Conclusive proof that "asshattery" should be an actual word

Via The Agitator:

Town refuses occupancy permit for another unmarried couple.

My first thought was: what the hell is an "occupancy permit"? But having in the past briefly and reluctantly dabbled in real estate law, I remember that such a permit is sometimes required, typically w/r/t commercial properties, prior to allowing tenants to take possession of a property that has recently been constructed (or remodeled). This neat bit of nanny-state regulation is -- ostensibly -- for the purposes of assuring the safety and general occupability of the property for the tenants. I suspect its real purpose in many jurisdictions is to provide an opportunity for some petty graft by low-to-mid-level bureaucrats.

But the City of Black Jack, MO, whose website was apparently created by dozens of monkeys randomly typing bits of HTML code, has found a more novel use for the occupancy permit: refusing to bestow the honor of residency upon undesirables. Undesirables being defined, in this case, as people who choose to cohabitate without the benefit of marriage.

Putting aside the obvious question of why anyone in their right mind would want to live in an antediluvian backwater populated by sanctimonious asshats, let's examine the City's publicly stated justification for their self-evident imbecility:

The purpose of these occupancy permit laws generally is to:
avoid overcrowding by non-related parties,

[But of course overcrowding by related parties is perfectly ok.]

assure the lifelong maintenance of the cities housing stock,

[Aside from the ridiculous spelling error, does anyone have the slightest idea what the fuck this means?]

prevent new buyers from being obligated to repair residences that were not kept up to code,

[Because this goal could not be achieved by the "new buyers" engaging a duly licensed property inspector (as required by a mortgage lender or homeowners' insurance provider), or by, you know, going into the house they're about to purchase and looking around real good. And it certainly cannot be achieved without the proper degree of focus being placed on the familial status of the potential residents.]

preserve the character of the neighborhoods and the City

[Because, naturally, "character" can only be established by verifying that new residents have had their sex lives sanctioned by law and/or clergy.]

and to protect the general safety and welfare of the City’s residents.

[As always, every stupid fucking law on the books must have the obligatory "safety" justification thrown in for good measure, even where (or maybe especially where) it has no conceivable relevance or application whatsoever. Can you imagine going into court and arguing that an unmarried couple is somehow less safe to "the City's residents" than a married couple? Absurd.]

Fortunately, the ACLU has, with respect to the previous, similar incident alluded to in the headline above, filed a federal lawsuit that will, if successful, turn the City of Black Jack, its league of small and ignorant bureaucrats, and their entire community into a flat, smoking abrasion in the earth's crust.

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UPDATE: I notice that the news article first linked above contains the following: "The city attorney says he’s willing to fight for the ordinance in court." I'm sure this is exactly what this guy had in mind when he chose a career in law and spent all of those long hours sitting in boring lectures, pulling all-nighters prepping for law school finals, studying for the bar, etc. He must be very proud that his 7+ years of upper level education has put him in the position of going into court and fighting for the right of a bunch of troglodytes to discriminate against people who don't quite meet their insanely stupid idea of what constitutes "character". Does he really need work badly enough to actually do this? I hope not, because that would be... something beyond pathetic that I can't think of a word for right now.

UPDATE II: For those of you still checking this site every now and then, yeah I know I've barely posted anything in the last month. I'm kinda burned out on blogging for the time being. Plus, it's Summer, and I've got a pool, a grill, and a blender.

Book recommendation

with semi-amusing personal anecdote thrown in at no extra charge:

Once upon a time, after I got my first "real" job, but before I had definitively left the parental nest (and therefore still lived in the eponymous "Hick Town"), I used to go to a place called Fry Street on the weekends. For the uninitiated (I assume very few of my readers fall into this category), Fry Street is a loosely defined area full of college bars adjacent to the University most proximate to the aforementioned Hick Town.

Most proximate, but still a half hour drive. Due to a very unfortunate previous event which will not be detailed here, said half hour drive, coupled with my usual Fry Street drinking habits, necessitated that these visits would end with me crashing on a friend's sofa at closing time and driving back the next morning.

