Thanks my friends! Sadly noted!
Sam
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: FW: I hope this kid got an A+ on his paper.
BY A 15 yr. Old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA
New Pledge of Al legiance (TOTALLY AWESOME)!
Since the Pledge of Al legiance
And
The Lord's Prayer
Are not allowed in most
Public schools anymore
Because the word 'God' is mentioned......
A kid in Arizona wrote the attached
NEW School prayer:
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene..
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all..
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.
We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks...
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's 'inappropriate' to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such 'judgments' do not belong..
We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles..
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen
If you aren't ashamed to do this, Please pass this on..
Jesus said, 'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.'
Not ashamed.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Clunker Math... Thanks Joe Troyan!
Where were the decimals? We know the politicos didn't buy new cars, we pay their travel expenses.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph F Troyan"
Clunker math
The person who calculated this bit of information went to high school in Pittsburgh, Pa. He is now & has been a professor at The University of West Virginia in Morgantown, West Virginia for the last forty some years. I never looked at the clunker program in such depth.
Clunker Math
Think of it this way: A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption. More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph F Troyan"
Clunker math
The person who calculated this bit of information went to high school in Pittsburgh, Pa. He is now & has been a professor at The University of West Virginia in Morgantown, West Virginia for the last forty some years. I never looked at the clunker program in such depth.
Clunker Math
Think of it this way: A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption. More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though.
Cars in Venezuela- Thanks Marge Rusnak!
December 12, 2010
Detroit’s Monsters Thrive on a Diet of Cheap Gas
By SIMON ROMERO
CARACAS, Venezuela — Ascending the narrow streets that wind through this city’s hillside slums, the graffiti steadily gets more radical and anti-American, repeatedly proclaiming “Yankees go home!” amid murals denouncing President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But at the same time, the cars get bigger — as in ’70s-style, gas-guzzling, Starsky-and-Hutch, Ford-Gran-Torino big — and American.
“We like our cars to be like tanks in this country, meaning they should be huge, comfortable and preferably manufactured in the United States,” said Miguel Delgado, 52, a mechanic in Los Frailes, a slum on this city’s western fringe, where he was working on a 1976 Dodge Coronet and a 1979 Chevrolet Impala.
The survival here of so many retro-chic American gas hogs, from Plymouth Valiants to Dodge Aspens and Chrysler New Yorkers, owes partly to the vagaries of Venezuela’s recent history and partly to its oil wealth. Motorists say that they drive these cars simply because they can. They smile when they hear that gasoline prices in the United States average about $3 a gallon, and much higher in parts of Europe.
Venezuela provides what might be the most generous fuel subsidy anywhere. Gasoline, currently less than 10 cents a gallon, is the cheapest in the world, undercutting even Saudi Arabia and Iran, other top oil-exporting nations, according to a study of global fuel prices by the German aid agency GTZ.
While Venezuela is a major oil producer, the subsidy still costs the government more than $9 billion a year. For all his populism, President Hugo Chávez has lamented its drain on public finances, calling gasoline prices “disgusting.”
But he has not touched the subsidy, which many Venezuelans consider a birthright. An increase in fuel prices in 1989 helped set off riots in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.
Today filling the tank of a 1974 Lincoln Continental, a 19-foot-long monster with a V-8 engine and mileage in the low teens, costs about $1, including a small tip for the gas-station attendant. “It’s a super-economical car,” said José Pereira, 41, the proud owner of one such model.
Many of the vintage land yachts tooling around Caracas today were imported during the heyday of “Venezuela Saudita,” Saudi Venezuela, in the early 1970s, when oil prices quadrupled and this developing nation became flush with petrodollars.
A sort of proto-Chávez populist president, Carlos Andrés Pérez, nationalized the oil industry, sent aid to Bolivia and tried to turn Venezuela into a player in the developing world. A Concorde flight linked Caracas to Paris. So many Venezuelan shoppers flocked to Miami that they were called “dame dos,” Spanish for “give me two.”
“My car reminds me of the era when Venezuela was the envy of Latin America,” said Jesús Regalado, 68, a taxi driver who still cruises the city in his 1975 Dodge Dart, which he bought new thanks to a government financing program.
Much has changed since then. Oil prices plunged in the 1980s, and in the ensuing tumult, Mr. Chávez, then an obscure military officer, led an unsuccessful 1992 coup attempt against Mr. Pérez. After his release from prison, Mr. Chávez had better luck with electoral politics, winning the presidency in 1998 and turning Venezuela from a country where the United States wielded considerable influence to a thorn in Washington’s side.
