Earlier today, there was a 17-state failure of the EBT (Electronic Bank Transfer… cards that transfer money from taxpayers to the politically correct nonproductive) system which resulted in EBT cards not working at many grocery stores. Sadly, this system failure was not a result of the government shutdown, but just a glitch:

Access restored for food stamp users, Xerox says

This would have been a perfect opportunity to roll out a wholly revised welfare system, such as the Free Food Loaf proposal I made a while back. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems that a number of people who are so grindingly poverty stricken that they can only hope to survive by the use of wealth transfer systems like EBT promptly fired up their laptops, netbooks and smartphones to comment about it on Twitter:

‘Riot time!’: Food stamp users in near-panic over EBT card failures

… where you can read some people saying that the proper response to their not being able to buy a bag of potato chips on someone else’s dime is to commit *murder.* In this age of the NSA knowing every thing about every body, those responsible for the EBT system should check out these comments, find who is making the violent threats and cancel their EBT cards and other welfare payments. Not going to happen, of course, but a guy can dream.

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IN other news relevant to ideas I’ve had before:

Grand Canyon And Other National Parks Reopen, On States’ Dime

Arizona, Utah, South Dakota and other states -including New York – have decided to open up a number of National Parks using their own money. This, as I’ve suggested, would be a good time for states to use eminent domain to appropriate Federal lands that are being poorly run.