Such as the Department of Trade and Industry, or the Department of Education, for example. Yes, I know it is an old joke but… is it really a joke?
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Government departments are named after whatever it is they seek to preventOctober 10th, 2004 |
 13 comments to Government departments are named after whatever it is they seek to prevent |
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What about this one? Department of Name Research.
No joke.
If this arrangement is new to Britain, I am surprised, for it has been customary in the United States for many decades. Public education here selects its teachers for their dullness and willingness to drudge away in mind-killing “education” courses. The undergraduate majors in “education,” and minors in a subject such as English. Bright and active minds that want to teach first collect degrees in their subjects (English, German, Physics) and then teach in a private school.
Take a look at the faculties of the secondary schools attended by Bush and Kerry (and any of best private schools in the US) and you will find hardly anyone who has an education degree, or even took one education course. Instead they know their stuff, they love to teach it, and judging by where their charges go on to university, they seem to do a good job despite their lack of credentials. Mr. Jones-Parry would get no further in applying to teach in the US public schools than he has in Britain, and he wouldn’t have 70 years ago, either.
BTW, there is an Ed.D. degree here; the recipients are especially eager to call each other “doctor,” instead of “mister.”
I’ve often thought that one of the better things about Britain is that, as yet, there is no “Department of Justice”.
Yep. Take a look at the nearly empty sky, and thank the Federal Aviation Administration, which is charged with keeping aviation to a minimum.
And of course the Federal Communications Commission, which keeps most of the radio spectrum filled with nothing but static, and limits the communication that does take place.
Given the way that the US State Department seems to be dominated by Tranzis — i.e. post-nationalists bent on eliminating the State — it would seem to be a prime example.
The British Foreign Office is aptly named since it puts the interests of other countries before its own.
From the article:
There must be something nuanced about that sentence that I’m missing.
No Department of Justice? Not for long, Brian.
See here.
Blair:
In law and order, we will bring back community policing through record police numbers and CSOs and street wardens and complete the reorganisation of the CJS, which is already seeing falls in ineffective trials, rises in fine enforcement and greater numbers of offenders brought to justice.
Which is code for creating a Department of Justice under EUROJUST and “approximating” criminal procedure.
I suggest that by “ineffective trials” the PM means prosecutions abandoned and/or defendants being found not guilty.
No better example could ever possibly be used than:
Ministry of Agriculture
They totally, completely and disastrously managed to almost wipe out the livestock farming industry in the UK last year but that wasn’t enough … they then changed the name to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, just in time to abolish fox hunting. They have also assisted in redeclaring what where previously ‘greenfield’ sites as ‘brownfield’ sites, under John ‘More chins than the Shanghai White Pages’ Prescott’s plans to create another 200,000 homes in the South East. I dread to think what they have in plan for our food now to complete the hattrick.
Incidentally, Prescott’s numbers nicely coincide with Blunkett’s annual figures for imported … oops “migrant” …. labour
Blair covered that too, Julian. It really was a key announcement of the new caring totalitarianism:
One suspects that “making it easier for people to make healthy choices” actually means restricting freedom to do things that the state deems unhealthy.
And the US Drug Enforcement Agency has yet, to my knowledge, to force anyone to take drugs.
Time to return the name of the Dept. of Defense to the Dept. of War.
Ah, but in the UK the “Ministry of Defence” used to be called the “War Department”, in an age when government departments actually meant what they were named.