One such morning, after a more-than-typical night of tipping many (many) Shiner Bocks, I awoke with the usual feeling of "Where the fuck am I, exactly?". I usually try to work out the answer to this question prior to opening my eyes. Because sometimes you want to circle around that answer a bit, let it come to you in small packets, catalyze it somewhat, rather than have it -- BAM! -- thrust right upon you all at once.

But in this instance, I was in a relatively safe (if not clean, or orderly) place. Once I had determined this to my satisfaction, I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, ignored the pounding in my brain pan, and slowly opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the spine of a book inches from my face on the coffee table. The book had a curious name that -- in my stuporous state -- I couldn't quite parse correctly: Cryptonomicon. I stared, trying to puzzle out the name, and my misfiring brain kept making associations with Necronomicon, which has something to do with witchcraft, or satan, or something.

But so I finally, without moving my head, picked the book up and looked at the back cover for the blurbs. These contained words like: "brilliant", "visionary", "mind-boggling", "genre-busting", etc. I'm a sucker for good blurbs -- especially the kind that come from more august sources than "The Akron Gazette" or suchlike. Which these did. The NY Post (not exactly the NYT Book Review ("electrifying... hilarious"), but still) called the author, Neal Stephenson, "the rarest of geniuses" (to which I say, NY Post, you might want to tap the brakes a bit there, buddy).

So on the way home I stopped at Recycled Books (a sprawling used book store that you should definitely patronize, if you have the means) and got my own copy. It isn't for everyone (lots of tech stuff, jargon, and highly detailed descriptions of things that some people don't care much about... oh, and plus, not exactly a tie-a-nice-bow-on-top airplane-fiction type ending, which will kill it for some people).

But all of this is really just an excuse to post the following quote, from page 51:

After a series of conferences in a room at the town's Holiday Inn, the veteran emerged, accompanied by one of the five most famous lawyers on the face of the planet, and announced that he was filing a civil suit against the Three Siblings that would, if it succeeded, turn them and their entire community into a flat, smoking abrasion in the earth's crust.

It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses.

In the midst of a nice Citi-led run up in bank stocks these last couple of days, there's been a big uproar over these AIG bonuses.

Let's first note that I'm not one to go all class-war-rich-v-poor on you. I've got no beef with people making ridiculous amounts of money: entrepreneurs, innovators, entertainers, athletes, capitalists, or even bankers. In fact, I'm all for it. The idea that hard-working and/or talented people are rewarded, and that even people of little talent often get rich for being in the right place at the right time, or for simply having -- purely by luck -- something that others are willing to pay a lot for, is one of the great things about America.

But then let's also note that the bonuses which are currently the subject of such righteous outrage are being paid to executives in the "Financial Products" division of AIG; the very same division that wrote billions upon billions of dollars worth of derivatives contracts that caused AIG to fail, and very nearly brought down the entire global financial system with it. These people were at the very epicenter of this whole mess.

Now, I will grant you that these folks were presented with some pretty perverse incentives: they were compensated on the basis of the revenue generated by sales of these derivatives, without any regard for the potential liabilities of such derivatives. (I can only imagine what the monumentally stupid people in AIG's risk management shop thought about this. But probably they didn't "think" about it in any way that could be considered meaningful.) But even given such perverse incentives, these derivatives traders cannot by any measure be considered productive or successful employees. In short, what they did was terrible -- catastrophic, in fact -- for their employer. And given this inescapable fact, they do not deserve bonuses, but more likely deserve to be sued for gross negligence or prosecuted for criminal fraud.

Ok, so hopefully we can all agree on that. The question then becomes whether tax dollars (the only kind of dollars AIG has or will have for the foreseeable future) should be used for the payment of these bonuses. The story we first got was that when Geithner heard about this, he immediately called up AIG's CEO and expressed his outrage and insisted (demanded!) that AIG suspend payment of the bonuses. Given what subsequently transpired, we can assume this was the Treasury Secretary's version of the Democratic Congress's "Sternly Worded Letter(TM)" so often in use during the Bush Administration.

