Jammed
A big accident closed down a major stretch of freeway yesterday afternoon and evening. Hours of traffic, jammed to a standstill. The Roads & Transport Authority screwed around for an interminable time, what must have felt like eternity, as anyone who's ever been in Los Angeles traffic could attest to, as I have, and swear feels like the least motion forward, forever thwarted, is purest torture. So what are we treated to on the news? The State Opposition party calling for the State government minister's head, no, the whole State government, thank you, all of 'em. This morning we have the RTA head sacked, and fair enough, I reckon, but is this the state of government in this country? Just what is the ministerial responsibility, State or Federal, for their portfolios? At what point are they advised? At what point is their intervention (a) called for or (b) effective? I do not expect any politician, front-bench, let alone back-, to have the day-to-day operational oversight of the bureaucracies that form the civil service or otherwise. Ultimately, from a policy point of view, they must be responsible. For example, if the Minister for Defense were to direct that armed forces payroll should only process certain categories of entitlements in some particular way and this resulted in failing to pay legitimate claims, then that Minister is certainly responsible. If the Defense Department itself reorganized its pay schema and failed in its requirements to pay entitlements, the Minister's responsibility ends with sacking the idiot in charge and ordering rectification. But that's not how it plays here.

It's all very silly, so I thank my stars not to have teabaggers and Republicans frothing at the mouth at every turn, but it can't be long now.