From Todd:

The Federal Aviation Administration is set to fire an employee who was training to become an air traffic controller at Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center. His crime? He obeyed military orders to extend his duty in the California National Guard, which made him unable to obey Federal Aviation Administration orders to return to Oakland Center due to what the FAA manager at the facility wrote was “facility staffing requirements.”

In other words, “we’re understaffed at Oakland Center, so if you don’t disobey your C.O., we’ll fire you.” If the FAA was a private employer, this would obviously be illegal. But when two bureaucratic governmental behemoths confront each other, who knows what the outcome will be? Particularly when one of the bureaucracies – the FAA – is widely regarded as the most bumbling, pig-headed and incompetent organization in the entire U.S. government. (And there’s stiff competition for that title, I can assure you.)