The (Other) End of the Internet

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Our neighbor told me today that his son is going to truck driving school. I find that to be a very frightening prospect if he’s talking about the same son whom I first encountered back in April. To put it politely I’ll just say that this kid is certainly a chip off the old block without going into what the block in question is a block OF. I suspect that before too much time goes by this kid is going to make some Texas truck accident lawyer a wealthy person.

I heard an interesting article on the radio this morning. It seems that all those programs that our illustrious President started in an effort to kick-start the economy are now ending and they’re going to leave the economy in worse shape than it was before due to the mammoth price tag associated with those programs.

One example is the highly touted “cash for clunkers” program. People were encouraged to trade in their old cars for new, more economical models and the old, inefficient cars were taken off the market and destroyed. The end result was that there were a lot of people with new car payments that they really couldn’t afford and the used car market took a nosedive because suddenly there weren’t as many used trade-ins to resell. People who cannot afford a new car can now no longer afford a used one because the law of supply and demand has driven the price of used cars up through the stratosphere.

Nice move, don’t you think?

People are strange. I was reminded of this recently when I ran into Jennifer, the younger sister of a high school classmate of mine, on FaceBook. The last time I saw Jennifer she was about 8 years old; now she’s closer to 30 or so.

When I saw a current picture of her I made the comment that her face hadn’t really changed all that much because I could still see the 8-year old I used to know in that picture. She then told me that she’s been using eye wrinkle creams and stuff like that for 25 years.

I think she was probably exagerating because that would have meant she was using that stuff when I met her and, at that age, I doubt er mother would have allowed it.

I got an email yesterday that got me really angry. You may have seen it already. It’s one of those that is currently being forwarded all over the country. The email talks about the fact that a bill proposing a 1% tax on any transaction that uses a payment instrument, including any check, cash, credit card, transfer of stock, bonds, or other financial instrument. I’d say that pretty-much covers everything.

The email includes a link to http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/debtfree.asp where the report’s status is listed as “Mixture” because there is such a bill, introduced by Representative Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania in February of 2010, but it has zero supporters other than its author and, according to Snopes, doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of passing.

Once again it occurs to me that I wish people would do a little bit of research before panicking and forwarding an email all over the world. If someone had bothered to LOOK at the URL included in the email they might not have been worried enough to send such a dire warning to everyone on their contact list.

Technorati Tags: congress, proposed+tax, transaction+tax, email+warning, mass+hysteria,

I guess my younger sister must have a really cushy job where she isn’t required to do anything other than forward emails to me because I don’t see how she can get anything else done given all the pictures and what-not she sends me.

The most recent batch of pictures included this one which reminds me of a daily scene around our house. We have a Yellow Labrador and a Chihuahua. The Chihuahua, who is about 10 weeks old is constantly trying to get the 9-year old Lab to play with her. Usually the older, larger dog just ignores the “Yip-yip Yip-Yap” from the younger dog, but once in a while she gets tired of the little Chihuahua and they face off for a second. As a matter of fact, they’re at it again as I type this. It’s quite funny to watch – especially when the smaller dog manages to get the bigger dog to back off.

Technorati Tags: humor,, pictures,, funny,, dogs