Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for May 19, 2015

I want more campfire information — give me s’more!

Oy! It does seem that way sometimes, and some people seem to think it’s that way ALL the time. OTOH…

Um… why is the government-issued, marshmallow-roasting guide a year late?

A guide to roasting marshmallows? – I thought it was going to be a bunch of fat jokes, like “That marshmallow is so fat, when it sits around the house, it sits AROUND the house”

Does it say, “do not roast marshmallows while sleeping?”I would certainly hope so!

And for just $299.99 you too can learn the same things as Pig in the U.S. Government’s 2014 Guide to Roasting Marshmallows. Now available in just 20 easy payments of $14.99 plus $50 shipping and handling. But wait, order now and House Minority Leader will throw in the vintage U.S. Government’s 1999 Guide to Making S’mores Around the Campfire for and additional $75. That’s right, you get the U.S. Government’s 2014 Guide to Roasting Marshmallows and the vintage U.S. Government’s 1999 Guide to Making S’mores Around the Campfire, normally a $374.99 value but for this limited time offter you get both for the amazing price of only $500. Order now while supplies last.

THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

A few years back, the government issued guidelines here in Australia for the correct way to barbecue sausages.

It sounds like something out of “Yes, Prime Minister”, but we genuinely had the official guide on the wall!

Really! Not joking!

One of my first computers had a joystick that came with an instruction manual. I wish that were a joke.

It could be worse. A Commissioner from a racehorse breeding association could be appointed head of FEMA based on his friendship with the President’s campaign manager. That would be really terrible.Oh, wait…

Yep and that is how it was done. By the book Mr Spock.

Well mugens, perhaps Nabuquduriuzhur was painting with too broad a brush, but you are as well.

When I was with CBP, I’d say 1/6 of the officers I worked with were a danger—either to themselves or to the country. Once they made it past the probationary period, they could not be fired.

Prior to CBP I worked for OPM, where they had five rating possibilities. If you were one of the first two—fails to meet requirements and minimally meets requirements—you’d receive counseling and if you failed to improve, you’d be fired.

At CBP the rating scale was pass/fail and the documentation required to sustain a “fail” was too much work for even an obviously incompetent officer to be rated a “fail”. Therefore, based upon my observation, the borders are staffed by a solid percentage of officers who are incompetent/lazy/psychologically unstable, but essentially cannot be fired.

Where I currently work—a local PD (because actual LE is way more fun then the petty functionalism of Northern Border Customs/Immigration)—more officers have failed to make it through Field Training in the 18 months I’ve been there, than were let go in the six years I was with CBP (at the particular POE I was stationed at—which had four time the staffing).

On a side note—CBP has got to be the only Law Enforcement Agency in the U.S. without a psychological testing component to the hiring process.

@mugens – Thank you.

@TEMPLO S.U.D.It’s probably because Stephan wrote this strip back in 2014.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in a room that someone had Wiley and Pastis locked in.I would bet it would be a hoot.

Goat is trying to be tactfully “moderate.” Unfortunately, roasting marshmallows is obviously too serious a business for the average resident of this country to handle on his own. Rat is too glib. Remember, citizens and undocumented residents: marshmallows kill, unless you follow these nifty safety precautions! A.) Open plastic bag and remove marshmallows before roasting….

Um, as long as there are folks like Pig around, it probably is necessary.

Here’s the U.S.D.A. blog post on roasting marshmallows…http://blogs.usda.gov/2014/08/29/us-forest-service-asks-how-does-your-marshmallow-roast/

You’ll find incompetence in the private sector, too. Government may have the better-known reputation, but not a monopoly. The difference is that incompetents usually get fired in a reasonably well-run private business while in government, they MIGHT get reassigned.

And no surprise about the UNC kid, Hellcat. As much as Tar Heels love to talk about what a great academic school they have in Chapel Hill, they sure do protect their athletes from having to do anything beyond shooting threes or throwing footballs. Saddens me that this was going on during the Dean Smith era, but it’s the way big-time college sports are everywhere.

Makes me think of that awesome scene in ’Dave" where Klein turned down projects wasting money in his cabnet meeting. Loved that.

