With tax time approaching I decided to harken back to maybe not a better time, but a time when our citizenry lived within their means. There was a national debt, but it was a mere drop in the bucket compared with our current situation. It motivated me to take a look back and see how our economics have changed in the intervening years.
In 1900, the United States treasury showed a surplus of nearly $47 million in income over expenditures. The last time the federal budget was balanced was in 1969.
President Carter’s “lean and tight” budget of $500 billion for the fiscal year 1979 equals the spending of $690,000 a day since the birth of Christ. To dispose of this amount of money in a year, the government has to spend $951,000 a minute, $57 million an hour, or $1.37 billion a day, including holidays and Sundays.
Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest Americans ever, practically became allergic to money as he grew richer and older. He was offended, he said, just by the sight and touch of it, and never carried any. Because he had no money with him with which to pay the fare, Carnegie was once put off of a London Tram.
According to the 1970 US Census, only 5000 Americans had a net worth of $10 million or more.
The longest jury trial ever in the United States federal courts began on June 20, 1977 and ended on July 10, 1978. It took the judge almost an hour to read the verdicts on 49 separate questions. During this antitrust action, by SCM Corporation against Xerox, it is estimated that both sides spent well in excess of $60 million in attorney’s fees.
The federal government keeps billions of dollars – much of it taxes collected by the Internal Revenue Service – in bank accounts that draw no interest. Banks turnaround and invest much of these deposits in U.S. Treasury bills, on which the government frequently pays more than 9% interest. Incredibly, the government is paying the banks to borrow back its own money.
It costs $4000 per inch to build an interstate highway project on the fringe of New York City in the late 1970s – over 215 million per mile. Just imagine what the current costs must be.
Until there was a pay raise in 1814, US Congressmen were paid six dollars per diem when Congress was in session. I think it might be just a little higher these days.
To finance the Civil War, a 3% income tax on all incomes over $800 was enacted by the federal government in 1864. It was the first time in income tax was enacted in the United States. The law was discontinued in 1872. The United States Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1894. Not until 1913, with the adoption of the 16th amendment, the income tax become law.
In the 1800s, big industry began to set up trusts to monopolize production and distribution. The first big trust was Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Corporation, in 1882. The first international trust was Nobels Dynamite Trust, in 1886.
It’s a cold morning here in Maine. I did an early food shop this morning and the hunters appear to be out in large numbers. I’ve never been a hunter and I have no idea what hunting season actually started today. I just know I won’t be taking any long walks in the woods where some drunken, nearsighted, armed, citizen might mistake me for a deer or a turkey or whatever. I’ll be staying indoors where it’s safe.
Enough of this nonsense, let’s get into some other more interesting nonsense concerning one of my favorite subjects: Media and Celebrity Silliness. When they screw up, they put it out there for everyone to see and hear and here are some of my favorites.
“To say this book is about me (which is the main reason I was uncomfortable – me, me, me, me . . .frightening!) is ridiculous. This book is not about me.” Kate Moss, Model, on her book, Kate: The Kate Moss Book
The Duck and Doochess of Windsor.” Anonymous Commentator, introducing the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
“The red squirrels . . . you don’t see many of them since they became extinct.” Michael Aspel, BBC
“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.” Brook Shields – During an anti smoking campaign interview
“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean, I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.” Mariah Carey
“I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.” Miss Alabama 1994, when asked “If you could live forever, would you, and why?”
“An end is in sight to the severe weather shortage.” Ian Macaskill, BBC Weather
“It’s not listed in the Bible, but my spiritual gift, my specific calling from God, is to be a television talk show host.” James Baker, televangelist
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Records Co. executive in 1962, after turning down the Beatles
“As a prize – a beautiful riding mower with optional ass scratcher.” TV Announcer who meant to say “grass catcher”
Today will be a first for this blog. I’ve covered many and varied topics over the years but today is something special. Today I’ll be discussing cows and cow poop. I’ve heard certain insane environmentalists insist that all of the cows on the planet are affecting the earth due to excessive farting. I think it’s a load of crap (no pun intended) but I suppose I could be wrong. Here’s some additional crap for you to digest (again, no pun intended) to help you make an informed decision.
There are an estimated 1,294,604,000 head of cattle on Earth. Some are cows and some are bulls but for this discussion let’s call them all cows.
There are approximately 4.93 people for every cow.
There is no rule that says all these cows couldn’t potentially be eaten. There also is no rule that says all this meat couldn’t be turned into juicy and delicious burgers. Point of fact, each 850-pound carcass would provide 310 pounds of edible meat.
Using the above information there are approximately 1,605,308,900,000 (1.61 trillion) quarter pounders masquerading as cows. At 15 cents each, buns for those quarter pounders would cost approximately $240.,000,000.
