We got your money, gonna spend your money, gonna print some more money!

Thanks Matteo Gadioli.

This a great time waster for work, especially if throwing something at President Bush sounds like a good time.  Thanks Seledinh Salh.

Sock and Awe

Oh, oh, everyone brace for World War III…

A bit of a fun website from Damian Hamilton: If The World Could Vote

Kevin Bakker sent me this one.  Just want to make sure there’s a somewhat even balance from both sides of the aisle on The Lemon, don’t want anyone thinking this is a political website!  Original prose by Lee Walton.

Last Thursday while walking to lunch on the corner of Market and East Bay, I passed what appeared to be a homeless man standing on the corner of Wentworth and East Bay holding a hand-made sign that read, “Vote Obama, I need the money.”, I laughed to myself and admired the man for his misplaced, albeit blatant honesty.

Once inside one of my favorite restaurants, I noticed that my waiter was wearing a bright blue “Obama 08” tie; again I laughed to myself as he boldly and proudly advertised his political preference for all the world, and his customers, to see – just imagine the odds of encountering two such 1st Amendment harbingers of change in less than 10 minutes.

When the check finally came I decided not to tip my waiter and explained to him that I was going to implement a practical application of Obama’s Redistribution of Wealth concept as my own personal socialistic experiment. He stood there in stoic disbelief as I explained to him that I was going to redistribute his rightfully earned $10 tip to someone who I deemed more in need…a homeless fellow standing a few blocks north in front of the Harris Teeter parking lot. The waiter stammered a few “Why practice on me? I’m just a local college student!” retorts and then angrily stormed away from the table in a steaming huff of progressive self-righteous indignation.

Apparently, after experiencing firsthand the application of such socialistic governance from the perspective of the rightful wage earner, my young liberal-minded waiter was quickly convinced that income redistribution was much easier to support as a noble, magnanimous social policy than when his own hard-earned income was about to be redistributed, against his will, to another I deemed more needy.

I went outside, walked back up to Wentworth, gave the homeless guy a $10 bill, and asked him to walk down to the restaurant on the corner and thank the waiter there who was wearing the “Obama 08” tie as I’ve decided he could use the money more than my waiter who had actually earned the $10. The homeless fellow smiled in grateful disbelief, tossed his sign in the hedge, and promptly bounded for the liquor store across the street.

At the end of this impromptu and rather unscientific income redistribution experiment I realized the homeless fellow was truly grateful for the money that he had not exerted any effort to earn, but my liberal-minded waiter was highly indignant that I would take from him and then give to another the honest wages that he had worked hard to earn even though the homeless recipient needed the money more.

As I walked back to my office, I began thinking about the heavy burden of corporate ownership and the endless frustration from beating my head against the wall of increasing bureaucracy year-after-year. I also thought of the majority of this year’s hard-earned profits that I had planned to reinvest in a few new employees, annual raises to reward loyalty and hard work, Christmas bonuses for extraordinary effort, and year-end corporate donations to the SC Aquarium, Coastal Conservation League, and the Historic Charleston Foundation.

After reconsidering my apparent politically incorrect capitalistic beliefs, the needs of my hard-working, albeit financially struggling, middle-class staff, and the six-figure salaries of the three non-profits’ directors sitting in the big stately, well-maintained buildings that each called home, I decided then and there to give every last penny of this year’s profit directly to Charleston’s Homeless Shelter, layoff all my staff, close our company, retire early, and depend upon the largesse of Obama’s promised Redistribution of Wealth for my every need!

In that brief instance, I too became a practicing socialist!

Other posts in this category: Open Letter From Blue States To Red States and Who Better To Guide A Superpower.

Dear Red States:

We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio, they are seriously considering it. We’ve given them until November 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we’re dropping the middle states we’re calling it United America, or simply the U.A

To sum up briefly: you get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We’re keeping Bruce Springsteen. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole’ Miss. We get Harvard and 85% of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire. We’d rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90%of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals than we Bluies..

Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,

Blue States

Barack Obama
Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)

Versus

John McCain
United States Naval Academy – Class rank 894 of 899

Sarah Palin
Hawaii Pacific University – One semester
North Idaho College – Two semesters of general study
University of Idaho – Two semesters of journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – One semester
University of Idaho – Three semesters for a B.A. in Journalism

Thanks Eric Holmberg for the comparison.