The Government is In-Cape-Able of Being Efficient (Update: Hotairalanche)
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
Update: Wow, talk about GMTA. This Hot Air post hits virtually every highlight I did.
Not that I am insinuating more than that. My comments and jokes were pretty obvious so it is very easy to imagine two conservative-minded types seeing the same thing in the same story. I am just amused at how similar the thoughts really are, right down to the Incredibles clip.
Update (II): Ed Morrissey links and tweets “get out of my head! [/dune]”
Update (III): Apparently they disappeared the gallery of images of people attacking Dr. Evil Unemployment down the memory hole. So the pictures have gone bad in the post. Heh.
A nice juxtaposition to Lee’s discussion yesterday about how unemployment benefits actually depress employment, we have this article:
Job center blasted for giving capes to unemployed
Yes, you read that right. Capes. As in what Superman wears and what Edna Mode tells you not to wear (the good stuff is at the 2 minute mark) [update: ack! Wordpress ate my video. So here’s the one Hot Air linked to, which is shorter anyway]:
Florida officials are investigating an unemployment agency that spent public money to give 6,000 superhero capes to the jobless.
Workforce Central Florida spent more than $14,000 on the red capes as part of its “Cape-A-Bility Challenge” public relations campaign. The campaign featured a cartoon character, “Dr. Evil Unemployment,” who needs to be vanquished.
Florida’s unemployment agency director asked Monday for an investigation of the regional operation’s spending after the Orlando Sentinel published a story about the program. State director Cynthia Lorenzo said the spending appeared to be “insensitive and wasteful.”
(By the way, that is the AP, so get yer screenshots now.)
The Orlando Sentinel goes into much more detail, indeed even making the case that yeah, it is pretty undignified:
“Wow … I mean, wow,” said Ryan Julison, a former vice president of communications with Ginn Resorts. “That’s all I can say.”
Julison, who was laid off a year ago, said the tone of the campaign risks “trivializing the very gut-wrenching situation people find themselves in.” He commended Workforce Central Florida for reaching out, but worried this attempt misses the mark.
“It’s very difficult to be unemployed, to feel like you’re going around with your hat in hand,” he said. “And to be presented with a cape … I just don’t know.”
Beyond the campaign’s tone is its budget. Workforce will spend more than $73,000, with the agency’s ad firm collecting about $7,500.
And yeah, that is in significant part your money:
Workforce is a federally funded labor development agency that last year received almost $24 million in public money. It is a private, nonprofit organization governed by more than 40 Central Florida business leaders.
And of course it is still proudly on their site, including, alas, a photo gallery where they pose with a cutout of the character “Dr. Evil Unemployment”—the most poorly conceived character since… the Governator.
[Update: As mentioned above, the Pictures have been scrubbed from the site, so my pictures have disappeared too. So I have deleted the portion of the post where I showed their pictures and made fun of them. But other pictures have remained.]
By the way, anyone else notice that they are all attacking this villain from behind? Isn’t that like against the superhero code or something?
And The Blaze fished out more pics:
Pro-tip to anyone looking for a job, pretty much anywhere. Don’t wear a cape. I mean unless the job is pretending to be a superhero…
[Note: lost the original video, but that one is similar in spirit.]
…in that case, knock yourself out.
Seriously, you might as well laugh. You’re paying for it.
Or does that instead piss you off?
Just remember that, folks, the next time someone says we have to raise the debt limit, because it is impossible for the government to pay its bills without going further into debt.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing who takes full responsibility for that groaner of a pun in the title.]
They spent 14,000 dollars on 6,000 capes or $2.33 each. In other words they gave the people who came to them for help a joke prop of approximately made of material the quality of the plastic in the bags at the local supermarket.
And notice that the entire campaign seems to indicate a belief in unemployment as an independent malign entity unconnected from the general economy.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:25 amHave
there is so much wrong with this, it really is hard for one guy to capture all of it. 🙂
In other words, those are all good points.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:38 am‘facepalm with an octopus’ Monty Python, was actually too kind with the ‘Ministry of Silly Walks
narciso (79ddc3) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:38 amAaron – Rereading my comment I see that going back and trying to “improve” my first line was a big mistake.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:45 amI shouldn’t comment on blogs until I have had a second cup of coffee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
narciso (79ddc3) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:46 amWho in the world COMES up with this kind of crap??
Too many college Marketing grads with time on their hands!!
It’s no worse than the money spent on freeway signs hyping “the One’s” stimulus money at work!!
SacTownMan (0a0272) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:50 amA company I once worked for set up grills in the parking lot one day for cooking burgers. They passed out chefs aprons for all of us to wear and to take home. Printed on the aprons was the slogan “Cooking up Sales”. The burgers were delicious, but the cooking up sales part, not surprisingly, got a fair amount of mockery. (Looking back, at least they were not specifically asking us to cook the books.)
