Big Stupid News of the Day – White House Terrorizes NYC!

Holy cow. What a stupid government we have.

According to one of the NY Times’ blogs (The City Room), some idiots at the White House were really keen on getting a photo of Air Force One (or it’s lookalike backup) with the Statue of Liberty behind it.  I didn’t realize this, but apparently the recession has put the US in the position of selling Air Force Ones, as I don’t know what other reason anyone would have to put together marketing images of the aircraft.

Anyways, they received all the proper clearances to do this by whatever regulatory bodies (of course there is no regulatory body for common sense) but no one in New York appeared to know about this, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and were a bit prickly as a result of the 10am fly-by.

So when Air Force One (B) (or whatever you call it) went around buzzing New York at very low altitudes, with two F-16s in pursuit (I guess snapping the sexay promotional photos), people began to panic and streamed out of the Manhattan highrises.  The silly New Yorkers apparently were under the impression that what looks like a passenger airliner flying low over New York accompanied by two fighter planes might be a sign of menace, rather than the much more obvious explanation that our government is retarded.

So now the shouting match has started and everyone is “furious” (Bloomberg, Obama, me, everyone in New York) that they weren’t informed and that the government could be this publicly retarded and blah blah blah.

My issue is this:  Why the fuck do we need pictures of Air Force One (B), sans President, in front of the Statue of Liberty?  Even if people were ‘properly’ informed in New York, do you really think it’s a good idea to do this?  Do you really think thousands to millions of less-informed New Yorkers might not still panic?  Beyond the emotional damage it will cause, do they understand that the white collar workers in Manhattan are basically off work for an hour or two as a result of this?  And am I to understand that there is someone at the White House being paid by taxpayers whose responsibilities include getting sexay photos of Air Force One (B)?

Shouldn’t someone in the Obama White House (certainly someone in his campaign/mudslinging team) know how to use photoshop?  Because that would have been a lot easier.

And aren’t we in a goddamn recession?  I have no idea how to calculate this, but reading two F-16s, Air Force One (B), all the staff involved and fuel, plus all the bureacratic nonsense that I’m sure it involved (meetings for months, route plan clearances) probably cost American taxpayers upwards of a million dollars.  For a goddamn photo (that I don’t even know if they got) of Air Force One (B) in front of the Statue of Liberty.  Oh, and millions of loss productivity as thousands of Manhattanites fled what they thought were their soon-to-be-collapsing office towers.  But I’m sure Verizon and Sprint cashed in with all the daytime minutes spent as people frantically called their spouses to tell them they loved them.

Oh, and way to go White House/Defense Department/Group of Idiots We Pay the Salaries Of to Get Sexay Photos of Air Force One (B), you broke the fucking markets too:

“Even the markets dipped shortly after 10 a.m., though it was unclear if the alarm over the planes was a factor. Starting at 10:02 a.m., three main market indexes started dropping precipitously. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 40 points in 10 minutes, starting 10:15 a.m., before it rebounded more than 50 points.”

But I guess I should be thankful for the bureacratic nonsense.  If it weren’t for the procedural delays, I think it’d be safe to say that this fiasco would have taken place about seven and a half months ago.

… and the cow goes moo