Safety First!

Leave it to a bureaucrat to put public safety above all else. Here is a bit from an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune:

Making the Chicago River safe enough for swimming would waste taxpayer money and increase the risk of people drowning, officials who oversee the waterway said today.

Responding to an order from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up high levels of disease-causing bacteria in the river, the president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s elected board said the urban waterway has been altered so dramatically that new efforts to improve water quality would not be worth the costs.

Go read the whole article to appreciate the "sophistication" of their bureaucrat's "reasoning".

In the same vein...

• Giving children immunization shots is a big waste. It just means more kids will survive childhood and become a burden on the social system when they retire and collect Social Security.


• Putting up road signs just means more people will avoid dying at intersections or not kill themselves when surprised by winding roads or a need to yield to on-coming traffic. Adding signs is a waste of taxpayer money and means that the will be more cars on the road slowing everybody's commute.

Ah... the possibilities of this kind of logic are unending!