If you think our government is wasteful...

...just check out this story in London's Daily Telegraph.

In September 2005, a planning commission in England was hearing testimony on an application to put a mobile home on a farm. During the debate, someone in the room imitated the sound of a sheep, and this so angered one of the councilors that he reported the incident to a standards board, which sent it back to the area council for investigation.

A year later, the council is preparing to issue a 300-page report on the incident, and has spent £10,000 (more than $18,000 US) in the process. (A council spokesman denies the report is 300 pages, but calls it "substantial.") The problem is that the prime "suspect" isn't any longer on the council, so there is nothing the council could do as punishment were it to prove the "crime."

Here's the response of the main "suspect," former Deputy Mayor Denis O'Flynn:

This has been an extremely expensive example of the worst kind of council bureaucracy. The fact that this investigation has cost so much time and money is the height of stupidity.

To say the least. Baaa.

(HT: BOTW)