imagination to sunny Italy!

4. Primate attempts inappropriate sex. A porn-film operation under the primatological name "Cheeky Monkey Inc." seems to have made inappropriate use of a food vending truck.

5. Experts warn of financial calamity. And the municipal bond market is the target of many of the latest warnings.

6. Big Company Buys Another Big Company. These mergers often take on a trans-national cast. That's nothing new. But when the industry that is consolidating is defense consulting, it's still news.

7. Famous Person Does Something Interesting. Ah, the celebrity news category! Ricky Gervais seems to have touched a few Hollywood nerves.

8. The scientific discovery that might be useful in ten years? That CERN thing -- wasn't it supposed to have found that all-important Higgs boson by now? How long will it remain elusive before particle physicists wonder (a) whether it exists and (b) if it doesn't, how to patch up their theories?

9. Government fails to achieve a goal. The governments of Europe have experimented in recent years with the creation of a unified currency zone. That experiment may be crashing to an end. Symptoms of the crash are in all the papers.

Yes, I think Scott Adams has a point.

A Song for Mellencamp

From the Office of the Inspector General’s semiannual report to Congress:

Beginning on October 20, 2008, the OIG conducted an investigation into information showing a Los Angeles Regional Office SK-17 supervisor had been using his SEC-assigned computer to access Internet pornography. The investigation revealed that while using his SEC computer during 17 working days, the employee received approximately 1,880 access denials for Internet websites classified by the SEC’s Internet filter as pornography. The images on these websites included graphic depictions of sexual acts.


Let's spell that out. One thousand, eight hundred and eighty denials of access over 17 working days. He tried to reach prohibitesd porn sites more than 110 times a day. And was continually blocked. After the first 500 blocks or so, might you not have expected him to get the idea?

The IG report also says: The supervisor also admitted that he saved numerous pornographic and sexually-explicit images to his SEC computer hard drive and that he viewed those saved images during work hours.

So the internet access wasn't necessary for his urgent porn-consuming needs,. Yet still he kept trying. 110 times a day. More than 13 times an hour, presuming an 8 hour shift. And surely there would be no reason for this fellow to stay overtime. He must have been eager to get to some more permissive computer terminal when the 8 hour day was done!

You'll be happy to know that he hasn't been terminated. There seems to have been nothing more than a reprimand.

Well ... he's obviously devoted to the service of the public.

And the song for Mellencamp?

P*O*R*N in the S*E*C.

You saw that coming.