The Library

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Stephensonia

He uploads it to the CIC database--The Library, formerly known as The Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore.

Definition

When the word 'congress' ceases to have meaning in a political sense, because the congress no longer exists as an entity so central to every American's political life, why call it the library 'of congress'? Particularly when the LoC and the databases of the Central Intelligence Agency are well neigh indistinguishable, shouldn't it be called "the Library of Central Intelligence"?

When the US of A government is merely one minor customer accessing that vast Library, wouldn't it be more sensible to just kick that function off into the private sector, so the government can go about doing its core function: governing (something else it isn't terribly good at either)? After all, government isn't a business, is it? It is really just the biggest bully on the block, isn't it? So why not focus on its core competency, particularly when it is having such problems funding itself?

Sure, sell off The Library, see if we care, that isn't governing, that's just bookworming. No reason divestment can't be done sensibly, profitably, right? Just look at General Dynamics. Dynawhat? Used to be the biggest defense contractor there was, until the USSR up and decided to stop playing that game cause the commies sucked too bad at it. Then GD decided its business was just to create shareholder value, so they sold off every one of their businesses, systematic-like, and kicked out a huge dividend and stock buy-back. Pretty smart, figuring there'd be no more profit to war with the commies gone, least not for as many companies.

Spin off the CIA too. Its a loser agency anyways, can't predict events to save its own ass, can it: didn't predict the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, couldn't tell if Saddam had WMD or whether some terrorists would fly some airliners into the world trade center. Obviously the CIA needed an injection of the free market to get it more interested in the truth. Markets like the truth, and abhor lies. What a great idea....