His new political alliances and another roaring oil boom, which ended abruptly in 2008, lined the roads with newer cars. An Iranian venture now manufactures a four-door sedan here called the Turpial. Officials have begun importing thousands of Russian Ladas.
In the capital’s wealthier districts, S.U.V.’s like Jeep Cherokees, Ford Expeditions, even the occasional Hummer, vie for space in clogged thoroughfares with smaller Toyotas, Daewoos, Hondas and Hyundais. Thousands of motorbike couriers weave through the gridlock, adding to the chaos.
Despite the newer cars, the low growl of American guzzlers still cuts through the din of traffic, evoking in some ways the love affair that people in Cuba, Venezuela’s top ally, have with pre-1960 American automobiles.
Some motorists say they buy the cars because spare parts are easily available. Others buy them to hedge against Venezuela’s high inflation. Used cars hold their value remarkably well here: a 1979 Ford LTD Landau, for instance, sells for about $5,200 here compared with about $1,500 in the United States.
Still, the eight-cylinder workhorses remain cheaper than newer models, explaining their prevalence in some poor districts of Caracas and other cities. But the affection for the aging American giants that saves so many of them from the crushers cannot be explained by economics alone.
“I love my Fairlane precisely because it is American,” said Freddy Gómez, 54, a deliveryman in this city’s gritty Boleita district who drives a red 1974 Ford Fairlane. Grinning with a hint of mischief, he pointed to a decal on the Fairlane’s rear window, which showed a mathematical equation involving the Ford logo plus a bottle of spirits plus a female figure. The sum: a couple in an amorous embrace.
“When people see me driving my Fairlane, they know I’m a man of style,” he said. “This car is the F-16 of the highways, friend,” he added, referring to the American warplanes, acquired before diplomatic relations soured with Washington and still flown by Venezuela’s Air Force.
But many of the aging American fleet seem more like rusting turboprops than sleek fighter jets.
A 1975 Chevrolet Nova parked in the Pedregal slum had its hood tied down with string and Yosemite Sam mats on the floor. Its paint job, in hues of brown, looked like the work of a would-be Mark Rothko, punctured with dings and dents.
“Yeah, my Nova has about 30 of them,” said its owner, Marcelino Rojas, 50, a house painter.
The rubber-burning days of some of these cars might be nearing an end. News reaching here from Detroit these days speaks of exotic new electric cars like the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. The announcement that General Motors was pulling the plug on Pontiac, the 84-year-old brand whose sales peaked in 1973, drew gasps among some Venezuelans.
“I find it hard to believe that the Americans would let Pontiac expire like that,” said Oswaldo Valdes, 21, a university student who owns a 1970 Pontiac Grand Prix. “In this country, this great automobile has decades of life ahead of it.”
María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.
Detroit’s Monsters Thrive on a Diet of Cheap Gas
By SIMON ROMERO
CARACAS, Venezuela — Ascending the narrow streets that wind through this city’s hillside slums, the graffiti steadily gets more radical and anti-American, repeatedly proclaiming “Yankees go home!” amid murals denouncing President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But at the same time, the cars get bigger — as in ’70s-style, gas-guzzling, Starsky-and-Hutch, Ford-Gran-Torino big — and American.
“We like our cars to be like tanks in this country, meaning they should be huge, comfortable and preferably manufactured in the United States,” said Miguel Delgado, 52, a mechanic in Los Frailes, a slum on this city’s western fringe, where he was working on a 1976 Dodge Coronet and a 1979 Chevrolet Impala.
The survival here of so many retro-chic American gas hogs, from Plymouth Valiants to Dodge Aspens and Chrysler New Yorkers, owes partly to the vagaries of Venezuela’s recent history and partly to its oil wealth. Motorists say that they drive these cars simply because they can. They smile when they hear that gasoline prices in the United States average about $3 a gallon, and much higher in parts of Europe.
Venezuela provides what might be the most generous fuel subsidy anywhere. Gasoline, currently less than 10 cents a gallon, is the cheapest in the world, undercutting even Saudi Arabia and Iran, other top oil-exporting nations, according to a study of global fuel prices by the German aid agency GTZ.
While Venezuela is a major oil producer, the subsidy still costs the government more than $9 billion a year. For all his populism, President Hugo Chávez has lamented its drain on public finances, calling gasoline prices “disgusting.”
But he has not touched the subsidy, which many Venezuelans consider a birthright. An increase in fuel prices in 1989 helped set off riots in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.