If you'll recall, sending the Sternly Worded Letter is a ruse one will put into use when one becomes aware of a public circumstance that he or she believes is sure to outrage a significant segment of his or her constituency, but with respect to such circumstance he or she: (1) considers any meaningful action which might counteract it to be too much hard work, (2) actually has little or no disagreement with, (3) is personally benefited by, (4) is secretly personally implicated by, or (5) all of the above. So the preferred action is to take a public stance of stern outrage toward such circumstance, while taking little or no further action to impede it.

This describes Geithner's ploy in regard to the AIG bonuses. As we will see, it may also describe Obama's. In response to Geithner's "outraged" phone call (the substance of which was promptly leaked to the press), the AIG CEO sent him a letter stating that the bonuses were contractual obligations which could not be abrogated (for reasons I don't feel like typing out right now, this is a transparently idiotic excuse), and in any event they were being paid for the purposes of "retention" of valuable employees (neglecting, of course, to mention that many of them had already left the company, and astutely eliding any explanation as to why, of all the people in the world, one would want these particular employees to continue working for one's organization).

And so then Geithner, having made his outrage publicly known, meekly (though in a manner thoroughly evidencing his Outrage) acquiesed and turned immediately back to the project of funneling billions of dollars to his friends and colleagues in the financial services sector.

In other circumstances, this is where the story would end. But in the panicked and -- yes -- outraged America that we live in today, 2009, the public had finally has had enough of seeing guys in $8,000 suits, through the good auspices of (unwilling and largely un-consulted) taxpayers, being kept in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. And thus there was a great public outcry.

In response to such great public outcry, then, Obama took to the airwaves on Monday vowing that he would instruct the Treasury Department to do everything within its power, to "pursue every legal avenue", in order to block the payment of these bonuses. To my ears, he sounded very sincere about this.

But then later, sadly, some frowny-faced "administration officials" stepped forward to explain that the bonuses had already been paid on Friday and to opine that they "couldn't be extracted from their recipients without a legal fight that would cost the taxpayers even more." How very, very unfortunate. So, instead, "officials said the White House will focus on ensuring taxpayers recoup the cost of the bonuses and, going forward, executive compensation at AIG would be on a much tighter leash." Which means, I guess, that the Treasury will give AIG $165M so that AIG can then turn around and pay exactly the same amount back to the Treasury as a "recoupment" of these bonuses. See? Problem solved.

So we'll just go on down the road, "turn the page" as they say, and resolve to do better the next time around. And in the meantime, all of us poor schmucks out here in flyover country had a great opportunity to vent our displeasure at those who have made such an unfortunate mess of our economy. Ahhh. All better? Good.

Just one slight complication here, however. The meek frightened squirrel -- Congress -- appears to have found a nut, Democrats and Republicans alike. We now have many prominent Congressional Democrats screaming for an emergency tax bill which will, if successful, turn the AIG Financial Products shop into a flat, smoking abrasion in the earth's crust. Cleverly, they will tax these AIG execs at a 60% rate (in addition to the existing 35%) on all bonus money over $10,000. For their part, the Republicans are insisting that Geithner be hauled into the Capitol to be cross-examined on what he knew about the bonuses and when he knew it (apparently months ago!).

It promises to be quite the interesting story now, with Congresspersons of both parties vying to outdo each other in demagoguing this issue. Cynicism aside, my personal feeling is: (a) these bonuses should never have been paid, (b) Obama and Geithner made a huge political mistake by allowing them to be paid, and (c) whether or not it is, in the larger scheme of things, good policy to punish these AIG execs by taxing them into oblivion, it would make me very happy to see it done, because, well, fuck those assholes; there are a lot of people suffering in this economy right now, and no one deserves to do a bit of suffering more than the handful of sociopathic dickheads who had such a large hand in bringing the shitstorm down on everyone else.