The Progressive's Keyboard

The Wisdom of Thomas Sowell

The World according to Dr. Thomas Sowell, noted Economist

1. People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

2. If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

3. Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.

4. Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

5. The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

6. The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

7. The biggest and most deadly 'tax' rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits - food stamps, housing subsidies and the like - if their income goes up.

8. The real minimum wage is zero.

9. What 'multiculturalism' boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture - and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.

10. In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

11. People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

12. Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

A Christmas Story - Jay and Louise

The following has been attributed to Jeff Foxworthy from a book published in 1996. It's a great Christmas story!

"The Wildest Christmas Dinner"

As a joke, my brother Jay used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.

One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown.

If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, "What does this do?" "You're kidding me!" "Who would buy that?" Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section.

I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour. Finding what I wanted was difficult. "Love Dolls" come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for "Lovable Louise." She was at the bottom of the price scale.

To call Louise a "doll" took a huge leap of imagination. On Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home and giggled for a couple of hours.

The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the dog VERY confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more. We all agreed that Louise should remain in her pantyhose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. "What the hell is that?" she asked.

My brother quickly explained, "It's a doll."

"Who would play with something like that?" Granny snapped. I kept my mouth shut. "Where are her clothes?" Granny continued.

"Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran," Jay said really loud to steer her into the dining room. But Granny was relentless. "Why doesn't she have any teeth?"

Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, "Hang on Granny, and hang on!" 

My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, "Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?" I told him she was Jay's friend.

A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home.

The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the mantel, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants.

Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car. It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember.

Later in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Louise's collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh. Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health.

I can't wait until next Christmas!

Just to be clear...

Radical Islam Attacks Scorecard

Here is an interesting list of radical Islam attacks over the last 8 years:

Crime Rate Map

Who knew?

Trump and Radical Islam

Best of the News Today - 12 November 2016

Here are some articles that I found interesting today:

*  Donald Trump is Picking His Cabinet: Here's a Short List on the New York Times Interactive website

*  Why Trump Won by Victor Davis Hanson on the Hoover Institution blog.

*  Most Americans Don’t Know About President Obama’s UniParty Slush Fund… by Sundance on the Conservative Treehouse blog.

*  How Jon Stewart And ‘The Daily Show’ Elected Donald Trump by Mollie Hemingway on The Federalist blog.

*  These former Obama strongholds sealed the election for Trump by three writers on the Washington Post.

*  Dear Progressives, Thank You for Reminding Us of the Real Reasons We Fight You By Jeffrey T. Brown on the American Thinker blog.

*  THE WEEK IN PICTURES: THE EPIC TRUMPENING SPECIAL DOUBLE EDITION by Steven Hayward on the Power Line Blog.

*  Skullduggery Most Foul by Jeffrey A. Friedberg on the Canada Free Press blog.

I may do this every day (probably too much work) or perhaps once or twice a week.

Canada has Immigration Laws? Who knew?

Found this on Facebook:

Bad Planning?

Bad planning?

Do I Have Identity Issues?

It seems that lately my life has been getting more complicated, and I want to thank those of you who are brave enough to still associate with me regardless of what I have become.

The following is a recap of my current identity:

I was born white, which makes me a racist.

 
I am a fiscal and moral conservative, which makes me a fascist. 

I am heterosexual, which makes me a homophobe. 

I am non-union, which makes me a traitor to the working class and an ally of big business. 

I am a Christian, which makes me an infidel.

I am older than 65 and retired, which makes me a useless old person. 

I think and I reason; therefore I doubt much that the main stream media tells me, which makes me a reactionary. 

I am proud of my heritage and our inclusive American culture, which makes me a xenophobe.

I value my safety and that of my family; therefore I appreciate the police and the legal system, which makes me a right-wing extremist.

I believe in hard work, fair play, and fair compensation according to each individual's merits, which makes me anti-social. 

I, and my friends, acquired a good education without student loans and no debt at completion, which makes me some kind of odd underachiever. 

I believe in the defense and protection of America by all citizens, which makes me a militarist.

Please help me come to terms with this, because I‘m not sure who I am anymore!

Newest problem...I'm not sure which bathroom I should use...

In the Future...

I received this in my email today ...

By  Udo Gollub at Messe Berlin, Germany

I just went to the Singularity University summit. Here are the key points I gathered.

Rise and Fall: In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they were bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years. This will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, self-driving and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.

Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age. Software and operating platforms will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool. They don’t own any cars, but they are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice, (so far for more or less basic stuff), within seconds. With 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you are studying law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer generalist lawyers in the future; only specialists will be needed.

‘Watson’ already helps nurses diagnose cancer, four times more accurately than doctors. Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will have become ‘more intelligent’ than humans.

Cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will be offered to the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car on your phone; it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive whilst driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s license and will never  own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for our future needs. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. At present,1.2    million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 kms. With autonomous driving, that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Electric cars will become mainstream around and after 2020. Cities will be cleaner and much less noisy because all cars will run on electricity, which will become much cheaper.