Well it’s all fun and games until someone looses an eye from one of those flaming marshmallow sticks, now isn’t it?

it’s the nature of the beast. it’s bureaucracy. c. northcote parkinson of parkinson’s law why does no one remember him but me? the more you try to cut red tape, the more red tape you wind up with. slash spending and you wind up spending more than ever. etc. etc. just roll with it

Goat is the perfect liberal. He does not answer the question, misdirecting it so that he does not have to answer. Pig proves Rat’s point, while agreeing with Goat.Gov’t does do good things, like the military police, fire depts., but is also horribly wastes money, like education, social security, medicare, and all the insane things local gov’ts do.

Rad-ish GoComics PRO Member said, about 6 hours ago

@Nabuquduriuzhur

Did you ever write government pamphlets?-—————————————-Not unless they were self-published — that’s the only way anything Nabby writes ever gets into actual print.

Spoken like a libertarian.

Marshmallows… Yuck!xxx

Yep folks, the pamphlet is real. They say such useful things as “never use a stick that is less than 30” long to roast marshmallows".Just remember, that’s YOUR tax dollars at work

http://blogs.usda.gov/2014/08/29/us-forest-service-asks-how-does-your-marshmallow-roast/

You thought Pig made it up?

i should point out, i know someone who worked for a company that had been part of the government. many of the people there still had the attitude of sucking at the public teat, do as little as possible for the next 40 years. she ,yes i said she, had a hard time because she had a work ethic that involved working hard and getting things done in spite of these bozos. the ones who were donothings were all white and male and able bodied.any questions?

There is no element of government that is useful, other than the military. Or cost-effective, other than the Marines.

The biggest problem with government employees is not the hiring rules. Everyone, public or private, makes some good hires, and some bad hires. In private enterprise, the bad employees get terminated. In the Federal Government, rules make that very, very difficult to do, so the bad employees stay on. That isn’t a new problem, it’s been going on for years. My wife worked for a government department some 30 years ago, and one of her fellow employees was the former head of her department. It seems he was incompetent, so they relieved him of duties. He wasn’t terminated, though. He was assigned an empty office. For 8 years he had been coming in every day, and sitting in that office, collecting pay, and he was still collecting it when my wife left. I believe he finally quit or retired about 5 years after that, but was never terminated. Some other agencies haven’t been very good at weeding out the bad employees, and they end up quite non-functional. Probably the best example is the VA.

I’m sure everyone’s got an anecdote. I’ve worked with incompetents in private enterprise that never seem to get fired. Either they know the boss, or the boss doesn’t like to fire, or rehire. Government employees are people, just like the rest of us. Politicians, on the other hand: “Government is evil. Please elect us to run it as incompetently as we can. You’ll love it then.”

What ever happened to “The Darwin Awards”, where we made fun of people who died from their own stupidity? Now we’re just trying to protect stupid people, and that makes all of us, as a species, dumber.

thank you

I can see the government putting out a 2014 guide to roasting marshmallows halfway through 2015.

Ah, clearly you didn’t pay attention. His boss was a booster for the school and the kid was a big name basketball player at the school. The kid needed what amounts to an easy A to stay on the team and the boss was ensuring his team had more of a chance of getting into the NCAA finals. Nothing to do with government, and you know it. But you’ve trying to make it seem otherwise.

WiseOrator—Several points:

“Based upon my observation”—acknowledges the limited utility of my observation.

One merely needs to read newspapers local to border crossings to read about CBP Officers and BP Agents exceeding their authority or engaging in criminal activity. The CBP intranet actually has a section called “Trust Betrayed” which documents officers/agents being fired for corruption/criminality.

If someone drops his sidearm while drawing it, or while running to respond to an incident, would you consider that person competent for a position requiring the use of a firearm?

If someone consistently barely qualifies with one’s firearm, would you consider that person competent?

If someone is morbidly obese and incapable of running 25 feet, would you consider that person competent to perform a job requiring physical fitness?

If someone is barely literate, would you consider that person competent to perform duties which require detailed written documentation of actions taken?

Your ignorance about the law does not imply that others are ignorant.

Your ignorance about what qualifies as competent does not imply that others are ignorant.

Fire can hurt you?

And spending way too much on military expenditures and not nearly enough in other areas

Where do I get said guide?