These burgers could provide all the 4.472 billion adults on Earth with the maximum calorie allowance for 36 days. To summarize, all the cattle currently on earth could feed adult humanity for five weeks.
The worlds 1,294,604,000 each cow poops up to 16 times per day and beef cattle produce up to 65 pounds of poop daily.
Hold your nose for this one. 11,747,273 tons of poop are produced worldwide every day.
Hold your nose again. Over the course of a year 15,367,758,619 tons of cow poop is produced.
2.41 tons of manure per person are produced worldwide annually. This much poop could cover an area two and a half times the size of Rhode Island to the height of a man. P and U !!!!
Disposing of all this poop is a serious problem. As many as two-thirds of households in the developing world depend on poop as a significant fuel source. Tragically, as many as 4 million women and children are estimated to die every year from respiratory disease triggered by the smoke from wood and poop fires.
Therre it is. Everything you always wanted to know about cows and cow poop but were afraid to ask. My suggestion is for all of us to eat as many burgers as humanly possible and to build a three-story mansion made totally from cow poop. We have to try and be as ecologically respectful as we can if we want to save the world. LOL
Yesterday I posted a long list of annoyances and if you noticed I never once mentioned politicians or politics. Political annoyances should not be grouped with the regular life annoyances because annoying politics and politicians is serious business. Not only does it impact our life in a number of ways it’s just another excuse for the powers that be to dip their hands into our pockets and take more of our money.
Are you as sick of this nonsense as I am? Sick of all these less than truthful politicians beating our brains out every day with more BS than any human being should be forced to listen to. It’s not just the current batch but everyone for the last 30 years who have permitted overspending without much of a thought. They’ve allowed huge government programs costing trillions of dollars to fund the numerous wars like the alleged War on Poverty (which we lost), the alleged War on Drugs (which we lost), and dozens of other alleged wars that were totally or partially unsuccessful. As an aside, hundreds and thousands of our young service men and women have been killed, wounded, or permanently damaged by PTSB. Remember this as you listen to our brave politicos sitting in their safe offices making life and death decisions for everyone else. Am I bitter? You bet your ass I am.
WE THE PEOPLE must take our share of the blame. We elected these fools over and over again because they brought home the “pork” for us locally. Know your history and read these few thoughts from our founding fathers.
“Rather go to bed supperless than rise in Debt” Benjamin Franklin, 7 July 1757
” I sincerely believe. . . and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Thomas Jefferson, 28 May 1816
This is not one of my favorite times of the year. Summer is ending, skies are gray, rain is cold, leaves are dropping, and the runup to the end-of-year holidays has begun. A little depressing to say the least. I can deal with depression but it’s also very annoying. I thought a quick compilation of my major annoyances would be in order and here they are.
Leave it up to the money hungry retailers to have Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas merchandise already displayed. IT’S OCTOBER YOU MORONS!
People who insist on talking over me during a conversation makes me want to scream. JUST PLAIN RUDE!
Every Wendy’s that lists coffee on the menu and then makes me wait until they make a pot. Every time! WORST KIND OF CUSTOMER SERVICE!
The person in front of me at the express checkout line with an entire cart load of merchandise. ASSHOLE!
Black Friday was always annoying, but this year should be priceless. They’ve begun advertising it already. CORPORATE GREED!
Anyone still writing checks at the register in a food store. SHEER STUPIDITY!
Anyone who has a debit card but can’t figure out how to use it. EXASPERATING!
People who claim to have something really important to tell me, then send a four-word text message. CALL ME!
Any person, male or female, who is more than 30 pounds overweight and attempting to slim down by wearing skinny jeans. SO BAD!!
People who continually bitch and complain about their food and service in a restaurant. STAY HOME!
Twenty or more minutes of every hour for moronic ads on every conceivable type of device. JUST KILL ME NOW!
City workers and their gigantic snowplows destroying at least one of my mailboxes every year. IGNORAMUSES!
People who insist on telling me all about their child who is an honor student somewhere. I DON’T CARE!
Rear window decals displaying family members and pets. LAME!
I’ve been around the planet just long enough to have allowed at least 10,000 politicians to tell me things that I knew were untrue and I was sure they knew it too. Not just Democrats and Republicans but Independents, Greenies, and Nut-bags. I’ve watched more than my share of debates, listen to the all-knowing Mainstream Media television pundits, and was assured that the polls they all quoted were legitimate. Am I stupid or what?
The following list was put together some time ago by a disgruntled voter who actually had the gall to ask politicians for their thoughts on these topics. The list hasn’t changed in 15 years and yet we still never get answers.
You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.
Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.
Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of “underprivileged” drug addicts are left to rot in filthy surroundings.
Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, and subsidized housing.
The government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide endless weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).
*****
Some politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the Constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.
The rights of the government come before the rights of the individual.
Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you “safe” (gun ownership).