Most traditional car companies may become bankrupt by tacking the evolutionary approach and just building better cars; while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi. They are terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble, because without accidents, the insurance    will become 100 times cheaper. Their car insurance business model will    disappear.

Real estate    values based on proximities to work-places, schools, etc. will change, because if you can work effectively from anywhere or be productive while you commute, people will move out of cities to live in a more rural surroundings.

Solar energy production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but only now is having a big impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that almost all coal mining companies will be out of business by 2025.

Water for all: With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don’t have scarce water in most places; we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if everyone can have as much clean water as they want, for virtually no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year - a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any diseases. It will be cheap, so in a few years, everyone on this planet will have access to world class, low cost, medicine.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from 18,000$ to 400$ within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started printing 3D shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D-printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to need in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they have already 3D-printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of  verything that’s being produced will be 3D-printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to enter, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” And if the answer is yes, then    work on how you can make that happen sooner. If it doesn’t work via your    phone, forget the idea. And any idea that was designed for success in the 20th    century is probably doomed to fail in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80%    of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs,    but it is not clear that there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.

Agriculture:  There will be a 100$ agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their fields instead of working in them all day. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first veal produced in a petri dish is now available. It will be cheaper than cow- produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for rearing cattle.    Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several start-ups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

Apps: There is already an app called “moodies” which can tell the mood you are in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying.  Imagine a political debate where we know whether the participants are telling the truth and when not!

Currencies:  Many currencies will be abandoned. Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the future default reserve currency.

Longevity:   Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span was 79 years, now it is 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than a one-year increase per year.  So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way beyond 100.

Education:  The cheapest smartphones already sell at 10$ in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means everyone will have much the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan Academy for everything he needs to learn at schools in First World countries. Further afield, the software has been launched in Indonesia and will be released it in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer. The English app will be offered free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.

====================================

It will be interesting to see how these predictions work out.

This Informed Voter Wants to Know:

I want to know the answers to these questions.  I don't give a crap about social issues - I care about security, education and economic issues:

Interesting Math Exercise

From  my email - thanks, Cora!

This math exercise will only take you about ten seconds. Amazingly, it really works and will reveal your all-time favorite movie.

I'm pretty good at math, so I did it in my head, then on paper, and finally on a calculator just to confirm my numerical capabilities.  Each time I got the same answer, and sure enough it IS my very favorite movie.

DO NOT cheat. DO YOUR math, THEN compare the results to the list of movies at the bottom.  You will be AMAZED at how scary true and accurate this test is.

1. Pick a number from 1-9.

2. Multiply that number by 3

3. Add 3

4. Multiply by 3 again

5. Your total will be a two digit number.  Add the first and second digits together.

6.  Scroll down to find your favorite movie (of all time) in the list of 17 movies below:

 .

 .

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Movie List:

1. Gone With the Wind

2. E.T.

3. Blazing Saddles

4. Star Wars

5. Forrest Gump

6. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

7. Jaws

8. Grease

9. The Obama Farewell Speech

10. Casablanca

11. Jurassic Park

12. Shrek

13. Pirates of the Caribbean

14. Titanic

15. Raiders of the Lost Ark

16. Home Alone

17. Mrs. Doubtfire

Now, isn't that something?!

Obama's Accomplishments...

From my Facebook friends:

Quit trashing Obama's accomplishments. He has done more than any other President before him. Here is a list of his impressive accomplishments: 

1. First President to be photographed smoking a joint.

2. First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

3. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

4. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

5. First President to violate the War Powers Act.

6. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

7. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

8. First President to spend a trillion dollars on "shovel-ready" jobs when there was no such thing as "shovel-ready" jobs.

9. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

10. First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

11. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.

12. First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

13. First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.

14. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.

15. First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.

16. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

17. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

18. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.

19. First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.

20. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

21. First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

22. First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).

23. First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

24. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

25. First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.

26. First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his five years in office.

27. First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.

28. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

29. First President to go on multiple "global apology tours" and concurrent "insult our friends" tours.

30. First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.

31. First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

32. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

33. First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.

34. First President to repeat the Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

35. First President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).

36. First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they "volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences."

37. Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.

I feel much better now. I had been under the impression he hadn't been doing ANYTHING... Such an accomplished individual... 

Choosing a Wife

From my email, thank you, Helen!

A man wanted to get married. He was having trouble choosing among three likely candidates. He gives each woman a present of £5,000 and watches to see what they do with the money.

The first does a total makeover.. She goes to a fancy beauty salon, gets her hair done, new makeup; buys several new outfits and dresses up very nicely for the man. She tells him that she has done this to be more attractive for him because she loves him so much.

The man was impressed.

The second goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of golf clubs, some new gizmos for his computer, and some expensive clothes. As she presents these gifts, she tells him that she has spent all the money on him because she loves him so much..