Today filling the tank of a 1974 Lincoln Continental, a 19-foot-long monster with a V-8 engine and mileage in the low teens, costs about $1, including a small tip for the gas-station attendant. “It’s a super-economical car,” said José Pereira, 41, the proud owner of one such model.
Many of the vintage land yachts tooling around Caracas today were imported during the heyday of “Venezuela Saudita,” Saudi Venezuela, in the early 1970s, when oil prices quadrupled and this developing nation became flush with petrodollars.
A sort of proto-Chávez populist president, Carlos Andrés Pérez, nationalized the oil industry, sent aid to Bolivia and tried to turn Venezuela into a player in the developing world. A Concorde flight linked Caracas to Paris. So many Venezuelan shoppers flocked to Miami that they were called “dame dos,” Spanish for “give me two.”
“My car reminds me of the era when Venezuela was the envy of Latin America,” said Jesús Regalado, 68, a taxi driver who still cruises the city in his 1975 Dodge Dart, which he bought new thanks to a government financing program.
Much has changed since then. Oil prices plunged in the 1980s, and in the ensuing tumult, Mr. Chávez, then an obscure military officer, led an unsuccessful 1992 coup attempt against Mr. Pérez. After his release from prison, Mr. Chávez had better luck with electoral politics, winning the presidency in 1998 and turning Venezuela from a country where the United States wielded considerable influence to a thorn in Washington’s side.
His new political alliances and another roaring oil boom, which ended abruptly in 2008, lined the roads with newer cars. An Iranian venture now manufactures a four-door sedan here called the Turpial. Officials have begun importing thousands of Russian Ladas.
In the capital’s wealthier districts, S.U.V.’s like Jeep Cherokees, Ford Expeditions, even the occasional Hummer, vie for space in clogged thoroughfares with smaller Toyotas, Daewoos, Hondas and Hyundais. Thousands of motorbike couriers weave through the gridlock, adding to the chaos.
Despite the newer cars, the low growl of American guzzlers still cuts through the din of traffic, evoking in some ways the love affair that people in Cuba, Venezuela’s top ally, have with pre-1960 American automobiles.
Some motorists say they buy the cars because spare parts are easily available. Others buy them to hedge against Venezuela’s high inflation. Used cars hold their value remarkably well here: a 1979 Ford LTD Landau, for instance, sells for about $5,200 here compared with about $1,500 in the United States.
Still, the eight-cylinder workhorses remain cheaper than newer models, explaining their prevalence in some poor districts of Caracas and other cities. But the affection for the aging American giants that saves so many of them from the crushers cannot be explained by economics alone.
“I love my Fairlane precisely because it is American,” said Freddy Gómez, 54, a deliveryman in this city’s gritty Boleita district who drives a red 1974 Ford Fairlane. Grinning with a hint of mischief, he pointed to a decal on the Fairlane’s rear window, which showed a mathematical equation involving the Ford logo plus a bottle of spirits plus a female figure. The sum: a couple in an amorous embrace.
“When people see me driving my Fairlane, they know I’m a man of style,” he said. “This car is the F-16 of the highways, friend,” he added, referring to the American warplanes, acquired before diplomatic relations soured with Washington and still flown by Venezuela’s Air Force.
But many of the aging American fleet seem more like rusting turboprops than sleek fighter jets.
A 1975 Chevrolet Nova parked in the Pedregal slum had its hood tied down with string and Yosemite Sam mats on the floor. Its paint job, in hues of brown, looked like the work of a would-be Mark Rothko, punctured with dings and dents.
“Yeah, my Nova has about 30 of them,” said its owner, Marcelino Rojas, 50, a house painter.
The rubber-burning days of some of these cars might be nearing an end. News reaching here from Detroit these days speaks of exotic new electric cars like the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. The announcement that General Motors was pulling the plug on Pontiac, the 84-year-old brand whose sales peaked in 1973, drew gasps among some Venezuelans.
“I find it hard to believe that the Americans would let Pontiac expire like that,” said Oswaldo Valdes, 21, a university student who owns a 1970 Pontiac Grand Prix. “In this country, this great automobile has decades of life ahead of it.”
María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.
Mental Health... Thanks Marge Rusnak!
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have. Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end.
He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.
When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love.... I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.'
Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry.
How soon can I go home?'
Happy Mental Health Day!
He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.
When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love.... I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.'
Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry.
How soon can I go home?'
Happy Mental Health Day!
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