A list of the best government document titles. Some are awfully sad, “WRA: A story of human conservation,” or “Government versus homosexuals.” But most of the titles are just plain silly, especially if you don’t know the actual contents of the document. I’m torn as to which is my favorite. I’m particularly fond of “Cooking up solutions: cleaning up with lasagna.“ Though “Everything you wanted to know about transporting high-level nuclear wastes” might be a useful one to look at. But you really can’t beat the Canadian government document “Who are the Zombie masters and what do they want?“ What indeed?
The Free Government Information site seeks to raise awareness of issues around access to government information – definitely a worthy cause.
3 Comments
July 4, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Did you read the Zombie masters article? I tried and couldn’t find it – the link was broken to the PDF. I really wanted to see what it was all about!
July 4, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Oooh – I found it: http://www.chspr.ubc.ca/node/614
A quote from the beginning of the paper:
“Arguments for user charges in health care have been with us for a very long time. The same arguments have been advanced and rejected for at least thirty years in Canada; they were all thrashed out at the time of the Hall Commission [1], and on a number of occasions since [2].
Yet they recur. Like zombies in the night, these ideas may be intellectually dead but are
never buried. They may lie dormant for a time — in the late sixties, for example, or the late
eighties — but when stresses build up either in the health care system or in the wider public
economy, they rise up and stalk the land. So far, the fundamental principles of the Canadian
health insurance system have been strong enough to hold back these challenges each time they
have arisen, but this is no assurance of future outcomes.”
I thought the whole thing about zombies was that they *were* thought dead and buried, but crawled up out of the grave to terrify and eat brains. Maybe that’s what they mean by saying they “lie dormant for a time”. I love that the authors chose this simile . . . “Like zombies in the night . . .” Excellent and funny!
July 5, 2007 at 2:53 am
Very nice! I kept meaning to check it out and see what it was really about, but I worried that knowing the truth might ruin my delight at the titles.