You have to have your parent signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.
And 80-year-old woman can be strip-searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman wearing a burka is only subject to having her neck and head searched.
*****
Elections are coming. Question the government inequities and closely examine every word that comes out of the mouth of every candidate. Double speak is the tool of the untrustworthy.
As I was rummaging through my collection of books I discovered one I forgot I had. It was buried beneath a pile of other useless information. It’s called Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader and I gave it a quick read. Being a former cop and an employee of the Maine Criminal Justice System, I tend to read things about the courts and laws before anything else and I’m glad I did. The Bathroom Reader made me aware of some strange and ridiculous laws from around the country. Here are just a few.
The law prohibits barbers in Omaha, Nebraska, from shaving the chests of customers.
In St. Louis Missouri, it’s illegal for you to drink beer out of a bucket while you’re sitting on a curb.
In cotton Valley, Louisiana, law forbids cows and horses from sleeping in a bakery.
The maximum penalty for double parking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is working on a chain gang with nothing to eat but bread and water.
In the state of Alabama, it’s illegal to play dominoes on a Sunday.
In Las Vegas Nevada, it’s against the law to pawn your dentures.
If your 88 years of age or older, it’s illegal for you to ride your motorcycle in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
In California, it’s illegal to hunt whales from your automobile. It’s also against the law to use your dirty underwear as a dust rag.
It’s illegal to sleep with your boots on in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In Natoma, Kansas it’s illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.
These 10 items are mild compared to some of the others I’ve seen over the years. We Americans are great at passing a law after law but very lax in eliminating silly crap like this from the rolls. I’m going to make an effort to finds a few that are even crazier than the ones you just read.
I’m feeling in a very ‘limericky’ state of mind this morning. It’s cold, gray, and nasty so a day sitting at the computer is called for. After perusing through my achieves I decided on a few fairly clean limericks based on accidental deaths or injuries. Rather than be off color I decided on weird and these got it covered and then some.
There aren’t many things that make my skin crawl but some insects can really creep me out. Many people fear snakes and thank god I’m not one of them. This planet is covered with every sort of creature and there are still many we haven’t discovered. That thought creeps me out as well. I hate waking up in the morning and occasionally finding bug bites on my body . . . ooooh! They say spiders love to visit us stupid humans while we sleep. I thought I’d pass along a few more facts to help you sleep, so here are some creepy facts about some really creepy things.
The female salamander inseminates herself. At mating time the male deposits a conical mass of sperm covered in a jellylike substance. The female then draws the jelly into herself, and in doing so fertilizes her own eggs.
Bombyx mori, a silkworm moth, has been cultivated for so long that it can no longer exist without human care. Because it has been domesticated, it has lost the ability to fly.
Some insects, after their head is severed, may live for is much as a year. They react automatically to light, temperature, humidity, chemicals, and other stimuli.
There are locusts that have an adult lifespan of only a few weeks or so, after having lived in the ground as grubs for 15 years.
There is an average of 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas. Essential to the balance of nature, spiders annually destroy 100 times their number in insects.
Snails produce a colorless, sticky discharge that forms a protective carpet under them as they travel along. The discharge is so effective that snails can crawl along the edge of a razor without cutting themselves.
Cockroaches have quite a capacity for survival. If the head of one is removed carefully, so as to prevent them from bleeding to death, the cockroach can survive for several weeks. When it dies, it is from starvation.
There are more different kinds of insects in existence today than the total of all kinds of all other animals put together.
The male praying mantis Literally loses his head after courting the female. The latter is known to decapitate the earnest suitor, and she often completely devours him.
Trinervitermes, a species of termites that is native to the African savanna, builds mountains that are only about 12 inches high. However, the termites bore shaft deep into the ground for access to water. Holes have been found below these termite mounds that go more than 130 feet into the earth.
Any day that starts with a visit to an Oncologist is a day that has to get better. Doctors still give me the willies even after all of my cancer related BS. I got a clean bill of health but I still have to go through their annoying little requirements each time I visit. Screw it, no more doctors talk. Let’s smile just a little with a few retro bumper stickers to get started today. Welcome back to the 60’s and 70’s.
EAT YOUR HEART OUT. I’M MARRIED.
LIFE’S TO SHORT TO FEEL GUILTY
BUMPER STICKERS ARE JUST NOT ENOUGH
I’M SO BROKE I CAN’T EVEN PAY ATTENTION
GOD IS COMING AND SHE’S PISSED OFF
Look Out Ladies – Here I come.
I think I had one or two of those on my 1973 orange Gremlin. I sure miss that car. And just for the hell of it here is a rather lengthy epithet from a fine poet in Wolverhampton, Straffordshire, England. I’m guessing this was written sometime between 1845-1855. It’s obvious that the author was no Longfellow.
everyuselessthing.com 