The marketing genius who dreamed up the cookout is about the right age to have semi-retired to Florida and would be very capable of putting together a “cape” campaign for the unemployed, I think.
elissa (8c8d6e) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:55 amMy wild guess is that their staff find Michael Scott to be less funny and more uncanny than the rest of us. But yes, this reminds me of those signs. Money spent… for no reason. Hell, just give these poor guys a lottery ticket instead.
Elissa, that’s pretty funny. ‘how’d you get so many sales last week?’ ‘I cooked the books!’
I just get the feeling many a soul crossed a line, when they put on the soul sucking cape of humiliation and left no closer to a job. No wonder Jack Daniels is doing well.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:05 amThat cost pretty much guarantees non-US material sourcing.
carlitos (28bbc0) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:09 amDustin
i like those “obama money at work” signs. when i see lazy construction workers screwing up traffic and taking forever and a day to get things done, i want everyone to know who is responsible for that.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:17 amGood point!
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:22 amthe asian dude is the only one what really has superhero hair the others need to get on the stick
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:36 amhe probably already has like five dragon balls
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:38 amThat would be awesome if the line from Dune wasn’t “Get out of my mind“…
Not that I’m some kind of geek or anything…
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:49 amNo capes! — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNUbPRj9TGM
Bill (754533) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:53 amThat librarian superhero was a good idea.
JD (0d2ffc) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:55 amCarlitos is on to something. An intrepid investigative reporter needs to track down and do a story on the Malaysian sweatshop where these capes were made.
Icy Texan (6f6016) — 4/20/2011 @ 12:23 pmQuelle suprise–the photo gallery is no longer available. This would be funny if it wasn’t so freaking pathetic.
Rochf (f3fbb0) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:01 pmThe US government wants to cut spending – over the past few weeks I have read this at least hundred times. I just don’t understand why the officials don’t start with agencies like this one. All the money spent could be used to provide people with some useful how to get a job training instead of buying those ridiculous capes.
Lorne Marr (af7dc7) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:04 pmthe government is in-cape-able of being anything but slavishly in thrall to union thug whores
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:05 pmThe Champions Online MMOG is free to play… couldn’t they just have referred people who want to play superhero to that game?
malclave (1db6c5) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:29 pmOh man, that just makes me so irritated. You can’t even put a factory where you want (in a red state, of course), because unions want to be able to screw you over.
So much for state’s rights, even merely right to work. Even merely the right to have a profitable company. Boeing can’t retaliate against striking workers by moving? Why the hell not? Trust me, they will just move to another country if you push them too hard.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:35 pmDustin – there is lots more to that story. The workers decertified the union previously.
Did they really memory-hole the photo galleries?
JD (604536) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:37 pmhere is some backstory from that Michelle Malkin lady
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:40 pmjust the timing alone on this Boeing case is political hardball in the extreme. It’s the dumbest move in the world, for workers, to screw a company out of such a massive investment. This is meant to chill future reactions to strikes. A company will be less willing to invest in a right to work state if a union is making it impossible to make money.
The endgame here is what: Airbus contracts? I don’t see how this works for the unions to screw their own company. I see the workers figured that out.
But in South Carolina, you can’t force an employee to join a union, which is just too sane for democrats, I guess.
This is why I get annoyed at the prospect of letting committees and judges settle any political issue. It might seem like the general public can’t handle those choices because change is so slow, but they are the least bad ruler.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/20/2011 @ 1:46 pmUnlike most of the comenters I find the idea of capes for the unemployed ingenious, I only object to the quality. Think of how useful a nice high quality cape could be to an unemployed person. It gets cold sleeping under bridges and a nice warm cape can make all the difference. Roll it up and use it as a pillow for those lazy afternoons watching another factory or store close. A cape can protect the last decent suit of an unemployed person from gum (hopefully that’s sticky substance is gum) as they ride the bus to their 40th interview this week. Why a good cloak could really be a boon to an unemployed person.
max (2f2a28) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:21 pmWell, there ARE certain types of jobs where it pays to be “a character” – For example, if you were an interior decorator, or a theater director or playwright… perhaps even an architect. All “artsy” professions, you note.
But for the most part, yeah, “No capes!“
IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8) — 4/20/2011 @ 9:47 pmI’m Frank’s lawyer.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/20/2011 @ 10:02 pmAh, yes. Generating awareness and raising consciousness and improving self-esteem. None of that’s worked for the last 40+ years, so let’s keep doing it.
ErisGuy (35e007) — 4/21/2011 @ 4:01 am