Welcome to the Bowels of Bureaucracy!


Satirical tales of bureaucratic derring-do and derring-don't from the Poison Processor of Bob Blau.

                                                                                                      


The Latest                                                         

God's Mistake  In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, he did a pretty good job. With one exception. When the job was done, God discovered that he had a significant surplus of rats' anuses.
Brain Transplant  It is a little-known fact, but the body is run by a bunch of committees. This explains why it is so hard to get up in the morning, change directions when once underway, and, in extreme cases, walk ten paces without falling over.

With Us on All Issues  We apostles were divided. There were two new applicants for membership, and no consensus appeared to be forthcoming.

Zappers  We found the first one in the mud, and it changed the course of the war. From the beginning, there were critics. "It's too horrible," they said. "It's immoral to turn that thing on members of your own family," they said. But the enemy was swarming us, and the zapper turned the tide. We code-named the first one "Frank." Clearly, it was the gift of a wise God.

Biting Point  "Just look at all the awards we got. Can't argue with that, right?"

It'll Never Happen Again  "What? Another mass extinction? How many of my families are gone this time?"

From the CSI Archives  Cliche Scene Investigators were called in last week to investigate an unusually large number of bleached human bones that have been discovered in the Mojave Desert over the past several months. The puzzling circumstance about these remains was that there appeared to be no common factor connecting them. The remains were not discovered in a single cache or in a particular area, other than the desert. Here's what we discovered.

Peace Prize  Big wars. Small wars. Medium-sized wars. Intermediate medium-sized wars. World wars. Regional wars. Interplanetary wars. Civil wars. Uncivil wars. Intercity wars. Intracity wars. Wars involving two countries. Wars involving three countries. Wars involving five countries at first, but then two dropped out and three more joined in. The Marsian language had 1746 words for war. But none for peace.

Blood-Sucking Reform  The prospects for compromise on blood-sucking reform grow daily dimmer as the debate rages on. The central problem, as I see it, is the vanishing of the middle ground. Everyone agrees that reform is necessary, but all support one of two extreme positions, and no one seems prepared to budge from either one. The Drakul Party represents those who would reform blood-sucking by having a lot more of it. The People's Party supports regulations to reduce blood-sucking to a bearable level. The so-called "No Blood-Sucking" system employed in some backward foreign countries is, of course, antivampirist and un-Transylvanian. No one wants that except radicals.

Defending the Water Hole  Whatever differences they may have had, all the animals shared the Water Hole. It did, after all, sustain the life of all species. In a remarkable feat of cooperation, the animals even established a permanent committee, the Guardians of the Water Hole, to defend its integrity.

Recent Events Explained  "Liver?"  "Check!"

What Wheels Are For  Oogluk had a huge load of rocks to move and no idea how to move them. He had a box. He had the will. What he didn't have was enough muscle pull that rock-filled box from Point A to Point B. What to do, what to do?

Drugs that Work  I swear by drugs. You're always hearing about how horrible drugs are, but I'm hear to tell you, they have their uses. Take Bessie, for instance. She's so much better these days.

A Different Deal  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And he went through a lot of species until he came to Man. And he decided to take Man into his confidence. A little.

Conjoined Twins  Have you ever seen any of those movies where people hang by one hand from a helicopter or a tall building or a little branch jutting out of a beetling cliff over a depthless gorge? What an unmitigated load of rubbish. In the first place, no one has that kind of strength. But if there are a few who do, and I certainly don't know them, the odds of being able to catch such a handhold, while falling, no less, are vanishingly slim. So here I am, hanging from a little branch jutting out of a beetling cliff over a depthless gorge. And that's not all.

The Crow Gets the Pitcher  Not long after Aesop's crow found Aesop's pitcher, a different crow found a different pitcher, but the situation was much the same. Thirsty crow, low-water pitcher, beak too short.

Sir Phil  No, really. I was the best. Everybody talks about Lancelot, but I used to kick his ass regular in the tournaments. How did this happen?

The Only Good Samaritan  The Good Samaritan was surprised to find a crowd milling around in front of the inn. The millers looked a bit unfriendly. Not to mention very armed. And they were blocking his access.

Texas DST  This is to announce the implementation of the new DST for the state of Texas, effective immediately. The new DST, or Darkness Savings Time, replaces the cumbersome, complicated, and inefficient old DST, or Daylight Savings Time.

The Bunker Papers  It is fortunate that the United States developed its atomic bomb before Nazi Germany. There is little debate on that, although the Nazis were, in fact, nowhere near perfecting a nuclear device. However, few people are aware of the other horror Hitler had planned, a horror that was imminent when the allies fortuitously broke the Nazis' power.


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