How many zeros in a billion?

The next time you hear a politician use the
word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the 'politicians' spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it's releases.

A.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.

D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E.
A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
let's take a look at New Orleans ..
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator,
Mary Landrieu (D)
is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS
to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number...
what does it mean?

A.
Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.

B.
Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C.
Or... if you are a family of four...
your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington , D. C

HELLO!
Are all your calculators broken??

Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax (Fed)
Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration T ax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
(And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world...
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?
Can you spell 'politicians!'

And I still have to
press '1'
for English.


What the hell happened?????

Political Shenanigans

Why are the politicians trying to bail out the source of the economic problem when they should be bailing out the American people? Why is the government giving money to the very institutions that got us into this economic mess in the first place?

If they government wants to fix this problem, lowering key interest rates and giving BILLIONS of dollars to banks who made all the bad decisions in the first place won't do it. The continual, daily free fall of the stock market proves that. Erasing their debt isn't fair.

If they REALLY want to fix the problem... erase OUR debt. If they're going to clean slate anybody or anything, why aren't they clean slating our mortgages, many of which are bad and given out knowingly in bad faith in the first place. Erasing our mortgages would DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY benefit consumers by DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY putting more money in our pocket, which in turn would DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY improve consumer confidence and DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY revitalize our economy.

How many years is this supposed bailout, written by "experts", supposed to take? Far too long to do anyone any good.

Why bail out the scum bags who put us in this position in the first place? Why are we giving THEM more of OUR money? If we're already in a free fall -- and we are -- why not do something drastic? Desperate times -- and these are desperate times -- call for desperate measures.

It's time the politicians (all of them) pulled their collective heads out of their collective asses and started doing what our Founding Fathers intended... serve we the people.

More driving fun in Colorado!

On the way to work this morning I heard about yet another one-car rollover here in the Springs. I'm pretty sure that makes eleventy million, four hundred thousand one-car rollovers in this state this year alone. It's amazing to me how people in Colorado are still allowed to drive. Speaking of...

Last week I heard about an SUV rollover that occurred on Old Stage Road in Teller County. Three 19-year old boys were tooling around the back woods sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. to apparently get a better view of the stars on a clear night. At some point the SUV they were driving in ran off the road and rolled down a 75-foot embankment. The driver was trapped for about eight hours with his leg pinned between the Chevy Blazer and a tree because the two other occupants had to walk 10 miles to call for assistance. They had cell phones but apparently "cell phones don't work up there." They must not have Verizon.

In a subsequent report I heard that the SUV ran out of gas, causing the vehicle to lose power and was thus was the reason the car careened off the road.

I have some (theoretical) questions:

• What were these three 19/20 year olds really doing way back on a mountain road after midnight? Cuz I'm not buying the whole "watch stars" line. Unless of course that's today's lingo for "smoking dope and drinking beer."
  
• What portion of their brains told them it was OK to go "way back on a mountain road after midnight" without a full tank of gas?
• I've had a 1992 Ford Bronco with power steering die on me while driving... it's not hard to steer to the side of the road and bring to a stop. So why couldn't a young, healthy, strapping 19-year old keep what had to be a slow moving vehicle (after all, they were on a dirt mountain road in the pitch dark... one must assume they weren't speeding, right?) from sliding down a 75-foot embankment?
• Your cell phones really didn't work? REALLY? Switch your carrier.

Thus... the guy who was involved in the one-care rollover this morning and the triumvirate of "star watchers" both win the first ever Mad Man Award for Bad Driving! Stick this on your lapel and wear it with pride!

Teacher Applicant

The latest making the rounds on the Internet... which is awesome!

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said:

'Let me see if I've got this right.

'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior,

observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt

messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually

transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play,

and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.

'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and

make sure that they all pass the final exams.

'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their

handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any

other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.

'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard,a bulletin board,

a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps.

'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?'


* Thanks for passing this along to me Larry!

Patience is a virtue

What is the #1 problem with drivers in the state of Colorado? No one has any patience. The wife and I drive from our home on the far north side of town to work on the south side of down every day of the work week. And every single day I see at least two people who feel the need... the need for speed. You know the types I'm talking about.

First you have drivers who must swerve over into the shoulder in order to see around you, thinking there must be something other than the normal throngs of traffic -- likely you -- causing their debilitating rate of speed. By doing this, not one or twice, but seventeen times over the course of three minutes, they someone satiate their compulsive curiosity.

Then you have the morons who think I-25 is a NASCAR super speedway, where racing three wide is not only acceptable, but encouraged. These folks are "awesome." They'll jockey for position in order to get one whole car length ahead of you, cutting off drivers in multiple lanes of traffic with reckless abandon to do so. And the greatest thing about these living breathing reasons for condoms? Nearly every time the Karmic gods of Traffic are looking down and smite them with Driving Miss Daisy; stuck behind the slowest vehicle on the freeway due to their own incompetent driving skills. The rage they fly into is priceless, and can easily be inflamed by driving by them -- in the very same spot you were in prior to their Evil Knievel performance -- and waving to them with a big ole smile on your face. There's no need to flip them the bird because they know they're morons, and they know you know they're morons. The infernal rage that wells up on their face is nothing short of pure bliss.

Then you have the oblivious people who didn't get the memo about it being illegal to remain in the left lane unless you're passing. We ran into of these "I forgot to wake up this morning" drivers yesterday. Apparently the 80 million year old man and his equally aged wife felt it was their God given right to be in that left lane, despite the fact that eleventy hundred cars kept passing them, their occupants honking and waving at them. Nothing was budging the man from his lane.

And I don't have to mention the dill holes who drive while 1) talking on the phone, 2) think it's cute to have their damn mutt sitting in their laps while tooling down the road, 3) read the newspaper, 4) eat breakfast, 5) shave, 6) pick their nose thinking no one can see them through the TRANSPARENT GLASS IN THEIR CAR, or one of a hundred different things.

Laws must become more strict. Driving is a privilege, not a right. Just because you suck in precious air from the planet (in many cases air that should go to someone with far more value to the future of humanity) doesn't mean you have the mental ability to drive a vehicle. Based on what I've seen here... I have to wonder if some of these people can even tie their own shoes.