Wednesday, 15 July 2009 19:00 GFP Columnist - Michael R Shannon
Print

ImageGood news for Virginia auto insurance adjustors: Gov. Kaine’s decision to close 18 interstate rest areas will mean more sleepy truck and automobile drivers careening down our highways. Since the only thing keeping many of these unfortunates awake will be a painfully full bladder, the rest of us may have to choose between being run over on the highway or trampled at the door to the restroom.

Studies show that up to 60 percent of all traffic accidents are caused by dozing drivers, so there should be no shortage of crash–related business for the foreseeable future.


Why in just a very short time, our highways may exhibit the same frenzied thought processes that already characterize the sleep–deprived zombies currently stumbling the halls of the Obama White House.

According to our local Mainstream Media, “In a city where work can border on obsession, the Obama staffers stand out. They are not quite the walking dead, but their eyes are frequently ringed with the bags that accompany exhaustion.”

This type of hey–watch–me–suffer story is common at the beginning of a new administration as the latest shipment of Democrat junior messiahs occupy the White House. (Evidently the media believe lack of sleep is the least of the punishments GOP staffers deserve and their bloodshot eyes rarely merit coverage.)

The Obama cultists make a fetish of baggy eyes, lack of sleep, no time for exercise because they’ve got to save the planet from the unworthy and the unwashed.

This sounds like you are really getting your tax dollar’s worth, until you realize that studies show sleep deprivation can have the same effects on mental and physical performance as being drunk.

At best, according to the National Sleep Foundation, people who work more than 60 hours a week make almost 10 percent more mistakes on the job than people who work less. All these examples are bad enough when Roscoe is driving a forklift, but potentially disastrous when Chloe’s thoughts are driving U.S. foreign policy.

There is always a sense of urgency surrounding the lack–of–sleep devotees who are running the country. As the Post reporter wrote, “the Obama team has had a particularly frenetic start, the result of inheriting the worse (sic) economic crisis since the Great Depression.” The typo indicating the reporter could use a few ‘Zs’ himself.

I will give the WH staff credit for not denying the obvious. When you stop the average redneck drunk at a DUI checkpoint and ask if they’ve been drinking the reply is always, “two beers.” And a liberal will only admit to “a glass of Pinot Noir at dinner,” but somehow both always manage to blow over .08 on the Alco–sensor.

In the White House they are described as having “a palpable sense of pride…that treaties are negotiated, complex legislation is crafted and banks are bailed out — all on very little sleep.” Of course any drunk worth his cirrhosis claims to be able to hold his liquor and drive.

Frankly, I could care less if these sufferers from indispensability syndrome shorten their lives through lack of sleep; it’s just that their mistakes have real consequences that live on after them.

The Challenger disaster, Three Mile Island and the Exxon Valdez oil spill were all the result of lack of sleep and worker exhaustion. And those are just the sudden catastrophes; that doesn’t count our current slow–motion disasters like cap–and–trade; the Iran mullah vote of confidence and Government Motors.

They even drag out Gene Sperling, a Clintonista now working for Treasury Secretary Geithner, for a quote on working conditions. Sperling will always be famous in my mind for boasting to the National Association of Manufacturers that during Clinton One he was so busy his mother had to rent him a place to stay, otherwise he'd be sleeping on a grate outside the West Wing.

Another case of someone in his condition who wouldn’t be allowed to operate heavy machinery, cheerfully grasping the levers of power.

Right now the only thing keeping the country out of the ditch are a few lonely conservatives in the Senate acting as human rumble–strips, creating enough noise and vibration to temporarily wake the administration when the country veers too near the precipice.

This situation might be more tolerable to the non–elite, if these know–it–alls would stop beating us over the head with their moral preening and their self–sacrifice one–upmanship.

Meanwhile, I have a suggestion for the next administration: instead of filling the White House with sleep–deprived acolytes that function like drunks; let’s try actual drunks. There will be no drop off in decision–making quality and a real drunk isn’t so self–righteous.



Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
Reddit! Del.icio.us! Mixx! Free and Open Source Software News Google! Live! Facebook! StumbleUpon! TwitThis Joomla Free PHP

Translator

Connect

 

Share GFP

Share with friends!

Follow the GFP

You are here:   The FrontPageColumnistsUnited StatesMichael R. ShannonWhen Zombies Go Wild