The Irish Bailout – how it works

This lovely bit of humor/analysis has been making the rounds for several days now. I have tried in vain to track down the originator, so if you find him, leave a link in the comments so I can give proper credit.

It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub.

The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.

The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the same €100 note.

The hotel proprietor then places the note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a bailout package works.

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Wikileaks as seen by dolphins

Presented by PJM, complied by RLS:

Berlusconi likes girls.
Sarkozy likes himself.
Angela Merkel is boring.
David Cameron is more boring.
Hillary thinks Cristina needs a shrink.
Benjamin Netanyahu can’t stand Ehud Olmert.
Al Qaeda hates America.
Yemen’s president hates Al Qaeda
Ahmadinejad is Hitler
North Korea likes Iran.
Saudi Arabia hates Iran
Julian Assange is Dennis Kucinich.
PFC Manning will never see the sun again.
America needs a new president.

 

Sounds plausible to me. My hat is off to the dolphins of Sea World.

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A Simple Proposal

Rob Bishop (Rep R. Utah) has always amused, or perhaps better, entrigued me. He was entertaining as a high school business teacher, interesting as a state rep/speaker, down right hillarious at times as a church chorister – he once called a halt to the congregational singing mid-hymn due to lackluster participation and had us all start over, this time with feeling. This is the same guy that once proposed that all federal elected officials be required to read the Constitution annually. And now he is onboard with a proposed contitutional ammendment that seems just about right for the times.

Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.

Read more: here.

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You. Must. Read. This.

My Rebuttal to a Progressive who Admonished Me to Play Nice ….

I am tired of being told to sit down and shut up.

I am tired of being told what I can and can not say.

What is “acceptable”, while my ideas and values are mocked and trampled.

Enough. I have had enough.

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The times they are a-changin’

It is peculiar who everything old becomes new and fresh again at some point. In my youth, nostalgia for the 1950s was all the rage, right along with Disco. Now, even in politics, what was relevant in the 60s, somehow seems to fit into today’s mood. As I watch the RNC leadership struggle to hold on in the face of the the relentless drubbing that the TEA Party folks have been giving them, I can only hear the voice of Dylan. So tell me, which line of this does not apply?

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

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Samuel Clemens on civilization

Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.
– Mark Twain

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A response to a modern liberal…

In response to the contest between and extrodinary attention payed to Scott Brown and Martha Coakley, there have been a lot of comments posted to this article on this topic at the boston Herald. One commenter in particular raised my ire. So I had to respond.

America’s left are the ones that have corrupted the word ‘liberal’. Today’s Democrat Party is more statist and condescending – patronizing even – of the oppressed and downtrodden in our society than good King George and the Tories ever dreamt of being. Free speech is stifled in the name of inclusion and sensitivity on campuses and in newsrooms across this land. Confiscatory tax policy, graft, and corruption at all levels of government threaten the solvency of this nation and her citizens. Even the basic right of all peoples to self defense is openly mocked in the name of collective security.
The liberals of our nation’s heritage were champions of individual liberty and free exercise of all our God given rights. They were far from perfect and they acknowledged that fact; the solutions and institutions they put in place were and are not without flaw. But the methods and means to right those wrongs were built into that foundation.
If the people of this country feel that it is right to pay for the healthcare of all from the public treasury, then – by all means – let us have that debate and put it forth as a proposed amendment to the Constitution and see if the people of this fair land truly believe that this is something that our founders wrongly overlooked.
Do not, on the other hand, argue that you are somehow more enlightened or noble than the rest of us and therefore know better what is right and good for us, our families, our nation, and our futures.
Liberal? Hah! Power-mad, paternalistic, control freaks with narcissistic delusions of moral and intellectual superiority, mindlessly repeating trite slogans and espousing philosophies that have repeatedly led to the destruction of the societies that have embraced them claiming all the while that this time it will be different somehow because you believe in them. Pathetic. Remember well that there is nothing inherently wrong with fascism – or even dictatorship – as long as the right people are in charge. Fool. I am willing to bet my future that you are not the “right” people.

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FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches

Read more here.“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

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