Again, the man is impressed.

The third invests the money in the stock market She earns several times the £5,000. She gives him back his £5,000 and reinvests the remainder in a joint account. She tells him that she wants to save for their future because she loves him so much.

Obviously, the man was impressed.

The man thought for a long time about what each woman had done with the money he'd given her.

Then he married the one with the biggest tits.  Men are like that, you know.

This Never Works Out Well

From my email...

The Future is Here

I received this article via email...

The Future Is Here

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide.  Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 year - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.  Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die  each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with  autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies might become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary  approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream until 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact.  Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes.

Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future.  Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you are. Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be
more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. We have already released our software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this Summer, because I see an enormous potential. We will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.

Boom!

Capitalism has Failed ...Not!

From my email...

I Self-Identify as a Billionaire

From my email ...

Scaring us for 45 years...

So true...

The Daily Caller News Foundation took a look at predictions made by environmentalists around the original Earth Day in 1970 to see how they’ve held up.

1: (1970) “Civilization Will End Within 15 or 30 Years.” ………..

2: (1970) “100-200 Million People Per Year Will Be Starving to Death During the Next Ten Years.” ………..

3: (1970) “Population Will Inevitably and Completely Outstrip Whatever Small Increases in Food Supplies We Make.” ………..

4: (1970) “Demographers Agree Almost Unanimously … Thirty Years From Now, the Entire World … Will Be in Famine.” ………..

5: (1970) “In A Decade, Urban Dwellers Will Have to Wear Gas Masks to Survive Air Pollution.” ……..

6: (1970) “Childbearing [Will Be] A Punishable Crime Against Society, Unless the Parents Hold a Government License.” ………..

7: (1970) “By the Year 2000 … There Won’t Be Any More Crude Oil.” ………..

Are You Smarter Than a Four Year Old?

This test is to ascertain your mental state now. If you get one right you are doing OK.  If you get none right you’d better go for counseling. (I’ll meet you  there.)

Before you check the answers, stop and think about it and decide on your answer.

There are four test questions:

Giraffe  Test

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Elephant Test

2.   How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Lion King Test

3. The Lion King is hosting an Animal Conference.  All the animals attend … except one.

Which animal does not attend?

Crocodile Test

4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage to cross the river?

 Answers after the break…

Quiz Answers

 1. Giraffe  Test

How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

Correct Answer:Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.

This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2.   Elephant Test

How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?

Wrong Answer.

Correct Answer: 
Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. 
This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. Lion King Test

The Lion King is hosting an Animal Conference.  All the animals attend … except one.
Which animal does not attend?

Correct  Answer: 
The  Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator.  You just put him in there.  This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. Crocodile Test 

There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage to cross the river?

Correct  Answer: 
You jump into the river and swim across.  Haven’t you been listening?   All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Conference.  

This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

Around 90% of the Retirees they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers.

This conclusively proves the theory that most Retirees do not have the brains of a four-year-old.

Yep!

No Nursing Home for Me!

From my email - thanks, Helen.  This sounds like a plan!

No NURSING HOME FOR ME!!!!

 

No nursing home for us. We'll be checking into a Holiday Inn!

With the average cost for nursing home care being $188.00 per day, there is a better way when we get old and too feeble. 

I've already checked on reservations at The Holiday Inn.  For a combined long term stay discount and senior discount, it's $59.23 per night.

Breakfast is included, and some have happy hours In the afternoon.

That leaves $128.77 a day for lunch and dinner in any restaurant we want, or room service, laundry, Gratuities and special TV movies.  Plus, they provide a spa, swimming pool, a workout room, a lounge and washer-dryer, etc. Most have free toothpaste and razors, and all have free shampoo and soap.

$5 worth of tips a day you'll have the entire staff scrambling to help you.  They treat you like a customer, not a patient.  There's a city bus stop out front, and seniors ride free. The handicap bus will also pick you up (if you fake a decent limp).

To meet other nice people, call a church bus on Sundays.

For a change of scenery, take the airport shuttle bus and eat at one of The nice restaurants there. While you're at the airport, fly somewhere.  Otherwise, the cash keeps building up.

It takes months to get into decent nursing homes. Holiday Inn will take your reservation today.  And you're not stuck in one place forever -- you can move from Inn to Inn, or even from city to city.  Want to see Hawaii ? They have Holiday Inn there too.

TV broken? Light bulbs need changing? Need a mattress replaced? No problem.. They fix everything, and apologize for the inconvenience.

The Inn has a night security person and daily room service. The maid checks to see if you are ok. If not, they'll call an ambulance . . .

Or the undertaker.  

If you fall and break a hip, Medicare will pay for the hip, and Holiday Inn will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

And no worries about visits from family. They will always be glad to find you, and probably check in for a few days mini-vacation. The grand-kids can use the pool.  What more could I ask for?

So, when I reach that golden age,

I'll face it with a grin.