Bruce Reed's hilarious story of incompetence and chaos.
All frequent travelers have tales of bureaucratic nightmares, but this one is better than most. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
You can bet that our elected officials don't face the red tape that entangles average Joes; if they did, they'd be working to improve it.
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kerouac2
You used to be able to renew your passport in an US embassy abroad on the very same day. Now it takes about two weeks by mail, but it is still great service compared to people who renew in the United States.
I renewed my US passport in Paris last November, and I got it in 9 days. I still don't understand how the fact that you mail in your old passport and receive the new one in the mail without seeing a human being from the embassy to even check if you are even still alive [renewing in person is forbidden!] is increasing national security.
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widespread
Considering they issued visas for two 9/11 hijackers months after the attack, it's hard to see what good they're doing other than attenuating global warming by keeping people from traveling. They told Reed his passport was not yet approved, when in fact it had already been approved 2 weeks ago.
I work in automotive manufacturing. To control quality, you absolutely must have good process control. It's clear that their process control (and hence, quality control) is little more than a pretense.
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